Acts 17:22–31

²²Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagusⁱ and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.^{j 23}For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship^k—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

²⁴“The God who made the world and everything in it^l is the Lord of heaven and earth^m and does not live in temples built by human hands.^{n 25}And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.^{o 26}From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.^{p 27}God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.^{q 28}‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’^br As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’^c

²⁹“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.^{s 30}In the past God overlooked^t such ignorance,^u but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.^{v 31}For he has set a day when he will judge^w the world with justice^x by the man he has appointed.^y He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”^z