15. Those escorting Paul brought him as far as Athens. After receiving an order for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they left.
16. Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was aroused within him when he saw that the city was full of idols.
17. So he was debating in the synagogue with the Jewish people and the God-fearers, as well as in the marketplace every day with all who happened to be there.
18. Also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What’s this babbler trying to say?” while others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign deities”—because he was proclaiming the Good News of Yeshua and the resurrection.
19. So they took Paul to the Aereopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are talking about?
20. For you are bringing some strange things to our ears, so we want to know what these things mean.”
21. Now all the Athenians and foreigners visiting there used to pass their time doing nothing but telling or hearing something new.
22. So Paul stood in the middle of the Aereopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in all ways you are very religious.
23. For while I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore what you worship without knowing, this I proclaim to you.
24. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by hands.
25. Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, since He Himself gives to everyone life and breath and all things.
26. From one He made every nation of men to live on the face of the earth, having set appointed times and the boundaries of their territory.
27. They were to search for Him, and perhaps grope around for Him and find Him. Yet He is not far from each one of us,
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.’
29. Since we are His offspring, we ought not to suppose the Deity is like gold or silver or stone, an engraved image of human art and imagination.
30. Although God overlooked the periods of ignorance, now He commands everyone everywhere to repent.