Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹When he entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that he was at home.

²So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway, and he was speaking the word to them.

³They came to him bringing a paralytic, carried by four of them.

⁴Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and after digging through it, they lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying.

⁵Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

⁶But some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts:

⁷“Why does he speak like this? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

⁸Right away Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were thinking like this within themselves and said to them, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?

⁹Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat, and walk’?

¹⁰But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”  — he told the paralytic —

¹¹“I tell you: get up, take your mat, and go home.”

¹²Immediately he got up, took the mat, and went out in front of everyone. As a result, they were all astounded and gave glory to God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

¹³Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them.

¹⁴Then, passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the toll booth, and he said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him.

¹⁵While he was reclining at the table in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who were following him.

¹⁶When the scribes who were Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

¹⁷When Jesus heard this, he told them, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

¹⁸Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. People came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

¹⁹Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast.

²⁰But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

²¹No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new patch pulls away from the old cloth, and a worse tear is made.

²²And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the skins. No, new wine is put into fresh wineskins.”

²³On the Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to make their way, picking some heads of grain.

²⁴The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”

²⁵He said to them, “Have you never read what David and those who were with him did when he was in need and hungry  — 

²⁶how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the Presence  — which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests  — and also gave some to his companions?”

²⁷Then he told them, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

²⁸So then, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

¹The LORD spoke to Moses:

²“Say to the Israelites: Any Israelite or alien residing in Israel who gives any of his children to Molech must be put to death; the people of the country are to stone him.

³I will turn against that man and cut him off from his people, because he gave his offspring to Molech, defiling my sanctuary and profaning my holy name.

⁴But if the people of the country look the other way when that man gives any of his children to Molech, and do not put him to death,

⁵then I will turn against that man and his family, and cut off from their people both him and all who follow him in prostituting themselves with Molech.

⁶“Whoever turns to mediums or spiritists and prostitutes himself with them, I will turn against that person and cut him off from his people.

⁷Consecrate yourselves and be holy, for I am the LORD your God.

⁸Keep my statutes and do them; I am the LORD who sets you apart.

⁹“If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or mother; his death is his own fault.

¹⁰“If a man commits adultery with a married woman — if he commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife — both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

¹¹If a man sleeps with his father’s wife, he has violated the intimacy that belongs to his father. Both of them must be put to death; their death is their own fault.

¹²If a man sleeps with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. They have acted perversely; their death is their own fault.

¹³If a man sleeps with a man as with a woman, they have both committed a detestable act. They must be put to death; their death is their own fault.

¹⁴If a man marries a woman and her mother, it is depraved. Both he and they must be burned, so that there will be no depravity among you.

¹⁵If a man has sexual intercourse with an animal, he must be put to death; you are also to kill the animal.

¹⁶If a woman approaches any animal and mates with it, you are to kill the woman and the animal. They must be put to death; their death is their own fault.

¹⁷If a man marries his sister, whether his father’s daughter or his mother’s daughter, and they have sexual relations, it is a disgrace. They are to be cut off publicly from their people. He has had sexual intercourse with his sister; he will bear his iniquity.

¹⁸If a man sleeps with a menstruating woman and has sexual intercourse with her, he has exposed the source of her flow, and she has uncovered the source of her blood. Both of them are to be cut off from their people.

¹⁹You must not have sexual intercourse with your mother’s sister or your father’s sister, for it is exposing one’s own blood relative; both people will bear their iniquity.

²⁰If a man sleeps with his aunt, he has violated the intimacy that belongs to his uncle; they will bear their guilt and die childless.

²¹If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is impurity. He has violated the intimacy that belongs to his brother; they will be childless.

²²“You are to keep all my statutes and all my ordinances, and do them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live will not vomit you out.

²³You must not follow the statutes of the nations I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and I abhorred them.

²⁴And I promised you: You will inherit their land, since I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. I am the LORD your God who set you apart from the peoples.

²⁵Therefore you are to distinguish the clean animal from the unclean one, and the unclean bird from the clean one. Do not become contaminated by any land animal, bird, or whatever crawls on the ground; I have set these apart as unclean for you.

²⁶You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be mine.

²⁷“A man or a woman who is a medium or a spiritist must be put to death. They are to be stoned; their death is their own fault.”

¹For I want you to know how greatly I am struggling for you, for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me in person.

