Acts 17

Paul at the Areopagus

22Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “People of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way. 23For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar inscribed, ‘To an unknown god.’ Therefore, what you worship without knowing, this I proclaim to you. 24The God who made the world and everything in it is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands. 25Nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life, breath, and everything else. 26From one ancestor he made every nation of humanity to live over the whole face of the earth, determining their appointed times and the boundaries of where they would live. 27He did this so that they might seek God and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28‘For in him we live and move and exist.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ 29Since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine nature is like gold, silver, or stone—an image shaped by human art and imagination. 30God overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice through a man he has appointed. He has given everyone assurance of this by raising him from the dead.”