At the close of forty years an angel [of the Lord] appeared to him in the flames of a burning thorn-bush, in the desert of mount Sinai.

'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.' Moses was so terrified that he did not dare to look at the bush.

The Moses they refused, when they said, 'Who made you ruler and umpire?' ??that was the very man whom God sent to rule and to redeem them, by aid of the angel who had appeared to him in the bush.

So Paul and Barnabas spoke out fearlessly. "The word of God," they said, "had to be spoken to you in the first instance; but as you push it aside and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, well, here we turn to the Gentiles!