1 AFTER passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia they came to Thessalonica. Here there was a synagogue of the Jews.

2 According to Paul's custom he went in to meet with them, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

3 explaining and showing that it was necessary that the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead, and saying, "Jesus of whom I am telling you is the Christ."

4 Some of them were persuaded and attached themselves to Paul and Silas \'97 a large number of the pious Greeks and not a few of the leading women.

5 But the Jews became excited and, taking with them some of the base loafers from the market-place, they made a mob and threw the city into confusion. They attacked the house of Jason and tried to bring Paul and Silas out to the people.

6 Not finding them, they dragged Jason and certain brethren before the magistrates, shouting, "These men who have upset the world have now come here.

7 Jason has received them. They all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is a different king \'97 Jesus."

8 Both the crowd and the magistrates were disturbed on hearing this.

9 So they took security from Jason and the rest and then dismissed them.

10 The brethren immediately sent off Paul and Silas in the night to Beraea. They on arrival went into the synagogue of the Jews.

11 These people were nobler than those in Thessalonica. They welcomed the message with all readiness and examined the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

12 Consequently many of them believed, and also not a few Greeks; women of high standing and men.

13 When the Jews of Thessalonica learned that God's message had been proclaimed by Paul also in Beraea, they came there agitating and disturbing the crowds.

14 At once then the brethren sent away Paul to go down to the sea coast. Silas and Timothy remained there.

15 Those who were conducting Paul took him as far as Athens, and, after receiving a letter to Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they left.

16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was stirred within him as he looked upon the city full of idols.

17 He often debated in the synagogue with the Jews and pious persons, and in the market-place every day with whoever happened to be there.

18 Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him, and some said, "What can this idle talker mean?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods," because he was telling the good news of Jesus and the resurrection.

19 They took him and led him up on to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new doctrine that you are speaking of is?

20 For you are bringing strange and surprising things to our ears. We wish to know what these things are."

21 For all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time in nothing else than in telling or hearing something newer than the last.

22 Paul took his stand in the midst of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens, I see that you are in every way unusually reverential to the gods.

23 For in passing about and contemplating your sacred objects I came upon an altar on which was inscribed, 'To an unknown God.' What you are worshiping in ignorance \'97 that I am making known to you.

24 "The God who made the world and all the things that are in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made by hands,

25 nor is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything. For he gives to all life and breath and all things.

26 And he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having marked out the appointed times and the boundaries of their abodes,

27 that they might seek for God, if they could feel after him and find him, though, indeed, he is not far from each one of us.

28 For in him we live and move and are; as some of your own poets have said, 'For we also are his offspring.'

29 Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that deity is like gold or silver or stone, a thing carved by man's art and thought.

30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all men everywhere to change,

31 since he has set a day in which he will soon judge the world in justice by the man whom he has appointed, and of whom he has given evidence to all men by raising him from the dead."

32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some sneered; others said, "We will hear you again about this."

33 So Paul went out from the midst of them.

34 But certain men attached themselves to him and believed. Among them was Dionysius the Areopagite, and there was a woman named Damaris and several other persons.