Acts 17:16-34

16Now while Paul was waiting for them at 1Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. 17So he was reasoning 2in the synagogue with the Jews and 3the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present. 18And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were 4conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would 5this 6idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”--because he was preaching 7Jesus and the resurrection. 19And they 8took him and brought him 9to the 1011Areopagus, saying, “May we know what 12this new teaching is 13which you are proclaiming? 20For 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 14visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)

22So Paul stood in the midst of the 15Areopagus and said, “Men of 16Athens, I observe that you are very 17religious in all respects. 23For while I was passing through and examining the 18objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore what 19you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 2420The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is 21Lord of heaven and earth, does not 22dwell in temples made with hands; 25nor is He served by human hands, 23as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; 26and 24He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having 25determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, 27that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, 26though He is not far from each one of us; 28for 27in Him we live and move and 28exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’ 29Being then the children of God, we 29ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. 30Therefore having 30overlooked 31the times of ignorance, God is 32now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31because He has fixed 33a day in which 34He will judge 3536the world in righteousness 37through a Man whom He has 38appointed, having furnished proof to all men 39by 40raising Him from the dead.”

32Now when they heard of 41the resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, but others said, “We shall hear you 42again concerning this.” 33So Paul went out of their midst. 34But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the 43Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.