Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.

²For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.

³“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?

⁴How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?

⁵Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.

⁶“Don’t waste what is holy on people who are unholy. Don’t throw your pearls to pigs! They will trample the pearls, then turn and attack you.

⁷“Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.

⁸For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.

⁹“You parents — if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead?

¹⁰Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not!

¹¹So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.

¹²“Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.

¹³“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way.

¹⁴But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.

¹⁵“Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves.

¹⁶You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?

¹⁷A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit.

¹⁸A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit.

¹⁹So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire.

²⁰Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.

²¹“Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter.

²²On judgment day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’

²³But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’

²⁴“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock.

²⁵Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock.

²⁶But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand.

²⁷When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.”

²⁸When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching,

²⁹for he taught with real authority — quite unlike their teachers of religious law.

¹“Listen, O heavens, and I will speak! Hear, O earth, the words that I say!

²Let my teaching fall on you like rain; let my speech settle like dew. Let my words fall like rain on tender grass, like gentle showers on young plants.

³I will proclaim the name of the LORD; how glorious is our God!

⁴He is the Rock; his deeds are perfect. Everything he does is just and fair. He is a faithful God who does no wrong; how just and upright he is!

⁵“But they have acted corruptly toward him; when they act so perversely, are they really his children? They are a deceitful and twisted generation.

⁶Is this the way you repay the LORD, you foolish and senseless people? Isn’t he your Father who created you? Has he not made you and established you?

⁷Remember the days of long ago; think about the generations past. Ask your father, and he will inform you. Inquire of your elders, and they will tell you.

⁸When the Most High assigned lands to the nations, when he divided up the human race, he established the boundaries of the peoples according to the number in his heavenly court.

⁹“For the people of Israel belong to the LORD; Jacob is his special possession.

¹⁰He found them in a desert land, in an empty, howling wasteland. He surrounded them and watched over them; he guarded them as he would guard his own eyes.

¹¹Like an eagle that rouses her chicks and hovers over her young, so he spread his wings to take them up and carried them safely on his pinions.

¹²The LORD alone guided them; they followed no foreign gods.

¹³He let them ride over the highlands and feast on the crops of the fields. He nourished them with honey from the rock and olive oil from the stony ground.

¹⁴He fed them yogurt from the herd and milk from the flock, together with the fat of lambs. He gave them choice rams from Bashan, and goats, together with the choicest wheat. You drank the finest wine, made from the juice of grapes.

¹⁵“But Israel soon became fat and unruly; the people grew heavy, plump, and stuffed! Then they abandoned the God who had made them; they made light of the Rock of their salvation.

¹⁶They stirred up his jealousy by worshiping foreign gods; they provoked his fury with detestable deeds.

¹⁷They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God, to gods they had not known before, to new gods only recently arrived, to gods their ancestors had never feared.

¹⁸You neglected the Rock who had fathered you; you forgot the God who had given you birth.

¹⁹“The LORD saw this and drew back, provoked to anger by his own sons and daughters.

²⁰He said, ‘I will abandon them; then see what becomes of them. For they are a twisted generation, children without integrity.

²¹They have roused my jealousy by worshiping things that are not God; they have provoked my anger with their useless idols. Now I will rouse their jealousy through people who are not even a people; I will provoke their anger through the foolish Gentiles.

²²For my anger blazes forth like fire and burns to the depths of the grave. It devours the earth and all its crops and ignites the foundations of the mountains.

²³I will heap disasters upon them and shoot them down with my arrows.

²⁴I will weaken them with famine, burning fever, and deadly disease. I will send the fangs of wild beasts and poisonous snakes that glide in the dust.

²⁵Outside, the sword will bring death, and inside, terror will strike both young men and young women, both infants and the aged.

²⁶I would have annihilated them, wiping out even the memory of them.

²⁷But I feared the taunt of Israel’s enemy, who might misunderstand and say, “Our own power has triumphed! The LORD had nothing to do with this!”’

