Acts:17:15-34

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* Those who were caring for Paul brought him as far as Athens , and there left him , with instructions to Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed . * While Paul was waiting for them at Athens , his spirit was stirred within him , when he noticed that the city was full of idols . * He argued in the synagogues with the Jews and the devout proselytes , and also daily in the market-place with those that met him there . * A few of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also encountered him again and again . Some were saying , "What has this beggarly fellow to say ?" Others said , "He seems to be a setter forth of strange gods ," because he preached Jesus and the resurrection . * Then they laid hold of him and brought him up to Mars Hill , saying . "May we be told what this new teaching of yours is ? * "For you are bringing certain strange things to our ears . We want to know , therefore , what these things mean ." * (Now all the Athenians and the strangers sojourning there spent their time in nothing else , but to tell or to hear some new thing .) * So Paul stood up in the center of Mars Hill , and said . "Men of Athens , I perceive that in all respects you are remarkably religious . * "For as I was passing along and observing your objects of worship , I found also an altar with this inscription , TO AN UNKNOWN GOD . What you are worshiping in ignorance , this I am proclaiming to you . * "The God who made the universe and all things in it , he , being Lord of heaven and earth , does not dwell in temples made with hands , * "neither is he served by mens hands , as though he needed anything , since he himself gives to all life and breath and all things . * "He has made of one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth , having determined their appointed seasons and the bounds of their habitation , * "so that they might seek God , if perhaps they might feel after him and find him , though he is not far from every on of us ; * "for in him we live and move and have our being ; as certain even of your own poets have said , "For we also are his offspring . * "Since then we are Gods offspring , we ought not to imagine that the Godhead is like to gold , or silver , or stone , graven by art and device of man . * "The times of ignorance God overlooked , but he now commands all men that they should all , everywhere , repent ; * inasmuch as he has fixed a day in which he will judge the world justly , by the Man whom he has ordained , and he has given proof of all this by raising him from the dead ." * But on hearing of the resurrection of the dead , some began to mock ; but others said , "We will hear you again on that subject ." * So Paul withdrew from them . * A few , however , attached themselves to him and believed , among whom was Dionysius the Areopagite , and a woman named Damaris , and some others .

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