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Acts / Paul's Address at the Areopagus
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Paul's Address at the Areopagus

Acts 17:16-34

17
Chapter 17
16 But in Athens, while Paul was waiting for them, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols. 17 So he was discussing in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearers, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened by. 18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were also conferring with him. And some were saying, “What would this seed-picker wish to say?” But others, “He seems to be a herald of foreign demons,” because he was proclaiming the gospel of Jesus and the resurrection. 19 And having taken hold of him, they led him to the Areopagus, saying, “Are we able to know what this new teaching is that is being spoken by you?” 20 For you are bringing some strange thing into our ears. We wish therefore to know what this means. 21 Now Athenians and all the foreigners residing there had leisure for nothing other than to say something or to hear something newer. 22 Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens, I observe that in every way you are very religious." 23 For as I passed by and observed your objects of worship, I found also an altar on which was inscribed: "To an unknown God." Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and all the things in it, this one being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in hand-made temples. 25 nor is he served by human hands as one needing something, he himself giving to all life and breath and all things. 26 he made also from one every nation of men to dwell upon the whole face of the earth, having fixed the appointed times and the boundary-lines of their habitation. 27 to seek God, if perhaps they might indeed 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 some of your poets have also said: "For we are also his offspring." 29 Being therefore the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human art and imagination. 30 Therefore, God, having overlooked the times of ignorance, now commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 inasmuch as he has set a day in which he is about to judge the inhabited world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, having provided faith to all by raising him from the dead. 32 But when they heard of a resurrection of the dead, some were mocking, but others said, “We will hear from you again concerning this.” 33 In this way Paul went out from the midst of them. 34 But some people clung to him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.