²⁸“But Israel is a senseless nation; the people are foolish, without understanding.

²⁹Oh, that they were wise and could understand this! Oh, that they might know their fate!

³⁰How could one person chase a thousand of them, and two people put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up?

³¹But the rock of our enemies is not like our Rock, as even they recognize.

³²Their vine grows from the vine of Sodom, from the vineyards of Gomorrah. Their grapes are poison, and their clusters are bitter.

³³Their wine is the venom of serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.

³⁴“The LORD says, ‘Am I not storing up these things, sealing them away in my treasury?

³⁵I will take revenge; I will pay them back. In due time their feet will slip. Their day of disaster will arrive, and their destiny will overtake them.’

³⁶“Indeed, the LORD will give justice to his people, and he will change his mind about his servants, when he sees their strength is gone and no one is left, slave or free.

³⁷Then he will ask, ‘Where are their gods, the rocks they fled to for refuge?

³⁸Where now are those gods, who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their offerings? Let those gods arise and help you! Let them provide you with shelter!

³⁹Look now; I myself am he! There is no other god but me! I am the one who kills and gives life; I am the one who wounds and heals; no one can be rescued from my powerful hand!

⁴⁰Now I raise my hand to heaven and declare, “As surely as I live,

⁴¹when I sharpen my flashing sword and begin to carry out justice, I will take revenge on my enemies and repay those who reject me.

⁴²I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword will devour flesh — the blood of the slaughtered and the captives, and the heads of the enemy leaders.”’

⁴³“Rejoice with him, you heavens, and let all of God’s angels worship him. Rejoice with his people, you Gentiles, and let all the angels be strengthened in him. For he will avenge the blood of his children ; he will take revenge against his enemies. He will repay those who hate him and cleanse his people’s land.”

⁴⁴So Moses came with Joshua son of Nun and recited all the words of this song to the people.

⁴⁵When Moses had finished reciting all these words to the people of Israel,

⁴⁶he added: “Take to heart all the words of warning I have given you today. Pass them on as a command to your children so they will obey every word of these instructions.

⁴⁷These instructions are not empty words — they are your life! By obeying them you will enjoy a long life in the land you will occupy when you cross the Jordan River.”

⁴⁸That same day the LORD said to Moses,

⁴⁹“Go to Moab, to the mountains east of the river, and climb Mount Nebo, which is across from Jericho. Look out across the land of Canaan, the land I am giving to the people of Israel as their own special possession.

⁵⁰Then you will die there on the mountain. You will join your ancestors, just as Aaron, your brother, died on Mount Hor and joined his ancestors.

⁵¹For both of you betrayed me with the Israelites at the waters of Meribah at Kadesh in the wilderness of Zin. You failed to demonstrate my holiness to the people of Israel there.

⁵²So you will see the land from a distance, but you may not enter the land I am giving to the people of Israel.”

¹If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

²If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.

³If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

⁴Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud

⁵or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.

⁶It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.

⁷Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

⁸Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!

⁹Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!

¹⁰But when the time of perfection comes, these partial things will become useless.

¹¹When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things.

¹²Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

¹³Three things will last forever — faith, hope, and love — and the greatest of these is love.

¹Then I witnessed in heaven an event of great significance. I saw a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon beneath her feet, and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

²She was pregnant, and she cried out because of her labor pains and the agony of giving birth.

³Then I witnessed in heaven another significant event. I saw a large red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, with seven crowns on his heads.

⁴His tail swept away one-third of the stars in the sky, and he threw them to the earth. He stood in front of the woman as she was about to give birth, ready to devour her baby as soon as it was born.

⁵She gave birth to a son who was to rule all nations with an iron rod. And her child was snatched away from the dragon and was caught up to God and to his throne.

⁶And the woman fled into the wilderness, where God had prepared a place to care for her for 1,260 days.

⁷Then there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels.

