Paul at Athens

16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at aAthens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols.

17 So he was reasoning ain the synagogue with the Jews and bthe God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present.

18 And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were 1conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would athis 2idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”—because he was preaching bJesus and the resurrection.

19 And they atook him and brought him 1to the 2bAreopagus, saying, “May we know what cthis new teaching is 3which you are proclaiming?

20 “For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean.”

21 (Now all the Athenians and the strangers avisiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)

Sermon on Mars Hill

22 So Paul stood in the midst of the 1Areopagus and said, “Men of aAthens, I observe that you are very breligious in all respects.

23 “For while I was passing through and examining the aobjects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what byou worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

24 “aThe God who made the world and all things in it, since He is bLord of heaven and earth, does not cdwell in temples made with hands;

25 nor is He served by human hands, aas though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;

26 and aHe made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having bdetermined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,

27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, athough He is not far from each one of us;

28 for ain Him we live and move and 1exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’

29 “Being then the children of God, we aought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.

30 “Therefore having aoverlooked bthe times of ignorance, God is cnow declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,

31 because He has fixed aa day in which bHe will judge 1cthe world in righteousness 2through a Man whom He has dappointed, having furnished proof to all men 3by eraising Him from the dead.”

32 Now when they heard of athe resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you 1again concerning this.”

33 So Paul went out of their midst.