24 “The God who made the world and everything in it(A) is the Lord of heaven and earth(B) and does not live in temples built by human hands.(C) 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.(D) 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.(E) 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.(F) 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[a](G) As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[b]

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Footnotes

  1. Acts 17:28 From the Cretan philosopher Epimenides
  2. Acts 17:28 From the Cilician Stoic philosopher Aratus

24-29 “The God who made the world and everything in it, this Master of sky and land, doesn’t live in custom-made shrines or need the human race to run errands for him, as if he couldn’t take care of himself. He makes the creatures; the creatures don’t make him. Starting from scratch, he made the entire human race and made the earth hospitable, with plenty of time and space for living so we could seek after God, and not just grope around in the dark but actually find him. He doesn’t play hide-and-seek with us. He’s not remote; he’s near. We live and move in him, can’t get away from him! One of your poets said it well: ‘We’re the God-created.’ Well, if we are the God-created, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to think we could hire a sculptor to chisel a god out of stone for us, does it?

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