⁸And the dragon lost the battle, and he and his angels were forced out of heaven.

⁹This great dragon — the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world — was thrown down to the earth with all his angels.

¹⁰Then I heard a loud voice shouting across the heavens, “It has come at last — salvation and power and the Kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down to earth — the one who accuses them before our God day and night.

¹¹And they have defeated him by the blood of the Lamb and by their testimony. And they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.

¹²Therefore, rejoice, O heavens! And you who live in the heavens, rejoice! But terror will come on the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you in great anger, knowing that he has little time.”

¹³When the dragon realized that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

¹⁴But she was given two wings like those of a great eagle so she could fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness. There she would be cared for and protected from the dragon for a time, times, and half a time.

¹⁵Then the dragon tried to drown the woman with a flood of water that flowed from his mouth.

¹⁶But the earth helped her by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that gushed out from the mouth of the dragon.

¹⁷And the dragon was angry at the woman and declared war against the rest of her children — all who keep God’s commandments and maintain their testimony for Jesus.

¹⁸Then the dragon took his stand on the shore beside the sea.

¹How beautiful are your sandaled feet, O queenly maiden. Your rounded thighs are like jewels, the work of a skilled craftsman.

²Your navel is perfectly formed like a goblet filled with mixed wine. Between your thighs lies a mound of wheat bordered with lilies.

³Your breasts are like two fawns, twin fawns of a gazelle.

⁴Your neck is as beautiful as an ivory tower. Your eyes are like the sparkling pools in Heshbon by the gate of Bath-rabbim. Your nose is as fine as the tower of Lebanon overlooking Damascus.

⁵Your head is as majestic as Mount Carmel, and the sheen of your hair radiates royalty. The king is held captive by its tresses.

⁶Oh, how beautiful you are! How pleasing, my love, how full of delights!

⁷You are slender like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters of fruit.

⁸I said, “I will climb the palm tree and take hold of its fruit.” May your breasts be like grape clusters, and the fragrance of your breath like apples.

⁹May your kisses be as exciting as the best wine — Young Woman Yes, wine that goes down smoothly for my lover, flowing gently over lips and teeth.

¹⁰I am my lover’s, and he claims me as his own.

¹¹Come, my love, let us go out to the fields and spend the night among the wildflowers.

¹²Let us get up early and go to the vineyards to see if the grapevines have budded, if the blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates have bloomed. There I will give you my love.

¹³There the mandrakes give off their fragrance, and the finest fruits are at our door, new delights as well as old, which I have saved for you, my lover.

¹O LORD, oppose those who oppose me. Fight those who fight against me.

²Put on your armor, and take up your shield. Prepare for battle, and come to my aid.

³Lift up your spear and javelin against those who pursue me. Let me hear you say, “I will give you victory!”

⁴Bring shame and disgrace on those trying to kill me; turn them back and humiliate those who want to harm me.

⁵Blow them away like chaff in the wind — a wind sent by the angel of the LORD.

⁶Make their path dark and slippery, with the angel of the LORD pursuing them.

⁷I did them no wrong, but they laid a trap for me. I did them no wrong, but they dug a pit to catch me.

⁸So let sudden ruin come upon them! Let them be caught in the trap they set for me! Let them be destroyed in the pit they dug for me.

⁹Then I will rejoice in the LORD. I will be glad because he rescues me.

¹⁰With every bone in my body I will praise him: “LORD, who can compare with you? Who else rescues the helpless from the strong? Who else protects the helpless and poor from those who rob them?”

¹¹Malicious witnesses testify against me. They accuse me of crimes I know nothing about.

¹²They repay me evil for good. I am sick with despair.

¹³Yet when they were ill, I grieved for them. I denied myself by fasting for them, but my prayers returned unanswered.

¹⁴I was sad, as though they were my friends or family, as if I were grieving for my own mother.

¹⁵But they are glad now that I am in trouble; they gleefully join together against me. I am attacked by people I don’t even know; they slander me constantly.

