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Then the High Priest asked him, "Are these statements true?"
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The reply of Stephen was, "Sirs--brethren and fathers--listen to me. God Most Glorious appeared to our forefather Abraham when he was living in Mesopotamia, before he settled in Haran,
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and said to him, "`Leave your country and your relatives, and go into whatever land I point out to you.'
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"Thereupon he left Chaldaea and settled in Haran till after the death of his father, when God caused him to remove into this country where you now live.
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But he gave him no inheritance in it, no, not a single square yard of ground. And yet He promised to bestow the land as a permanent possession on him and his posterity after him--and promised this at a time when Abraham was childless.
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And God declared that Abraham's posterity should for four hundred years make their home in a country not their own, and be reduced to slavery and be oppressed.
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"`And the nation, whichever it is, that enslaves them, I will judge,' said God; `and afterwards they shall come out, and they shall worship Me in this place.'
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"Then He gave him the Covenant of circumcision, and under this Covenant he became the father of Isaac--whom he circumcised on the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve Patriarchs.
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"The Patriarchs were jealous of Joseph and sold him into slavery in Egypt. But God was with him