Acts 17:16-34

  1. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was greatly upset because he saw the city was full of idols.
  2. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.
  3. Also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him, and some were asking, “What does this foolish babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods.” (They said this because he was preaching about Jesus and the resurrection.)
  4. So they took Paul and brought him before the Areopagus council, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are proclaiming?
  5. For you are bringing some astonishing things to our ears, so we want to know what they mean.”
  6. (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there used to spend their time in nothing else than telling or listening to something new.)
     
  7. So Paul stood before the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very spiritual.
  8. For as I went around and observed closely your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore what you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
  9. The God who made the world and everything in it, who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands,
  10. nor is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, since he himself gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
  11. He made from one man every nation of mankind to inhabit the entire earth, determining the timing of their planned life events and the defined regions where they would live,
  12. so that they would search for God and perhaps grope around for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
  13. For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said: ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
  14. So since we are God’s offspring, we should not think the deity is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by human art and imagination.
  15. Therefore, although God has overlooked such times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent,
  16. because he has fixed a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he appointed, having provided proof to everyone by raising him from the dead.”
  17. Now when they heard about the resurrection from the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We will hear you again about this.”
  18. So Paul left the Areopagus.
  19. But some people joined him and believed. Among them were Dionysius, who was a member of the Areopagus, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

Tranlation: NET Bible with some changes by amf

Updated on 2010-08-08 by Andrew Fountain