Acts 17:16-34

¹⁶Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he observed that the city was full of idols. ¹⁷So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be present. ¹⁸And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers as well were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What could this scavenger of tidbits want to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. ¹⁹And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is which 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 visiting there used to spend their time in nothing other than telling or hearing something new.) ²²So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. ²³For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and everything that is in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands; ²⁵nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; ²⁶and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, ²⁷that they would seek God, if perhaps they might feel around for Him and find Him, though 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 also are His descendants.’ ²⁹Therefore, since we are the descendants of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought. ³⁰So having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now proclaiming to mankind that all people everywhere are to repent, ³¹because He has set a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead.” ³²Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, “We shall hear from you again concerning this.” ³³So Paul went out from among them. ³⁴But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.