¹⁶They mock me and call me names; they snarl at me.

¹⁷How long, O Lord, will you look on and do nothing? Rescue me from their fierce attacks. Protect my life from these lions!

¹⁸Then I will thank you in front of the great assembly. I will praise you before all the people.

¹⁹Don’t let my treacherous enemies rejoice over my defeat. Don’t let those who hate me without cause gloat over my sorrow.

²⁰They don’t talk of peace; they plot against innocent people who mind their own business.

²¹They shout, “Aha! Aha! With our own eyes we saw him do it!”

²²O LORD, you know all about this. Do not stay silent. Do not abandon me now, O Lord.

²³Wake up! Rise to my defense! Take up my case, my God and my Lord.

²⁴Declare me not guilty, O LORD my God, for you give justice. Don’t let my enemies laugh about me in my troubles.

²⁵Don’t let them say, “Look, we got what we wanted! Now we will eat him alive!”

²⁶May those who rejoice at my troubles be humiliated and disgraced. May those who triumph over me be covered with shame and dishonor.

²⁷But give great joy to those who came to my defense. Let them continually say, “Great is the LORD, who delights in blessing his servant with peace!”

²⁸Then I will proclaim your justice, and I will praise you all day long.

¹The sayings of Agur son of Jakeh contain this message. I am weary, O God; I am weary and worn out, O God.

²I am too stupid to be human, and I lack common sense.

³I have not mastered human wisdom, nor do I know the Holy One.

⁴Who but God goes up to heaven and comes back down? Who holds the wind in his fists? Who wraps up the oceans in his cloak? Who has created the whole wide world? What is his name — and his son’s name? Tell me if you know!

⁵Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to all who come to him for protection.

⁶Do not add to his words, or he may rebuke you and expose you as a liar.

⁷O God, I beg two favors from you; let me have them before I die.

⁸First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.

⁹For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.

¹⁰Never slander a worker to the employer, or the person will curse you, and you will pay for it.

¹¹Some people curse their father and do not thank their mother.

¹²They are pure in their own eyes, but they are filthy and unwashed.

¹³They look proudly around, casting disdainful glances.

¹⁴They have teeth like swords and fangs like knives. They devour the poor from the earth and the needy from among humanity.

¹⁵The leech has two suckers that cry out, “More, more!” There are three things that are never satisfied — no, four that never say, “Enough!”:

¹⁶the grave, the barren womb, the thirsty desert, the blazing fire.

¹⁷The eye that mocks a father and despises a mother’s instructions will be plucked out by ravens of the valley and eaten by vultures.

¹⁸There are three things that amaze me — no, four things that I don’t understand:

¹⁹how an eagle glides through the sky, how a snake slithers on a rock, how a ship navigates the ocean, how a man loves a woman.

²⁰An adulterous woman consumes a man, then wipes her mouth and says, “What’s wrong with that?”

²¹There are three things that make the earth tremble — no, four it cannot endure:

²²a slave who becomes a king, an overbearing fool who prospers,

²³a bitter woman who finally gets a husband, a servant girl who supplants her mistress.

²⁴There are four things on earth that are small but unusually wise:

²⁵Ants — they aren’t strong, but they store up food all summer.

²⁶Hyraxes — they aren’t powerful, but they make their homes among the rocks.

²⁷Locusts — they have no king, but they march in formation.

²⁸Lizards — they are easy to catch, but they are found even in kings’ palaces.

²⁹There are three things that walk with stately stride — no, four that strut about:

³⁰the lion, king of animals, who won’t turn aside for anything,

³¹the strutting rooster, the male goat, a king as he leads his army.

³²If you have been a fool by being proud or plotting evil, cover your mouth in shame.

³³As the beating of cream yields butter and striking the nose causes bleeding, so stirring up anger causes quarrels.

