Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹He entered Jericho and was passing through.

²There was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich.

³He was trying to see who Jesus was, but he was not able because of the crowd, since he was a short man.

⁴So running ahead, he climbed up a sycamore tree to see Jesus, since he was about to pass that way.

⁵When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down because today it is necessary for me to stay at your house.”

⁶So he quickly came down and welcomed him joyfully.

⁷All who saw it began to complain, “He’s gone to stay with a sinful man.”

⁸But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, I’ll give half of my possessions to the poor, Lord. And if I have extorted anything from anyone, I’ll pay back four times as much.”

⁹“Today salvation has come to this house,” Jesus told him, “because he too is a son of Abraham.

¹⁰For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.”

¹¹As they were listening to this, he went on to tell a parable because he was near Jerusalem, and they thought the kingdom of God was going to appear right away.

¹²Therefore he said: “A nobleman traveled to a far country to receive for himself authority to be king and then to return.

¹³He called ten of his servants, gave them ten minas, and told them, ‘Engage in business until I come back.’

¹⁴“But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We don’t want this man to rule over us.’

¹⁵“At his return, having received the authority to be king, he summoned those servants he had given the money to, so that he could find out how much they had made in business.

¹⁶The first came forward and said, ‘Master, your mina has earned ten more minas.’

¹⁷“‘Well done, good servant! ’ he told him. ‘Because you have been faithful in a very small matter, have authority over ten towns.’

¹⁸“The second came and said, ‘Master, your mina has made five minas.’

¹⁹“So he said to him, ‘You will be over five towns.’

²⁰“And another came and said, ‘Master, here is your mina. I have kept it safe in a cloth

²¹because I was afraid of you since you’re a harsh man: you collect what you didn’t deposit and reap what you didn’t sow.’

²²“He told him, ‘I will condemn you by what you have said, you evil servant! If you knew I was a harsh man, collecting what I didn’t deposit and reaping what I didn’t sow,

²³why, then, didn’t you put my money in the bank? And when I returned, I would have collected it with interest.’

²⁴So he said to those standing there, ‘Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’

²⁵“But they said to him, ‘Master, he has ten minas.’

²⁶“‘I tell you, that to everyone who has, more will be given; and from the one who does not have, even what he does have will be taken away.

²⁷But bring here these enemies of mine, who did not want me to rule over them, and slaughter them in my presence.’”

²⁸When he had said these things, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

²⁹As he approached Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples

³⁰and said, “Go into the village ahead of you. As you enter it, you will find a young donkey tied there, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it.

³¹If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it? ’ say this: ‘The Lord needs it.’”

³²So those who were sent left and found it just as he had told them.

³³As they were untying the young donkey, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the donkey?”

³⁴“The Lord needs it,” they said.

³⁵Then they brought it to Jesus, and after throwing their clothes on the donkey, they helped Jesus get on it.

³⁶As he was going along, they were spreading their clothes on the road.

³⁷Now he came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen:

³⁸Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!

³⁹Some of the Pharisees from the crowd told him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”

⁴⁰He answered, “I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out.”

⁴¹As he approached and saw the city, he wept for it,

⁴²saying, “If you knew this day what would bring peace — but now it is hidden from your eyes.

⁴³For the days will come on you when your enemies will build a barricade around you, surround you, and hem you in on every side.

⁴⁴They will crush you and your children among you to the ground, and they will not leave one stone on another in your midst, because you did not recognize the time when God visited you.”

⁴⁵He went into the temple and began to throw out those who were selling,

⁴⁶and he said, “It is written, my house will be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!”

⁴⁷Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people were looking for a way to kill him,

⁴⁸but they could not find a way to do it, because all the people were captivated by what they heard.

¹Moses answered, “What if they won’t believe me and will not obey me but say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you’?”

²The LORD asked him, “What is that in your hand?” “A staff,” he replied.

³“Throw it on the ground,” he said. So Moses threw it on the ground, it became a snake, and he ran from it.

⁴The LORD told Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grab it by the tail.” So he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand.

⁵“This will take place,” he continued, “so that they will believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”

⁶In addition the LORD said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So he put his hand inside his cloak, and when he took it out, his hand was diseased, resembling snow.

⁷“Put your hand back inside your cloak,” he said. So he put his hand back inside his cloak, and when he took it out, it had again become like the rest of his skin.

⁸“If they will not believe you and will not respond to the evidence of the first sign, they may believe the evidence of the second sign.

⁹And if they don’t believe even these two signs or listen to what you say, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the Nile will become blood on the ground.”

