'Forefathers' in the Bible

You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your ancestors, saying to Abraham, And all the families of the earth will be blessed through your offspring.

Then a famine and great suffering came over all of Egypt and Canaan, and our ancestors could find no food.

When Jacob heard there was grain in Egypt, he sent our ancestors the first time.

and Jacob went down to Egypt. He and our ancestors died there,

He dealt deceitfully with our race and oppressed our ancestors by making them leave their infants outside, so they wouldn’t survive.

I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob. So Moses began to tremble and did not dare to look.

He is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness together with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors. He received living oracles to give to us.

Our ancestors were unwilling to obey him, but pushed him away, and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

“Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses commanded him to make it according to the pattern he had seen.

Our ancestors in turn received it and with Joshua brought it in when they dispossessed the nations that God drove out before our fathers, until the days of David.

“You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are always resisting the Holy Spirit; as your ancestors did, so do you.

The God of this people Israel chose our ancestors, exalted the people during their stay in the land of Egypt, and led them out of it with a mighty arm.

And we ourselves proclaim to you the good news of the promise that was made to our ancestors.

Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?

After three days he called together the leaders of the Jews. When they had gathered he said to them: “Brothers, although I have done nothing against our people or the customs of our ancestors, I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans.

Disagreeing among themselves, they began to leave after Paul made one statement: “The Holy Spirit correctly spoke through the prophet Isaiah to your ancestors

The ancestors are theirs, and from them, by physical descent, came the Messiah, who is God over all, praised forever. Amen.

Regarding the gospel, they are enemies for your advantage, but regarding election, they are loved because of the patriarchs,

I thank God, whom I serve with a clear conscience as my ancestors did, when I constantly remember you in my prayers night and day.