¹⁰ “All of you stand today before the Lord your God: your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, ¹¹ your little ones and your wives—also the stranger who is in your camp, from ^(A)the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water— ¹² that you may enter into covenant with the Lord your God, and ^(B)into His oath, which the Lord your God makes with you today, ¹³ that He may ^(C)establish you today as a people for Himself, and that He may be God to you, ^(D)just as He has spoken to you, and ^(E)just as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

¹⁴ “I make this covenant and this oath, ^(F)not with you alone, ¹⁵ but with him who stands here with us today before the Lord our God, ^(G)as well as with him who is not here with us today ¹⁶ (for you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt and that we came through the nations which you passed by, ¹⁷ and you saw their ^[a]abominations and their idols which were among them—wood and stone and silver and gold); ¹⁸ so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, ^(H)whose heart turns away today from the Lord our God, to go and serve the gods of these nations, ^(I)and that there may not be among you a root bearing ^(J)bitterness or wormwood; ¹⁹ and so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I ^[b]follow the ^(K)dictates of my heart’—^(L)as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.

^20 (M)“The Lord would not spare him; for then ^(N)the anger of the Lord and ^(O)His jealousy would burn against that man, and every curse that is written in this book would settle on him, and the Lord ^(P)would blot out his name from under heaven. ²¹ And the Lord ^(Q)would separate him from all the tribes of Israel for adversity, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the ^(R)Law, ²² so that the coming generation of your children who rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a far land, would say, when they ^(S)see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses which the Lord has laid on it:

²³ ‘The whole land is brimstone, ^(T)salt, and burning; it is not sown, nor does it bear, nor does any grass grow there, ^(U)like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, which the Lord overthrew in His anger and His wrath.’ ²⁴ All nations would say, ^(V)‘Why has the Lord done so to this land? What does the heat of this great anger mean?’ ²⁵ Then people would say: ‘Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them out of the land of Egypt; ²⁶ for they went and served other gods and worshiped them, gods that they did not know and that He had not given to them. ²⁷ Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against this land, ^(W)to bring on it every curse that is written in this book. ²⁸ And the Lord ^(X)uprooted them from their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.’

²⁹ “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Preaching Christ at Thessalonica

17 Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to ^(A)Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. ² Then Paul, as his custom was, ^(B)went in to them, and for three Sabbaths ^(C)reasoned with them from the Scriptures, ³ explaining and demonstrating ^(D)that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.” ^4 (E)And some of them were persuaded; and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and ^(F)Silas.

Assault on Jason’s House

⁵ But the Jews ^[a]who were not persuaded, ^[b]becoming ^(G)envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of ^(H)Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people. ⁶ But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, ^(I)“These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. ⁷ Jason has ^[c]harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, ^(J)saying there is another king—Jesus.” ⁸ And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. ⁹ So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

Ministering at Berea

¹⁰ Then ^(K)the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. ¹¹ These were more ^[d]fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and ^(L)searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. ¹² Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men. ¹³ But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds. ^14 (M)Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away, to go to the sea; but both Silas and Timothy remained there. ¹⁵ So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens; and ^(N)receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed.

The Blessing of Returning to God

30 “Now ^(A)it shall come to pass, when ^(B)all these things come upon you, the blessing and the ^(C)curse which I have set before you, and ^(D)you ^[a]call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God drives you, ² and you ^(E)return to the Lord your God and obey His voice, according to all that I command you today, you and your children, with all your heart and with all your soul, ^3 (F)that the Lord your God will bring you back from captivity, and have compassion on you, and ^(G)gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you. ^4 (H)If any of you are driven out to the farthest parts under heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you. ⁵ Then the Lord your God will bring you to the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it. He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers. ⁶ And ^(I)the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

⁷ “Also the Lord your God will put all these ^(J)curses on your enemies and on those who hate you, who persecuted you. ⁸ And you will ^(K)again obey the voice of the Lord and do all His commandments which I command you today. ^9 (L)The Lord your God will make you abound in all the work of your hand, in the ^[b]fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your land for good. For the Lord will again ^(M)rejoice over you for good as He rejoiced over your fathers, ¹⁰ if you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The Choice of Life or Death

¹¹ “For this commandment which I command you today ^(N)is ^[c]not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. ^12 (O)It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ ¹³ Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ ¹⁴ But the word is very near you, ^(P)in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.

¹⁵ “See, ^(Q)I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, ¹⁶ in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. ¹⁷ But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, ^18 (R)I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. ^19 (S)I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that ^(T)I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; ²⁰ that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your ^(U)life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

The Philosophers at Athens

¹⁶ Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, ^(A)his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was ^[a]given over to idols. ¹⁷ Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there. ^18 [b]Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this ^[c]babbler want to say?”

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

¹⁹ And they took him and brought him to the ^[d]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 ^[e]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 (C)God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is ^(D)Lord of heaven and earth, ^(E)does not dwell in temples made with hands. ²⁵ Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He ^(F)gives to all life, breath, and all things. ²⁶ And He has made from one ^[f]blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and ^(G)the boundaries of their dwellings, ^27 (H)so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, ^(I)though He is not far from each one of us; ²⁸ for ^(J)in Him we live and move and have our being, ^(K)as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ ²⁹ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, ^(L)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, ^(M)these times of ignorance God overlooked, but ^(N)now commands all men everywhere to repent, ³¹ because He has appointed a day on which ^(O)He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by ^(P)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.” ³³ So Paul departed from among them. ³⁴ However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.