Acts 7:2-16

2So he replied, “Brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our forefather Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran,

3and said to him, ‘Go out from your country and from your relatives, and come to the land I will show you.’

4Then he went out from the country of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God made him move to this country where you now live.

5He did not give any of it to him for an inheritance, not even a foot of ground, yet God promised to give it to him as his possession, and to his descendants after him, even though Abraham as yet had no child.

6But God spoke as follows: ‘Your descendants will be foreigners in a foreign country, whose citizens will enslave them and mistreat them for four hundred years.

7But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ said God, ‘and after these things they will come out of there and worship me in this place.’

8Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and so he became the father of Isaac and circumcised him when he was eight days old, and Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

9The patriarchs, because they were jealous of Joseph, sold him into Egypt. But God was with him,

10and rescued him from all his troubles, and granted him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who made him ruler over Egypt and over all his household.

11Then a famine occurred throughout Egypt and Canaan, causing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food.

12So when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors there the first time.

13On their second visit Joseph made himself known to his brothers again, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh.

14So Joseph sent a message and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come, seventy-five people in all.

15So Jacob went down to Egypt and died there, along with our ancestors,

16and their bones were later moved to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a certain sum of money from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.