¹⁰But Moses replied to the LORD, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent — either in the past or recently or since you have been speaking to your servant — because my mouth and my tongue are sluggish.”

¹¹The LORD said to him, “Who placed a mouth on humans? Who makes a person mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?

¹²Now go! I will help you speak and I will teach you what to say.”

¹³Moses said, “Please, Lord, send someone else.”

¹⁴Then the LORD’s anger burned against Moses, and he said, “Isn’t Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well. And also, he is on his way now to meet you. He will rejoice when he sees you.

¹⁵You will speak with him and tell him what to say. I will help both you and him to speak and will teach you both what to do.

¹⁶He will speak to the people for you. He will serve as a mouth for you, and you will serve as God to him.

¹⁷And take this staff in your hand that you will perform the signs with.”

¹⁸Then Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Please let me return to my relatives in Egypt and see if they are still living.” Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

¹⁹Now in Midian the LORD told Moses, “Return to Egypt, for all the men who wanted to kill you are dead.”

²⁰So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took God’s staff in his hand.

²¹The LORD instructed Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, make sure you do before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put within your power. But I will harden his heart so that he won’t let the people go.

²²And you will say to Pharaoh: This is what the LORD says: Israel is my firstborn son.

²³I told you: Let my son go so that he may worship me, but you refused to let him go. Look, I am about to kill your firstborn son!”

²⁴On the trip, at an overnight campsite, it happened that the LORD confronted him and intended to put him to death.

²⁵So Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son’s foreskin, threw it at Moses’s feet, and said, “You are a bridegroom of blood to me!”

²⁶So he let him alone. At that time she said, “You are a bridegroom of blood,” referring to the circumcision.

²⁷Now the LORD had said to Aaron, “Go and meet Moses in the wilderness.” So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him.

²⁸Moses told Aaron everything the LORD had sent him to say, and about all the signs he had commanded him to do.

²⁹Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites.

³⁰Aaron repeated everything the LORD had said to Moses and performed the signs before the people.

³¹The people believed, and when they heard that the LORD had paid attention to them and that he had seen their misery, they knelt low and worshiped.

¹Since I am speaking to those who know the law, brothers and sisters, don’t you know that the law rules over someone as long as he lives?

²For example, a married woman is legally bound to her husband while he lives. But if her husband dies, she is released from the law regarding the husband.

³So then, if she is married to another man while her husband is living, she will be called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law. Then, if she is married to another man, she is not an adulteress.

⁴Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also were put to death in relation to the law through the body of Christ so that you may belong to another. You belong to him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.

⁵For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions aroused through the law were working in us to bear fruit for death.

⁶But now we have been released from the law, since we have died to what held us, so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the law.

⁷What should we say then? Is the law sin? Absolutely not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet.

⁸And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead.

⁹Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life again

¹⁰and I died. The commandment that was meant for life resulted in death for me.

¹¹For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and through it killed me.

¹²So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.

¹³Therefore, did what is good become death to me? Absolutely not! On the contrary, sin, in order to be recognized as sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that through the commandment, sin might become sinful beyond measure.

¹⁴For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold as a slave to sin.

¹⁵For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate.

¹⁶Now if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good.

¹⁷So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me.

¹⁸For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.

¹⁹For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.

²⁰Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me.

²¹So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me.

²²For in my inner self I delight in God’s law,

²³but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body.

²⁴What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

²⁵Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.

¹“Write to the angel of the church in Sardis: Thus says the one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: I know your works; you have a reputation for being alive, but you are dead.

²Be alert and strengthen what remains, which is about to die, for I have not found your works complete before my God.

³Remember, then, what you have received and heard; keep it, and repent. If you are not alert, I will come like a thief, and you have no idea at what hour I will come upon you.

⁴But you have a few people in Sardis who have not defiled their clothes, and they will walk with me in white, because they are worthy.

⁵“In the same way, the one who conquers will be dressed in white clothes, and I will never erase his name from the book of life but will acknowledge his name before my Father and before his angels.

⁶“Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.

⁷“Write to the angel of the church in Philadelphia: Thus says the Holy One, the true one, the one who has the key of David, who opens and no one will close, and who closes and no one opens:

⁸I know your works. Look, I have placed before you an open door that no one can close because you have but little power; yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.

⁹Note this: I will make those from the synagogue of Satan, who claim to be Jews and are not, but are lying — I will make them come and bow down at your feet, and they will know that I have loved you.