²I want their hearts to be encouraged and joined together in love, so that they may have all the riches of complete understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery  — Christ.

³In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

⁴I am saying this so that no one will deceive you with arguments that sound reasonable.

⁵For I may be absent in body, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ.

⁶So then, just as you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him,

⁷being rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.

⁸Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ.

⁹For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ,

¹⁰and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.

¹¹You were also circumcised in him with a circumcision not done with hands, by putting off the body of flesh, in the circumcision of Christ,

¹²when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.

¹³And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.

¹⁴He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

¹⁵He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him.

¹⁶Therefore, don’t let anyone judge you in regard to food and drink or in the matter of a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day.

¹⁷These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is Christ.

¹⁸Let no one condemn you by delighting in ascetic practices and the worship of angels, claiming access to a visionary realm. Such people are inflated by empty notions of their unspiritual mind.

¹⁹He doesn’t hold on to the head, from whom the whole body, nourished and held together by its ligaments and tendons, grows with growth from God.

²⁰If you died with Christ to the elements of this world, why do you live as if you still belonged to the world? Why do you submit to regulations:

²¹“Don’t handle, don’t taste, don’t touch”?

²²All these regulations refer to what is destined to perish by being used up; they are human commands and doctrines.

²³Although these have a reputation for wisdom by promoting self-made religion, false humility, and severe treatment of the body, they are not of any value in curbing self-indulgence.

¹My little children, I am writing you these things so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father — Jesus Christ the righteous one.

²He himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for those of the whole world.

³This is how we know that we know him: if we keep his commands.

⁴The one who says, “I have come to know him,” and yet doesn’t keep his commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

⁵But whoever keeps his word, truly in him the love of God is made complete. This is how we know we are in him:

⁶The one who says he remains in him should walk just as he walked.

⁷Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old command that you have had from the beginning. The old command is the word you have heard.

⁸Yet I am writing you a new command, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.

⁹The one who says he is in the light but hates his brother or sister is in the darkness until now.

¹⁰The one who loves his brother or sister remains in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

¹¹But the one who hates his brother or sister is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and doesn’t know where he’s going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

¹²I am writing to you, little children, since your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.

¹³I am writing to you, fathers, because you have come to know the one who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have conquered the evil one.

¹⁴I have written to you, children, because you have come to know the Father. I have written to you, fathers, because you have come to know the one who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, God’s word remains in you, and you have conquered the evil one.

¹⁵Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

¹⁶For everything in the world — the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions — is not from the Father, but is from the world.

¹⁷And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever.

¹⁸Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. By this we know that it is the last hour.

¹⁹They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.

²⁰But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth.

²¹I have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie comes from the truth.

²²Who is the liar, if not the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This one is the antichrist: the one who denies the Father and the Son.

²³No one who denies the Son has the Father; he who confesses the Son has the Father as well.

²⁴What you have heard from the beginning is to remain in you. If what you have heard from the beginning remains in you, then you will remain in the Son and in the Father.

²⁵And this is the promise that he himself made to us: eternal life.

²⁶I have written these things to you concerning those who are trying to deceive you.

²⁷As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you don’t need anyone to teach you. Instead, his anointing teaches you about all things and is true and is not a lie; just as it has taught you, remain in him.

²⁸So now, little children, remain in him so that when he appears we may have confidence and not be ashamed before him at his coming.

²⁹If you know that he is righteous, you know this as well: Everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

¹A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth.

²It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, since that is the end of all mankind, and the living should take it to heart.

³Grief is better than laughter, for when a face is sad, a heart may be glad.

⁴The heart of the wise is in a house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in a house of pleasure.

⁵It is better to listen to rebuke from a wise person than to listen to the song of fools,

⁶for like the crackling of burning thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This too is futile.

⁷Surely, the practice of extortion turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the mind.

⁸The end of a matter is better than its beginning; a patient spirit is better than a proud spirit.

⁹Don’t let your spirit rush to be angry, for anger abides in the heart of fools.

¹⁰Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?” since it is not wise of you to ask this.

¹¹Wisdom is as good as an inheritance and an advantage to those who see the sun,

¹²because wisdom is protection as silver is protection; but the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of its owner.

¹³Consider the work of God, for who can straighten out what he has made crooked?

