Acts 17:1–34

¹They now journeyed through Am‧phip′o‧lis and Ap‧ol‧lo′ni‧a and came to Thes‧sa‧lo‧ni′ca, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.²So according to Paul’s custom he went inside to them, and for three sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,³explaining and proving by references that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and [saying]: “This is the Christ, this Jesus whom I am publishing to ​YOU.”⁴As a result some of them became believers and associated themselves with Paul and Silas, and a great multitude of the Greeks who worshiped [God] and not a few of the principal women did so.

⁵But the Jews, getting jealous, took into their company certain wicked men of the marketplace idlers and formed a mob and proceeded to throw the city into an uproar. And they assaulted the house of Ja′son and went seeking to have them brought forth to the rabble.⁶When they did not find them they dragged Ja′son and certain brothers to the city rulers, crying out: “These men that have overturned the inhabited earth are present here also,⁷and Ja′son has received them with hospitality. And all these [men] act in opposition to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king, Jesus.”⁸They indeed agitated the crowd and the city rulers when they heard these things;⁹and first after taking sufficient security from Ja′son and the others they let them go.

¹⁰Immediately by night the brothers sent both Paul and Silas out to Be‧roe′a, and these, upon arriving, went into the synagogue of the Jews.¹¹Now the latter were more noble‐minded than those in Thes‧sa‧lo‧ni′ca, for they received the word with the greatest eagerness of mind, carefully examining the Scriptures daily as to whether these things were so.¹²Therefore many of them became believers, and so did not a few of the reputable Greek women and of the men.¹³But when the Jews from Thes‧sa‧lo‧ni′ca learned that the word of God was published also in Be‧roe′a by Paul, they came there also to incite and agitate the masses.¹⁴Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off to go as far as the sea; but both Silas and Timothy remained behind there.¹⁵However, those conducting Paul brought him as far as Athens and, after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as quickly as possible, they departed.

¹⁶Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit within him came to be irritated at beholding that the city was full of idols.¹⁷Consequently he began to reason in the synagogue with the Jews and the other people who worshiped [God] and every day in the marketplace with those who happened to be on hand.¹⁸But certain ones of both the Ep‧i‧cu‧re′an and the Sto′ic philosophers took to conversing with him controversially, and some would say: “What is it this chatterer would like to tell?” Others: “He seems to be a publisher of foreign deities.” This was because he was declaring the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.¹⁹So they laid hold of him and led him to the Ar‧e‧op′a‧gus, saying: “Can we get to know what this new teaching is which is spoken by you?²⁰For you are introducing some things that are strange to our ears. Therefore we desire to get to know what these things purport to be.”²¹In fact, all Athenians and the foreigners sojourning there would spend their leisure time at nothing but telling something or listening to something new.²²Paul now stood in the midst of the Ar‧e‧op′a‧gus and said:

“Men of Athens, I behold that in all things ​YOU​ seem to be more given to the fear of the deities than others are.²³For instance, while passing along and carefully observing ​YOUR​ objects of veneration I also found an altar on which had been inscribed ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore what ​YOU​ are unknowingly giving godly devotion to, this I am publishing to ​YOU.²⁴The God that made the world and all the things in it, being, as this One is, Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade temples,²⁵neither is he attended to by human hands as if he needed anything, because he himself gives to all [persons] life and breath and all things.²⁶And he made out of one [man] every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth, and he decreed the appointed times and the set limits of the dwelling of [men],²⁷for them to seek God, if they might grope for him and really find him, although, in fact, he is not far off from each one of us.²⁸For by him we have life and move and exist, even as certain ones of the poets among ​YOU​ have said, ‘For we are also his progeny.’

²⁹“Seeing, therefore, that we are the progeny of God, we ought not to imagine that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, like something sculptured by the art and contrivance of man.³⁰True, God has overlooked the times of such ignorance, yet now he is telling mankind that they should all everywhere repent.³¹Because he has set a day in which he purposes to judge the inhabited earth in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and he has furnished a guarantee to all men in that he has resurrected him from the dead.”

³²Well, when they heard of a resurrection of the dead, some began to mock, while others said: “We will hear you about this even another time.”³³Thus Paul went out from their midst,³⁴but some men joined themselves to him and became believers, among whom also were Di‧o‧nys′i‧us, a judge of the court of the Ar‧e‧op′a‧gus, and a woman named Dam′a‧ris, and others besides them.