Acts 17:16-29

Christian Standard Bible

Paul in Athens

¹⁶ While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed when he saw that the city was full of idols. ¹⁷ So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God, as well as in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.^{(A) 18} Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also debated with him. Some said, “What is this ignorant show-off^[a] trying to say?”

Others replied, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities”—because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.^(B)

¹⁹ They took him and brought him to the Areopagus,^[b] and said, “May we learn about this new teaching you are presenting?^{(C) 20} Because what you say sounds strange to us, and we want to know what these things mean.” ²¹ Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.

The Areopagus Address

²² Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said, “People of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect. ²³ For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴ The God who made the world and everything in it^(D)—he is Lord of heaven and earth^(E)—does not live in shrines made by hands.^{(F) 25} Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything,^(G) since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things.^{(H) 26} From one man^[c] he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live.^{(I) 27} He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.^{(J) 28} For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’^{(K) 29} Since, then, we are God’s offspring, we shouldn’t think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination.^(L)