The New Stone Tablets

34 The Lord said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones,^(A) and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets,^(B) which you broke.^{(C) 2} Be ready in the morning, and then come up on Mount Sinai.^(D) Present yourself to me there on top of the mountain. ³ No one is to come with you or be seen anywhere on the mountain;^(E) not even the flocks and herds may graze in front of the mountain.”

⁴ So Moses chiseled^(F) out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands.^{(G) 5} Then the Lord came down in the cloud^(H) and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord.^{(I) 6} And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate^(J) and gracious God, slow to anger,^(K) abounding in love^(L) and faithfulness,^{(M) 7} maintaining love to thousands,^(N) and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.^(O) Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished;^(P) he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”^(Q)

⁸ Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped. ⁹ “Lord,” he said, “if I have found favor^(R) in your eyes, then let the Lord go with us.^(S) Although this is a stiff-necked^(T) people, forgive our wickedness and our sin,^(U) and take us as your inheritance.”^(V)

¹⁹ Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus,^(A) where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching^(B) is that you are presenting? ²⁰ You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” ²¹ (All the Athenians^(C) and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

²² Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus^(D) and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.^{(E) 23} For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship^(F)—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

²⁴ “The God who made the world and everything in it^(G) is the Lord of heaven and earth^(H) and does not live in temples built by human hands.^{(I) 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.^{(J) 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.^{(K) 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.^{(L) 28} ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’^[a](M) As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’^[b]

²⁹ “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.^{(N) 30} In the past God overlooked^(O) such ignorance,^(P) but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.^{(Q) 31} For he has set a day when he will judge^(R) the world with justice^(S) by the man he has appointed.^(T) He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”^(U)