¹So Solomon finished all his work on the Temple of the LORD. Then he brought all the gifts his father, David, had dedicated — the silver, the gold, and the various articles — and he stored them in the treasuries of the Temple of God.

²Solomon then summoned to Jerusalem the elders of Israel and all the heads of tribes — the leaders of the ancestral families of Israel. They were to bring the Ark of the LORD’s Covenant to the Temple from its location in the City of David, also known as Zion.

³So all the men of Israel assembled before the king at the annual Festival of Shelters, which is held in early autumn.

⁴When all the elders of Israel arrived, the Levites picked up the Ark.

⁵The priests and Levites brought up the Ark along with the special tent and all the sacred items that had been in it.

⁶There, before the Ark, King Solomon and the entire community of Israel sacrificed so many sheep, goats, and cattle that no one could keep count!

⁷Then the priests carried the Ark of the LORD’s Covenant into the inner sanctuary of the Temple — the Most Holy Place — and placed it beneath the wings of the cherubim.

⁸The cherubim spread their wings over the Ark, forming a canopy over the Ark and its carrying poles.

⁹These poles were so long that their ends could be seen from the Holy Place, which is in front of the Most Holy Place, but not from the outside. They are still there to this day.

¹⁰Nothing was in the Ark except the two stone tablets that Moses had placed in it at Mount Sinai, where the LORD made a covenant with the people of Israel when they left Egypt.

¹¹Then the priests left the Holy Place. All the priests who were present had purified themselves, whether or not they were on duty that day.

¹²And the Levites who were musicians — Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and all their sons and brothers — were dressed in fine linen robes and stood at the east side of the altar playing cymbals, lyres, and harps. They were joined by 120 priests who were playing trumpets.

¹³The trumpeters and singers performed together in unison to praise and give thanks to the LORD. Accompanied by trumpets, cymbals, and other instruments, they raised their voices and praised the LORD with these words: “He is good! His faithful love endures forever!” At that moment a thick cloud filled the Temple of the LORD.

¹⁴The priests could not continue their service because of the cloud, for the glorious presence of the LORD filled the Temple of God.

¹“In that day you will call your brothers Ammi — ‘My people.’ And you will call your sisters Ruhamah — ‘The ones I love.’

²“But now bring charges against Israel — your mother — for she is no longer my wife, and I am no longer her husband. Tell her to remove the prostitute’s makeup from her face and the clothing that exposes her breasts.

³Otherwise, I will strip her as naked as she was on the day she was born. I will leave her to die of thirst, as in a dry and barren wilderness.

⁴And I will not love her children, for they were conceived in prostitution.

⁵Their mother is a shameless prostitute and became pregnant in a shameful way. She said, ‘I’ll run after other lovers and sell myself to them for food and water, for clothing of wool and linen, and for olive oil and drinks.’

⁶“For this reason I will fence her in with thornbushes. I will block her path with a wall to make her lose her way.

⁷When she runs after her lovers, she won’t be able to catch them. She will search for them but not find them. Then she will think, ‘I might as well return to my husband, for I was better off with him than I am now.’

⁸She doesn’t realize it was I who gave her everything she has — the grain, the new wine, the olive oil; I even gave her silver and gold. But she gave all my gifts to Baal.

⁹“But now I will take back the ripened grain and new wine I generously provided each harvest season. I will take away the wool and linen clothing I gave her to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰I will strip her naked in public, while all her lovers look on. No one will be able to rescue her from my hands.

¹¹I will put an end to her annual festivals, her new moon celebrations, and her Sabbath days — all her appointed festivals.

¹²I will destroy her grapevines and fig trees, things she claims her lovers gave her. I will let them grow into tangled thickets, where only wild animals will eat the fruit.

¹³I will punish her for all those times when she burned incense to her images of Baal, when she put on her earrings and jewels and went out to look for her lovers but forgot all about me,” says the LORD.

¹⁴“But then I will win her back once again. I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her there.

