17Acts 17

1Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.Select Acts 17:1

2Paul, as was his custom, went in to them, and for three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,Select Acts 17:2

3explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”Select Acts 17:3

4Some of them were persuaded, and joined Paul and Silas, of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and not a few of the chief women.Select Acts 17:4

5But the unpersuaded Jews took along some wicked men from the marketplace, and gathering a crowd, set the city in an uproar. Assaulting the house of Jason, they sought to bring them out to the people.Select Acts 17:5

6When they didn’t find them, they dragged Jason and certain brothers before the rulers of the city, crying, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here also,Select Acts 17:6

7whom Jason has received. These all act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus!”Select Acts 17:7

8The multitude and the rulers of the city were troubled when they heard these things.Select Acts 17:8

9When they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.Select Acts 17:9

10The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroea. When they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.Select Acts 17:10

11Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of the mind, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.Select Acts 17:11

12Many of them therefore believed; also of the prominent Greek women, and not a few men.Select Acts 17:12

13But when the Jews of Thessalonica had knowledge that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Beroea also, they came there likewise, agitating the multitudes.Select Acts 17:13

14Then the brothers immediately sent out Paul to go as far as to the sea, and Silas and Timothy still stayed there.Select Acts 17:14

15But those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens. Receiving a commandment to Silas and Timothy that they should come to him very quickly, they departed.Select Acts 17:15

16Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw the city full of idols.Select Acts 17:16

17So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who met him.Select Acts 17:17

18Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign deities,” because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.Select Acts 17:18

19They took hold of him, and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is, which is spoken by you?Select Acts 17:19

20For you bring certain strange things to our ears. We want to know therefore what these things mean.”Select Acts 17:20

21Now all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.Select Acts 17:21

22Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus, and said, “You men of Athens, I perceive that you are very religious in all things.Select Acts 17:22

23For as I passed along, and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.’ What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I announce to you.Select Acts 17:23

24The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands,Select Acts 17:24

25neither is he served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself gives to all life and breath, and all things.Select Acts 17:25

26He made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the surface of the earth, having determined appointed seasons, and the boundaries of their dwellings,Select Acts 17:26

27that they should seek the Lord, if perhaps they might reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.Select Acts 17:27

28‘For in him we live, and move, and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’Select Acts 17:28

29Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.Select Acts 17:29

30The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent,Select Acts 17:30

31because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he has ordained; of which he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.”Select Acts 17:31

32Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, “We want to hear you again concerning this.”Select Acts 17:32

33Thus Paul went out from among them.Select Acts 17:33

34But certain men joined with him, and believed, among whom also was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.Select Acts 17:34