¹⁰Because you have kept my command to endure, I will also keep you from the hour of testing that is going to come on the whole world to test those who live on the earth.

¹¹I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one takes your crown.

¹²“The one who conquers I will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he will never go out again. I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God — the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from my God — and my new name.

¹³“Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.

¹⁴“Write to the angel of the church in Laodicea: Thus says the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the originator of God’s creation:

¹⁵I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot.

¹⁶So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth.

¹⁷For you say, ‘I’m rich; I have become wealthy and need nothing,’ and you don’t realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.

¹⁸I advise you to buy from me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich, white clothes so that you may be dressed and your shameful nakedness not be exposed, and ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see.

¹⁹As many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be zealous and repent.

²⁰See! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

²¹“To the one who conquers I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.

²²“Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.”

¹The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.

²Oh, that he would kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your caresses are more delightful than wine.

³The fragrance of your perfume is intoxicating; your name is perfume poured out. No wonder young women adore you.

⁴Take me with you  — let’s hurry. Oh, that the king would bring me to his chambers. We will rejoice and be glad in you; we will celebrate your caresses more than wine. It is only right that they adore you.

⁵Daughters of Jerusalem, I am dark like the tents of Kedar, yet lovely like the curtains of Solomon.

⁶Do not stare at me because I am dark, for the sun has gazed on me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me take care of the vineyards. I have not taken care of my own vineyard.

⁷Tell me, you whom I love: Where do you pasture your sheep? Where do you let them rest at noon? Why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your companions?

⁸If you do not know, most beautiful of women, follow the tracks of the flock, and pasture your young goats near the shepherds’ tents.

⁹I compare you, my darling, to a mare among Pharaoh’s chariots.

¹⁰Your cheeks are beautiful with jewelry, your neck with its necklace.

¹¹We will make gold jewelry for you, accented with silver.

¹²While the king is on his couch, my perfume releases its fragrance.

¹³The one I love is a sachet of myrrh to me, spending the night between my breasts.

¹⁴The one I love is a cluster of henna blossoms to me, in the vineyards of En-gedi.

¹⁵How beautiful you are, my darling. How very beautiful! Your eyes are doves.

¹⁶How handsome you are, my love. How delightful! Our bed is verdant;

¹⁷the beams of our house are cedars, and our rafters are cypresses.

¹The one who lives under the protection of the Most High dwells in the shadow of the Almighty.

²I will say concerning the LORD, who is my refuge and my fortress, my God in whom I trust:

³He himself will rescue you from the bird trap, from the destructive plague.

⁴He will cover you with his feathers; you will take refuge under his wings. His faithfulness will be a protective shield.

⁵You will not fear the terror of the night, the arrow that flies by day,

⁶the plague that stalks in darkness, or the pestilence that ravages at noon.

⁷Though a thousand fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, the pestilence will not reach you.

⁸You will only see it with your eyes and witness the punishment of the wicked.

⁹Because you have made the LORD  — my refuge, the Most High — your dwelling place,

¹⁰no harm will come to you; no plague will come near your tent.

¹¹For he will give his angels orders concerning you, to protect you in all your ways.

¹²They will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

¹³You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the young lion and the serpent.

¹⁴Because he has his heart set on me, I will deliver him; I will protect him because he knows my name.

¹⁵When he calls out to me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will rescue him and give him honor.

¹⁶I will satisfy him with a long life and show him my salvation.

¹Don’t envy the evil or desire to be with them,

²for their hearts plan violence, and their words stir up trouble.

³A house is built by wisdom, and it is established by understanding;

⁴by knowledge the rooms are filled with every precious and beautiful treasure.

⁵A wise warrior is better than a strong one, and a man of knowledge than one of strength;

⁶for you should wage war with sound guidance — victory comes with many counselors.

⁷Wisdom is inaccessible to a fool; he does not open his mouth at the city gate.

⁸The one who plots evil will be called a schemer.

⁹A foolish scheme is sin, and a mocker is detestable to people.

¹⁰If you do nothing in a difficult time, your strength is limited.

¹¹Rescue those being taken off to death, and save those stumbling toward slaughter.

¹²If you say, “But we didn’t know about this,” won’t he who weighs hearts consider it? Won’t he who protects your life know? Won’t he repay a person according to his work?

¹³Eat honey, my son, for it is good, and the honeycomb is sweet to your palate;

¹⁴realize that wisdom is the same for you. If you find it, you will have a future, and your hope will never fade.

¹⁵Don’t set an ambush, you wicked one, at the camp of the righteous man; don’t destroy his dwelling.

