16 And while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, ahis 1spirit was provoked within him as he beheld that the city was 2bfull of idols.
17 He reasoned therefore in the asynagogue with the Jews and the bdevout, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.
18 And some of the 1Epicurean and 2Stoic philosophers also confronted him. And some said, What would this 3babbler wish to say? And others, He seems to be an announcer of foreign 4deities — because he was aannouncing Jesus and the bresurrection as the gospel.
19 And they took hold of him and led him to the 1aAreopagus, saying, May we know what this bnew teaching is which is being spoken by you?
20 For you are bringing astrange things to our ears. We intend to know therefore 1what these things mean.
21 (Now all the Athenians and the foreigners sojourning there spent their time on nothing other than telling or hearing something new.)
22 And Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, 1Men of Athens, I observe that in every way you 2very much revere your deities.
23 For while I was passing through and carefully observing the objects of your aworship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed, To An UNKNOWN God. What therefore you worship bwithout knowing, this I announce to you.
24 The 1God who amade the world and all things in it, this One, being bLord of heaven and earth, does cnot dwell in temples made with hands;
25 Neither is He served by human hands as though He needed anything in addition, since He Himself gives to all life and abreath and all things.
26 And He made from 1one aevery nation of men to dwell on all the bface of the earth, determining beforehand their 2appointed seasons and the cboundaries of their dwelling,
27 That they might aseek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, even though He is 1bnot far from each one of us;
28 For 1in Him we live and move and are, as even some 2poets among you have said, For we are also 3His 4race.
29 Being then the race of God, we ought not to suppose that 1what is divine is like agold or silver or stone, like an engraving of art and 2thought of man.
30 Therefore, having overlooked the atimes of bignorance, God now 1charges all men everywhere to crepent,
31 Because He has set a 1aday in which He is to bjudge the world in righteousness by the man whom He has designated, having furnished 2proof to all by craising Him from the dead.
32 And when they heard of a aresurrection of the dead, some bscoffed; and others said, We will hear you yet cagain concerning this.
33 Thus Paul went out from their midst.
34 But some men ajoined him and believed, among whom also was Dionysius the bAreopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.