Acts 17

1Passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they reached Thessalonica, where the Jews had a synagogue.

2Paul went in to them, as he usually did, and for three Sabbaths he held discussions with them from the Scriptures,

3explaining them and showing that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you,” he said, “is the Messiah.”

4Some of them were convinced and cast their lot with Paul and Silas, and so did a great crowd of God-fearing Greeks and a good number of the leading women.

5But the Jews grew jealous. They enlisted some evil men from the marketplace, gathered a mob, and threw the city into turmoil. They stormed Jason’s house, looking for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the people.

6Not finding them, they hauled Jason and some of the brothers and sisters before the city officials, shouting, “These people who have stirred up trouble throughout the world have now shown up here too,

7and Jason has taken them in. All of them are defying Caesar’s decrees, saying there is a different king, Jesus.”

8They stirred up the crowd and the city officials who heard these things.

9After taking a security payment from Jason and the others, they released them.

10That very night the brothers and sisters sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. Once there, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.

11These Jews were more noble-minded than the ones in Thessalonica. They took in the word with all eagerness, and each day they searched the Scriptures, checking whether these things held true.

12Many of them, then, came to believe, as did quite a number of influential Greek women, and men as well.

13When the Jews in Thessalonica found out that Paul had been proclaiming God’s word in Berea also, they went there too, unsettling and upsetting the crowds.

14The brothers and sisters promptly sent Paul off to go as far as the sea, while Silas and Timothy stayed behind there.

15Paul’s escorts took him all the way to Athens. Then they left, carrying instructions for Silas and Timothy to come to him as quickly as they could.

16As Paul waited for them in Athens, his spirit grew agitated within him when he observed that the city was crowded with idols.

17So he held discussions in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing worshipers, and each day in the marketplace with whoever was around.

18Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also took him on in argument. Some asked, “What could this chatterer be getting at?” Others said, “He sounds like a herald of foreign gods.” This was because he was proclaiming the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.

19They took hold of him and led him to the Areopagus, where they said, “May we learn about this new teaching you are giving?

20For some of the things you are bringing to our ears sound strange, so we want to find out what these things mean.”

21All the Athenians and the foreigners staying there used their free time for nothing except telling or hearing something new.

22Standing in the middle of the Areopagus, Paul said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are extremely religious in every respect.

23For as I went around and studied your sacred objects, I even came upon an altar with this written on it: ‘To an unknown god.’ So what you revere in ignorance, I am proclaiming to you.

24God, who made the world and all that is in it, is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by hands.

25He is not waited on by human hands either, as if he lacked anything, since he is the one who gives life and breath and all things to everyone.

26Out of one man he made every nation of the human race to settle across the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the times set for them and the limits of where they would live,

27so that they would look for God and perhaps grope their way to him and find him. Yet he is truly not far from any one of us.

28For in him we live and move and exist, as some of the poets among you have also said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’

29So then, since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to suppose that the divine nature resembles gold or silver or stone, something shaped by human craft and invention.

30God looked past those times of ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,

31because he has set aside a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has designated, and he has given everyone solid grounds for believing this by raising him from the dead.”

32At the mention of a resurrection of the dead, some began to sneer, while others said, “We will listen to you about this another time.”

33So Paul went out from among them.

34Some men, however, attached themselves to him and came to believe. Among them were Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others along with them.