12. Many of them therefore became believers, together with not a few prominent Greeks, women as well as men.
13. But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the Word of God [concerning the attainment through Christ of eternal salvation in the kingdom of God] was also preached by Paul at Beroea, they came there too, disturbing and inciting the masses.
14. At once the brethren sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained behind.
15. Those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and receiving instructions for Silas and Timothy that they should come to him as soon as possible, they departed.
16. Now while Paul was awaiting them at Athens, his spirit was grieved and roused to anger as he saw that the city was full of idols.
17. So he reasoned and argued in the synagogue with the Jews and those who worshiped there, and in the marketplace [where assemblies are held] day after day with any who chanced to be there.
18. And some also of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him and began to engage in discussion. And some said, What is this babbler with his scrap-heap learning trying to say? Others said, He seems to be an announcer of foreign deities–because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.
19. And they took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus [Mars Hill meeting place], saying, May we know what this novel (unheard of and unprecedented) teaching is which you are openly declaring?
20. For you set forth some startling things, foreign and strange to our ears; we wish to know therefore just what these things mean–
21. For the Athenians, all of them, and the foreign residents and visitors among them spent all their leisure time in nothing except telling or hearing something newer than the last–
22. So Paul, standing in the center of the Areopagus [Mars Hill meeting place], said: Men of Athens, I perceive in every way [on every hand and with every turn I make] that you are most religious or very reverent to demons.
23. For as I passed along and carefully observed your objects of worship, I came also upon an altar with this inscription, To the unknown god. Now what you are already worshiping as unknown, this I set forth to you.
24. The God Who produced and formed the world and all things in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade shrines.
25. Neither is He served by human hands, as though He lacked anything, for it is He Himself Who gives life and breath and all things to all [people]. [Isa. 42:5.]
26. And He made from one [common origin, one source, one blood] all nations of men to settle on the face of the earth, having definitely determined [their] allotted periods of time and the fixed boundaries of their habitation (their settlements, lands, and abodes),
27. So that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel after Him and find Him, although He is not far from each one of us.
28. For in Him we live and move and have our being; as even some of your [own] poets have said, For we are also His offspring.
29. Since then we are God's offspring, we ought not to suppose that Deity (the Godhead) is like gold or silver or stone, [of the nature of] a representation by human art and imagination, or anything constructed or invented.