RKJNT - Acts - 17

17:1  Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews:

17:2  And Paul, as his manner was, went in to them, and for three sabbath days reasoned with them from the scriptures,

17:3  Explaining and proving, that Christ needed to suffer, and to rise again from the dead; and saying, this Jesus, whom I preach to you, is the Christ.

17:4  And some of them believed, and joined Paul and Silas; as did a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the chief women.

17:5  But the Jews who did not believe were moved with envy, and took certain wicked fellows of the rabble, and gathered a crowd, and set all the city in an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.

17:6  And when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and certain brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also;

17:7  And Jason has welcomed them: and they do all that is contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.

17:8  And the people and the rulers of the city were troubled when they heard these things.

17:9  And when they had taken security from Jason, and from the others, they let them go.

17:10  And the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Beroea. When they arrived they went into the synagogue of the Jews.

17:11  These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, to see whether these things were so.

17:12  Therefore, many of them believed; together with not a few prominent Greek women, and many men as well.

17:13  But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God was being preached by Paul at Beroea, they came there also, and stirred up the people.

17:14  Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away to the sea: but Silas and Timothy remained there.

17:15  And those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens: and receiving a commandment for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed.

17:16  Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.

17:17  Therefore, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with those who happened to be there.

17:18  Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What is this babbler trying to say? and others, He seems to be a proclaimer of strange gods: because he preached to them Jesus, and the resurrection.

17:19  And they took him, and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine is, of which you speak?

17:20  For you bring certain strange things to our ears: therefore we want to know what these things mean.

17:21  (For all the Athenians, and the strangers there, spent their time in nothing else, but telling, or hearing something new.)

17:22  Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus, and said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious.

17:23  For as I passed by, and beheld the objects of your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore, what you worship as unknown, this I declare to you.

17:24  The God who made the world and all things in it, since he is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;

17:25  Neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, for he himself gives to all life, and breath, and all things;

17:26  And he has made from one all nations of men to live on all the face of the earth, and has determined their allotted times, and the boundaries of their habitation;

17:27  That they should seek God, in the hope that they might grope for him, and find him, though he is not far from every one of us:

17:28  For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as some of your own poets have said, For we also are his offspring.

17:29  Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, formed by art and man's imagination.

17:30  Those times of ignorance God overlooked; but now he commands all men everywhere to repent:

17:31  Because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, by a man whom he has ordained; and he has given assurance of this to all men by raising him from the dead.

17:32  And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear you again on this matter.

17:33  So Paul departed from among them.

17:34  Yet certain men joined him, and believed: among them was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.