The Greatest Commandment^(A)

²⁸ One of the teachers of the law^(B) came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

²⁹ “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.^{[a] 30} Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’^{[b](C) 31} The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[c](D) There is no commandment greater than these.”

³² “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him.^{(E) 33} To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”^(F)

³⁴ When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”^(G) And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.^(H)

²² Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus^(A) and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.^{(B) 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^(C)—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

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