Acts 17

¹After they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Judeans. ²According to his usual custom, Paul went in to see them, and for three successive Sabbaths he dialogued with them from the Scriptures. ³He was explaining and demonstrating that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, saying, “This Jesus, whom I am proclaiming to you, is the Messiah.” ⁴Some of them were persuaded and were joined to Paul and Silas, as was a large multitude of the God-fearing Greeks and not a few of the leading women.

⁵But the Judeans became jealous. They recruited some wicked thugs from the marketplace and, after forming a mob, they threw the city into an uproar. They descended on Jason’s house, seeking to bring Paul and Silas out to the popular assembly. ⁶When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the politarchs, shouting, “These men who have turned the whole civilized world upside down have come here too! ⁷Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all acting in defiance of Caesar’s decrees, saying there is another king—Jesus!” ⁸They agitated the crowd and the politarchs who heard these things. ⁹After taking a financial bond from Jason and the others, they released them.

¹⁰The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away to Beroea by night. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Judeans. ¹¹Now these people were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures every day to see if these things were so. ¹²Consequently, many of them believed, including not a few prominent Greek women and men. ¹³But when the Judeans from Thessalonica learned that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea as well, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds. ¹⁴Then the brothers immediately sent Paul away to go as far as the sea, but both Silas and Timothy remained there. ¹⁵Those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving instructions for Silas and Timothy to come to him as quickly as possible, they departed.

¹⁶While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was deeply provoked within him as he observed that the city was saturated with idols. ¹⁷So he began to dialogue in the synagogue with the Judeans and the God-fearing Greeks, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. ¹⁸Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also began to debate with him. Some said, “What is this scavenger of ideas trying to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign deities,” because he was preaching the good news of Jesus and the Resurrection. ¹⁹They took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are speaking? ²⁰For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; we want to know, therefore, what these things mean.” ²¹(Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time in nothing else but telling or hearing something new.)

²²Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are extraordinarily devout. ²³For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which had been inscribed: ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it—being Lord of heaven and earth—does not dwell in hand-made shrines. ²⁵Nor is he served by human hands as though he lacked anything, since he himself gives to everyone life and breath and all things. ²⁶From one man he made every nation of humanity to dwell on the entire face of the earth, having determined their appointed eras and the boundaries of their habitation, ²⁷so that they might seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸For in him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said: ‘For we are indeed his offspring.’

²⁹Since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to suppose that the Divine is like gold or silver or stone—an image shaped by human art and thought. ³⁰While God overlooked the times of such ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to change their hearts and minds, ³¹because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the civilized world in justice by a man whom he has appointed; he has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

³²When they heard of a resurrection of the dead, some began to mock, but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” ³³So Paul went out from among them. ³⁴But some men joined him and believed, among whom were Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.