²⁰ You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” ²¹ (All the Athenians^(A) 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^(B) and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.^{(C) 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^(D)—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

²⁴ “The God who made the world and everything in it^(E) is the Lord of heaven and earth^(F) and does not live in temples built by human hands.^{(G) 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.^{(H) 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.^{(I) 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.^{(J) 28} ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’^[a](K) 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.^{(L) 30} In the past God overlooked^(M) such ignorance,^(N) but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.^(O)