Acts 17

1They traveled on through Amphipolis and Apollonia and came to Thessalonica, where the Jews had a synagogue. 2As he usually did, Paul went to the synagogue, and on three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures, 3opening them up and laying out the case that the Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you,” he said, “is the Christ.” 4Some of the Jews were convinced and threw in their lot with Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few of the city’s leading women. 5But the Jews grew jealous. They rounded up some troublemakers from the marketplace, gathered a mob and threw the city into an uproar. They stormed Jason’s house, looking for Paul and Silas to bring them out before the people. 6When they could not find them, they hauled Jason and some of the brothers and sisters before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have stirred up trouble all over the world have now come here, 7and Jason has taken them into his home! They all defy Caesar’s decrees and say there is another king, one called Jesus.” 8Hearing this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into alarm. 9They made Jason and the others post a bond, and then let them go.

10That same night the brothers and sisters lost no time in sending Paul and Silas off to Berea. When they got there, they went to the Jewish synagogue. 11The Jews here were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica. They took in the message with real eagerness and went through the Scriptures day after day to check whether what Paul said was true. 12So many of them believed, along with a good number of Greek women of standing, and of men as well. 13But when the Jews of Thessalonica found out that Paul was proclaiming the word of God in Berea as well, they came there too, unsettling the crowds and stirring up trouble. 14At once the brothers and sisters sent Paul off toward the coast, while Silas and Timothy stayed behind. 15The men escorting Paul took him all the way to Athens. Then they set off back with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as they could.

16While Paul waited for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled in spirit to see the city crowded with idols. 17So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and every day in the marketplace with anyone who happened to come by. 18Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also took him on in debate. Some of them said, “What is this scrap-collector of ideas trying to say?” Others said, “He seems to be promoting foreign gods.” They said this because he was announcing the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19They took him and brought him before the Areopagus. “May we know,” they said, “what this new teaching of yours is? 20Some of the things we hear from you sound strange to us, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21(All the Athenians, and the foreigners who lived there, spent their leisure on nothing but telling or hearing the latest new idea.)

22Paul stood up in front of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens, I can see that in every respect you are extremely religious. 23As I walked around and looked closely at the things you worship, I even came upon an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown god.’ So what you worship without knowing it, I now make known to you. 24God, who made the world and all that is in it, is himself Lord of heaven and earth. He does not dwell in shrines that hands have made. 25Nor do human hands wait on him as if he lacked anything, since it is he who gives life and breath and all things to everyone. 26From one ancestor he made every nation of humankind to live over the whole face of the earth. He fixed the times set for them and the bounds of the places where they would live, 27so that they would seek God and perhaps grope their way toward him and find him. And yet he is not far away from any of us. 28It is in him that we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have also put it, ‘We too are his offspring.’ 29If we are God’s offspring, then, we must not suppose that the divine nature resembles gold, silver or stone, carved into shape by human art and invention. 30God has passed over those times of ignorance, but now he orders people everywhere, all of them, to repent, 31because he has fixed a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness through a man he has appointed. And he has given everyone a pledge of this by raising him from the dead.”

32When they heard about the raising of the dead, some scoffed, while others said, “We will listen to you on this another time.” 33With that, Paul went out from among them. 34But some people attached themselves to him and believed. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus council, a woman called Damaris, and others besides.