Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

²² Paul stood up in the middle of the council on Mars Hill and said, “People of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way. ²³ As I was walking through town and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown God.’ What you worship as unknown, I now proclaim to you. ²⁴ God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn’t live in temples made with human hands. ²⁵ Nor is God served by human hands, as though he needed something, since he is the one who gives life, breath, and everything else. ²⁶ From one person God created every human nation to live on the whole earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God made the nations so they would seek him, perhaps even reach out to him and find him. In fact, God isn’t far away from any of us. ²⁸ In God we live, move, and exist. As some of your own poets said, ‘We are his offspring.’

²⁹ “Therefore, as God’s offspring, we have no need to imagine that the divine being is like a gold, silver, or stone image made by human skill and thought. ³⁰ God overlooks ignorance of these things in times past, but now directs everyone everywhere to change their hearts and lives. ³¹ This is because God has set a day when he intends to judge the world justly by a man he has appointed. God has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

¹³ Who will harm you if you are zealous for good? ¹⁴ But happy are you, even if you suffer because of righteousness! Don’t be terrified or upset by them. ¹⁵ Instead, regard Christ the Lord as holy in your hearts. Whenever anyone asks you to speak of your hope, be ready to defend it. ¹⁶ Yet do this with respectful humility, maintaining a good conscience. Act in this way so that those who malign your good lifestyle in Christ may be ashamed when they slander you. ¹⁷ It is better to suffer for doing good (if this could possibly be God’s will) than for doing evil.

¹⁸ Christ himself suffered on account of sins, once for all, the righteous one on behalf of the unrighteous. He did this in order to bring you into the presence of God. Christ was put to death as a human, but made alive by the Spirit. ¹⁹ And it was by the Spirit that he went to preach to the spirits in prison. ²⁰ In the past, these spirits were disobedient—when God patiently waited during the time of Noah. Noah built an ark in which a few (that is, eight) lives were rescued through water. ²¹ Baptism is like that. It saves you now—not because it removes dirt from your body but because it is the mark of a good conscience toward God. Your salvation comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, ²² who is at God’s right side. Now that he has gone into heaven, he rules over all angels, authorities, and powers.

I won’t leave you as orphans

¹⁵ “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ I will ask the Father, and he will send another Companion,^[a] who will be with you forever. ¹⁷ This Companion is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world can’t receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be with you.

¹⁸ “I won’t leave you as orphans. I will come to you. ¹⁹ Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. ²⁰ On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commandments and keeps them loves me. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”