Speech in
the Athenian legislature (Acts
17:22-31)
Men of Athens, I see that in all respects you are
very god-fearing. For as I walked along and observed the objects of
your worship, I found also an altar into which was inscribed, ‘To
an unknown God.’ Therefore, what you revere without knowing,
this I proclaim to you.
The God who made the universe and everything in
it, the one who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in
temples made by hands and is not served by human hands, as if needing
something. He is the one who gives to all creatures, life and breath
and all else.
Out of one, he made all the nations of humanity,
and having set apart the appointed times and the boundaries of their
settlements, he made them to dwell upon the whole surface of the
earth, to seek for God, to see if they might touch him or find him.
And truly he is not far from each of us. For in
him we live and move and have our being, as indeed some of your poets
have said, “For we are his descendants also.” Being
descendants of God, therefore, we should not think that the divine is
like gold or silver or stone, even carved with skill and human
thought.
So then, having
overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people,
everywhere, to repent. For he has set a day on which he is going to
judge the inhabited world with righteousness, by a man whom he set
apart, offering belief to all by having raised him from the dead.