³ When he went out about nine o’clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace,

¹³ Besides that, they learn to be idle, gadding about from house to house, and they are not merely idle but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say.^(A)

¹⁷ So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons and also in the marketplace^[a] every day with those who happened to be there. ¹⁸ Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this pretentious babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) ¹⁹ So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? ²⁰ It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” ²¹ Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

¹⁵ Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.^(A)

²⁵ It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him.

⁶ And about five o’clock he went out and found others standing around, and he said to them, ‘Why are you standing here idle all day?’ ⁷ They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard.’

¹⁶ “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

⁴⁹ This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and needy.^(A)

¹² so that you may not become sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.^(A)