Addressing the Sanhedrin

⁵ And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes, ⁶ as well as ^(A)Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. ⁷ And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, ^(B)“By what power or by what name have you done this?”

^8 (C)Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: ⁹ If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, ¹⁰ let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, ^(D)that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, ^(E)whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. ¹¹ This is the ^(F)‘stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’ ^12 (G)Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

The Name of Jesus Forbidden

¹³ Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, ^(H)and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.

^18 [a]Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this ^[b]babbler want to say?”

Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them ^(A)Jesus and the resurrection.

¹⁹ And they took him and brought him to the ^[c]Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak? ²⁰ For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.” ²¹ For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

Addressing the Areopagus

²² Then Paul stood in the midst of the ^[d]Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; ²³ for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: ^24 (B)God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is ^(C)Lord of heaven and earth, ^(D)does not dwell in temples made with hands. ²⁵ Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He ^(E)gives to all life, breath, and all things. ²⁶ And He has made from one ^[e]blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and ^(F)the boundaries of their dwellings, ^27 (G)so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, ^(H)though He is not far from each one of us; ²⁸ for ^(I)in Him we live and move and have our being, ^(J)as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ ²⁹ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, ^(K)we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. ³⁰ Truly, ^(L)these times of ignorance God overlooked, but ^(M)now commands all men everywhere to repent, ³¹ because He has appointed a day on which ^(N)He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by ^(O)raising Him from the dead.”

³² And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.”