¹⁶Though a righteous person falls seven times, he will get up, but the wicked will stumble into ruin.

¹⁷Don’t gloat when your enemy falls, and don’t let your heart rejoice when he stumbles,

¹⁸or the LORD will see, be displeased, and turn his wrath away from him.

¹⁹Don’t be agitated by evildoers, and don’t envy the wicked.

²⁰For the evil have no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.

²¹My son, fear the LORD, as well as the king, and don’t associate with rebels,

²²for destruction will come suddenly from them; who knows what distress these two can bring?

²³These sayings also belong to the wise: It is not good to show partiality in judgment.

²⁴Whoever says to the guilty, “You are innocent”  — peoples will curse him, and nations will denounce him;

²⁵but it will go well with those who convict the guilty, and a generous blessing will come to them.

²⁶He who gives an honest answer gives a kiss on the lips.

²⁷Complete your outdoor work, and prepare your field; afterward, build your house.

²⁸Don’t testify against your neighbor without cause. Don’t deceive with your lips.

²⁹Don’t say, “I’ll do to him what he did to me; I’ll repay the man for what he has done.”

³⁰I went by the field of a slacker and by the vineyard of one lacking sense.

³¹Thistles had come up everywhere, weeds covered the ground, and the stone wall was ruined.

³²I saw, and took it to heart; I looked, and received instruction:

³³a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the arms to rest,

³⁴and your poverty will come like a robber, and your need, like a bandit.

¹Some time later, when King Ahasuerus’s rage had cooled down, he remembered Vashti, what she had done, and what was decided against her.

²The king’s personal attendants suggested, “Let a search be made for beautiful young virgins for the king.

³Let the king appoint commissioners in each province of his kingdom, so that they may gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem at the fortress of Susa. Put them under the supervision of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, keeper of the women, and give them the required beauty treatments.

⁴Then the young woman who pleases the king will become queen instead of Vashti.” This suggestion pleased the king, and he did accordingly.

⁵In the fortress of Susa, there was a Jewish man named Mordecai son of Jair, son of Shimei, son of Kish, a Benjaminite.

⁶He had been taken into exile from Jerusalem with the other captives when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took King Jeconiah of Judah into exile.

⁷Mordecai was the legal guardian of his cousin Hadassah (that is, Esther), because she had no father or mother. The young woman had a beautiful figure and was extremely good-looking. When her father and mother died, Mordecai had adopted her as his own daughter.

⁸When the king’s command and edict became public knowledge and when many young women were gathered at the fortress of Susa under Hegai’s supervision, Esther was taken to the palace, into the supervision of Hegai, keeper of the women.

⁹The young woman pleased him and gained his favor so that he accelerated the process of the beauty treatments and the special diet that she received. He assigned seven hand-picked female servants to her from the palace and transferred her and her servants to the harem’s best quarters.

¹⁰Esther did not reveal her ethnicity or her family background, because Mordecai had ordered her not to make them known.

¹¹Every day Mordecai took a walk in front of the harem’s courtyard to learn how Esther was doing and to see what was happening to her.

¹²During the year before each young woman’s turn to go to King Ahasuerus, the harem regulation required her to receive beauty treatments with oil of myrrh for six months and then with perfumes and cosmetics for another six months.

¹³When the young woman would go to the king, she was given whatever she requested to take with her from the harem to the palace.

¹⁴She would go in the evening, and in the morning she would return to a second harem under the supervision of the king’s eunuch Shaashgaz, keeper of the concubines. She never went to the king again, unless he desired her and summoned her by name.

¹⁵Esther was the daughter of Abihail, the uncle of Mordecai who had adopted her as his own daughter. When her turn came to go to the king, she did not ask for anything except what Hegai, the king’s eunuch, keeper of the women, suggested. Esther gained favor in the eyes of everyone who saw her.

¹⁶She was taken to King Ahasuerus in the palace in the tenth month, the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.

¹⁷The king loved Esther more than all the other women. She won more favor and approval from him than did any of the other virgins. He placed the royal crown on her head and made her queen in place of Vashti.

¹⁸The king held a great banquet for all his officials and staff. It was Esther’s banquet. He freed his provinces from tax payments and gave gifts worthy of the king’s bounty.

¹⁹When the virgins were gathered a second time, Mordecai was sitting at the King’s Gate.

²⁰(Esther had not revealed her family background or her ethnicity, as Mordecai had directed. She obeyed Mordecai’s orders, as she always had while he raised her.)

