18
A few of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also encountered him. Some of them asked, "What has this beggarly babbler to say?" "His business," said others, "seems to be to cry up some foreign gods." This was because he had been telling the Good News of Jesus and the Resurrection.
19
Then they took him and brought him up to the Areopagus, asking him, "May we be told what this new teaching of yours is?
20
For the things you are saying sound strange to us. We should therefore like to be told exactly what they mean."
21
(For all the Athenians and their foreign visitors used to devote their whole leisure to telling or hearing about something new.)
22
So Paul, taking his stand in the centre of the Areopagus, spoke as follows: "Men of Athens, I perceive that you are in every respect remarkably religious.
23
For as I passed along and observed the things you worship, I found also an altar bearing the inscription, `TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.' "The Being, therefore, whom you, without knowing Him, revere, Him I now proclaim to you.
24
GOD who made the universe and everything in it--He, being Lord of Heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries built by men.
25
Nor is He ministered to by human hands, as though He needed anything--but He Himself gives to all men life and breath and all things.
26
He caused to spring from one forefather people of every race, for them to live on the whole surface of the earth, and marked out for them an appointed span of life and the boundaries of their homes;
27
that they might seek God, if perhaps they could grope for Him and find Him. Yes, though He is not far from any one of us.
28
For it is in closest union with Him that we live and move and have our being; as in fact some of the poets in repute among yourselves have said, `For we are also His offspring.'