¹⁵I will return her vineyards to her and transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope. She will give herself to me there, as she did long ago when she was young, when I freed her from her captivity in Egypt.

¹⁶When that day comes,” says the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’ instead of ‘my master.’

¹⁷O Israel, I will wipe the many names of Baal from your lips, and you will never mention them again.

¹⁸On that day I will make a covenant with all the wild animals and the birds of the sky and the animals that scurry along the ground so they will not harm you. I will remove all weapons of war from the land, all swords and bows, so you can live unafraid in peace and safety.

¹⁹I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion.

²⁰I will be faithful to you and make you mine, and you will finally know me as the LORD.

²¹“In that day, I will answer,” says the LORD. “I will answer the sky as it pleads for clouds. And the sky will answer the earth with rain.

²²Then the earth will answer the thirsty cries of the grain, the grapevines, and the olive trees. And they in turn will answer, ‘Jezreel’ — ‘God plants!’

²³At that time I will plant a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself. I will show love to those I called ‘Not loved.’ And to those I called ‘Not my people,’ I will say, ‘Now you are my people.’ And they will reply, ‘You are our God!’”

¹Paul and Silas then traveled through the towns of Amphipolis and Apollonia and came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

²As was Paul’s custom, he went to the synagogue service, and for three Sabbaths in a row he used the Scriptures to reason with the people.

³He explained the prophecies and proved that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead. He said, “This Jesus I’m telling you about is the Messiah.”

⁴Some of the Jews who listened were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with many God-fearing Greek men and quite a few prominent women.

⁵But some of the Jews were jealous, so they gathered some troublemakers from the marketplace to form a mob and start a riot. They attacked the home of Jason, searching for Paul and Silas so they could drag them out to the crowd.

⁶Not finding them there, they dragged out Jason and some of the other believers instead and took them before the city council. “Paul and Silas have caused trouble all over the world,” they shouted, “and now they are here disturbing our city, too.

⁷And Jason has welcomed them into his home. They are all guilty of treason against Caesar, for they profess allegiance to another king, named Jesus.”

⁸The people of the city, as well as the city council, were thrown into turmoil by these reports.

⁹So the officials forced Jason and the other believers to post bond, and then they released them.

¹⁰That very night the believers sent Paul and Silas to Berea. When they arrived there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.

¹¹And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.

¹²As a result, many Jews believed, as did many of the prominent Greek women and men.

¹³But when some Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God in Berea, they went there and stirred up trouble.

¹⁴The believers acted at once, sending Paul on to the coast, while Silas and Timothy remained behind.

¹⁵Those escorting Paul went with him all the way to Athens; then they returned to Berea with instructions for Silas and Timothy to hurry and join him.

¹⁶While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled by all the idols he saw everywhere in the city.

¹⁷He went to the synagogue to reason with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and he spoke daily in the public square to all who happened to be there.

¹⁸He also had a debate with some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. When he told them about Jesus and his resurrection, they said, “What’s this babbler trying to say with these strange ideas he’s picked up?” Others said, “He seems to be preaching about some foreign gods.”

¹⁹Then they took him to the high council of the city. “Come and tell us about this new teaching,” they said.

²⁰“You are saying some rather strange things, and we want to know what it’s all about.”

²¹(It should be explained that all the Athenians as well as the foreigners in Athens seemed to spend all their time discussing the latest ideas.)

²²So Paul, standing before the council, addressed them as follows: “Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way,

²³for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: ‘To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.

²⁴“He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man-made temples,

²⁵and human hands can’t serve his needs — for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.

²⁶From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.

²⁷“His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him — though he is not far from any one of us.

²⁸For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

²⁹And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.

³⁰“God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him.

³¹For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead.”

³²When they heard Paul speak about the resurrection of the dead, some laughed in contempt, but others said, “We want to hear more about this later.”

³³That ended Paul’s discussion with them,

³⁴but some joined him and became believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the council, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.