²¹During those days while Mordecai was sitting at the King’s Gate, Bigthan and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs who guarded the entrance, became infuriated and planned to assassinate King Ahasuerus.

²²When Mordecai learned of the plot, he reported it to Queen Esther, and she told the king on Mordecai’s behalf.

²³When the report was investigated and verified, both men were hanged on the gallows. This event was recorded in the Historical Record in the king’s presence.

¹A pronouncement: The word of the LORD is against the land of Hadrach, and Damascus is its resting place — for the eyes of humanity and all the tribes of Israel are on the LORD  —

²and also against Hamath, which borders it, as well as Tyre and Sidon, though they are very shrewd.

³Tyre has built herself a fortress; she has heaped up silver like dust and gold like the dirt of the streets.

⁴Listen! The Lord will impoverish her and cast her wealth into the sea; she herself will be consumed by fire.

⁵Ashkelon will see it and be afraid; Gaza too, and will writhe in great pain, as will Ekron, for her hope will fail. There will cease to be a king in Gaza, and Ashkelon will become uninhabited.

⁶A mongrel people will live in Ashdod, and I will destroy the pride of the Philistines.

⁷I will remove the blood from their mouths and the abhorrent things from between their teeth. Then they too will become a remnant for our God; they will become like a clan in Judah and Ekron like the Jebusites.

⁸I will encamp at my house as a guard, against those who march back and forth, and no oppressor will march against them again, for now I have seen with my own eyes.

⁹Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout in triumph, Daughter Jerusalem! Look, your King is coming to you; he is righteous and victorious, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

¹⁰I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem. The bow of war will be removed, and he will proclaim peace to the nations. His dominion will extend from sea to sea, from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.

¹¹As for you, because of the blood of your covenant, I will release your prisoners from the waterless cistern.

¹²Return to a stronghold, you prisoners who have hope; today I declare that I will restore double to you.

¹³For I will bend Judah as my bow; I will fill that bow with Ephraim. I will rouse your sons, Zion, against your sons, Greece. I will make you like a warrior’s sword.

¹⁴Then the LORD will appear over them, and his arrow will fly like lightning. The Lord GOD will sound the trumpet and advance with the southern storms.

¹⁵The LORD of Armies will defend them. They will consume and conquer with slingstones; they will drink and be rowdy as if with wine. They will be as full as the sprinkling basin, like those at the corners of the altar.

¹⁶The LORD their God will save them on that day as the flock of his people; for they are like jewels in a crown, sparkling over his land.

¹⁷How lovely and beautiful! Grain will make the young men flourish, and new wine, the young women.

¹After they passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

²As usual, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

³explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead: “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.”

⁴Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, including a large number of God-fearing Greeks, as well as a number of the leading women.

⁵But the Jews became jealous, and they brought together some wicked men from the marketplace, formed a mob, and started a riot in the city. Attacking Jason’s house, they searched for them to bring them out to the public assembly.

⁶When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here too,

⁷and Jason has welcomed them. They are all acting contrary to Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king — Jesus.”

⁸The crowd and city officials who heard these things were upset.

⁹After taking a security bond from Jason and the others, they released them.

¹⁰As soon as it was night, the brothers and sisters sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. Upon arrival, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.

¹¹The people here were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, since they received the word with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

¹²Consequently, many of them believed, including a number of the prominent Greek women as well as men.

¹³But when the Jews from Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul at Berea, they came there too, agitating and upsetting the crowds.

¹⁴Then the brothers and sisters immediately sent Paul away to go to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed on there.

¹⁵Those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving instructions for Silas and Timothy to come to him as quickly as possible, they departed.

¹⁶While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed when he saw that the city was full of idols.

¹⁷So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God, as well as in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

¹⁸Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also debated with him. Some said, “What is this ignorant show-off trying to say?” Others replied, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities” — because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

¹⁹They took him and brought him to the Areopagus, and said, “May we learn about this new teaching you are presenting?

²⁰Because what you say sounds strange to us, and we want to know what these things mean.”

²¹Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.

²²Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect.

²³For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed: ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it  — he is Lord of heaven and earth  — does not live in shrines made by hands.

²⁵Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things.

²⁶From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live.

²⁷He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

²⁸For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’

²⁹Since we are God’s offspring then, we shouldn’t think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination.

³⁰“Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent,

³¹because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

³²When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him, but others said, “We’d like to hear from you again about this.”

³³So Paul left their presence.

³⁴However, some people joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.