Acts 17:22-31

Paul Speaks to the Areopagus

22 So Paul stood there in the middle of the Areopagus [and] said, "Men of Athens, I see you [are] very religious {in every respect}.

23 For [as I] was passing through and observing carefully your objects of worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, 'To an unknown God.' Therefore what you worship without knowing [it], this I proclaim to you--

24 the God who made the world and all the things in it. This one, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands,

25 nor is he served by human hands [as if he] needed anything, [because] he himself gives to everyone life and breath and everything.

26 And he made from one [man] every nation of humanity to live on all the face of the earth, determining [their] fixed times and the fixed boundaries of their habitation,

27 to search for God, if perhaps indeed they might feel around for him and find [him]. And indeed he is not far away from each one of us,

28 for in him we live and move and exist, as even some of {your own} poets have said: 'For we also are {his} offspring.'

29 Therefore, [because we] are offspring of God, we ought not to think the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by human skill and thought.

30 Therefore [although] God has overlooked the times of ignorance, he now commands all people everywhere to repent,

31 because he has set a day on which he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man who he has appointed, having provided proof to everyone [by] raising him from the dead."

Footnotes

• [a] *Here "[and]" is supplied because the previous participle ("stood there") has been translated as a finite verb
• [b] Literally "with respect to all [things]"
• [c] *Here "[as]" is supplied as a component of the participle ("was passing through") which is understood as temporal
• [d] *Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
• [e] *Here "[as] if" is supplied as a component of the conditional adverbial participle ("needed")
• [f] *Here "[because]" is supplied as a component of the participle ("gives") which is understood as causal
• [g] *Here the direct object is supplied from context in the English translation
• [h] Some interpreters hold that the phrase "in him we live and move and exist" is a quotation from Epimenides of Crete, but more likely it is a traditional Greek formula
• [i] Literally "with respect to you"
• [j] Literally "of [him]"
• [k] A quotation from Aratus, Phaenomena 5
• [l] *Here "[because]" is supplied as a component of the participle ("are") which is understood as causal
• [m] *Here "[although]" is supplied as a component of the participle ("has overlooked") which is understood as concessive
• [n] *Here "[by]" is supplied as a component of the participle ("raising") which is understood as means