14 Then the brethren immediately sent Paul out to go as far as the
sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there. 15 Now those who escorted
Paul brought him as far as Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and
Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they left.
16 Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit
was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. 17 So
he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing
Greeks, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be
there. 18 And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were
conversing with him. Some said, "What would this idle babbler wish to
say?" Others, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign deities,"óbecause
he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And they took hold of
him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this
new teaching is which you present? 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 foreigners who lived there spent their time in
nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)
22 So Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said:
"Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I
passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an
altar with this inscription,
'TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.'
What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The
God who made the world and everything in it, since he is Lord of heaven
and earth, does not live in temples made by hands; 25 nor is he served by
human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all
men life and breath and everything. 26 And he made from one man every
nation of men to live on all the face of the earth, having determined 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,
though he is not far from each one of us.
28 'For in him we live and move and have our being,'
as even some of your own poets have said,
'We are his offspring.'
29 Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the Divine
Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and
imagination of man. 30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now
he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a
day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he
has appointed, and of this he has given proof to all men by raising him
from the dead."
32 Now when they heard about the resurrection of the dead,
some of them sneered, but others said, "We want to hear you again on this
subject." 33 So Paul went out from among them. 34 But some men joined
him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a
woman named Damaris and others with them.
18
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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