¹⁴In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that no one can discover anything that will come after him.

¹⁵In my futile life I have seen everything: someone righteous perishes in spite of his righteousness, and someone wicked lives long in spite of his evil.

¹⁶Don’t be excessively righteous, and don’t be overly wise. Why should you destroy yourself?

¹⁷Don’t be excessively wicked, and don’t be foolish. Why should you die before your time?

¹⁸It is good that you grasp the one and do not let the other slip from your hand. For the one who fears God will end up with both of them.

¹⁹Wisdom makes the wise person stronger than ten rulers of a city.

²⁰There is certainly no one righteous on the earth who does good and never sins.

²¹Don’t pay attention to everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you,

²²for in your heart you know that many times you yourself have cursed others.

²³I have tested all this by wisdom. I resolved, “I will be wise,” but it was beyond me.

²⁴What exists is beyond reach and very deep. Who can discover it?

²⁵I turned my thoughts to know, explore, and examine wisdom and an explanation for things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity and folly is madness.

²⁶And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a trap: her heart a net and her hands chains. The one who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner will be captured by her.

²⁷“Look,” says the Teacher, “I have discovered this by adding one thing to another to find out the explanation,

²⁸which my soul continually searches for but does not find: I found one person in a thousand, but none of those was a woman.

²⁹Only see this: I have discovered that God made people upright, but they pursued many schemes.”

¹Hallelujah! How good it is to sing to our God, for praise is pleasant and lovely.

²The LORD rebuilds Jerusalem; he gathers Israel’s exiled people.

³He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.

⁴He counts the number of the stars; he gives names to all of them.

⁵Our Lord is great, vast in power; his understanding is infinite.

⁶The LORD helps the oppressed but brings the wicked to the ground.

⁷Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving; play the lyre to our God,

⁸who covers the sky with clouds, prepares rain for the earth, and causes grass to grow on the hills.

⁹He provides the animals with their food, and the young ravens, what they cry for.

¹⁰He is not impressed by the strength of a horse; he does not value the power of a warrior.

¹¹The LORD values those who fear him, those who put their hope in his faithful love.

¹²Exalt the LORD, Jerusalem; praise your God, Zion!

¹³For he strengthens the bars of your city gates and blesses your children within you.

¹⁴He endows your territory with prosperity; he satisfies you with the finest wheat.

¹⁵He sends his command throughout the earth; his word runs swiftly.

¹⁶He spreads snow like wool; he scatters frost like ashes;

¹⁷he throws his hailstones like crumbs. Who can withstand his cold?

¹⁸He sends his word and melts them; he unleashes his winds, and the water flows.

¹⁹He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and judgments to Israel.

²⁰He has not done this for every nation; they do not know his judgments. Hallelujah!

¹One who isolates himself pursues selfish desires; he rebels against all sound wisdom.

²A fool does not delight in understanding, but only wants to show off his opinions.

³When a wicked person comes, contempt also comes, and along with dishonor, derision.

⁴The words of a person’s mouth are deep waters, a flowing river, a fountain of wisdom.

⁵It is not good to show partiality to the guilty, denying an innocent person justice.

⁶A fool’s lips lead to strife, and his mouth provokes a beating.

⁷A fool’s mouth is his devastation, and his lips are a trap for his life.

⁸A gossip’s words are like choice food that goes down to one’s innermost being.

⁹The one who is lazy in his work is brother to a vandal.

¹⁰The name of the LORD is a strong tower; the righteous run to it and are protected.

¹¹The wealth of the rich is his fortified city; in his imagination it is like a high wall.

¹²Before his downfall a person’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.

¹³The one who gives an answer before he listens — this is foolishness and disgrace for him.

¹⁴A person’s spirit can endure sickness, but who can survive a broken spirit?

¹⁵The mind of the discerning acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks it.

¹⁶A person’s gift opens doors for him and brings him before the great.

¹⁷The first to state his case seems right until another comes and cross-examines him.

¹⁸Casting the lot ends quarrels and separates powerful opponents.

¹⁹An offended brother is harder to reach than a fortified city, and quarrels are like the bars of a fortress.

²⁰From the fruit of a person’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is filled with the product of his lips.

²¹Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.

²²A man who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.

²³The poor person pleads, but the rich one answers roughly.

²⁴One with many friends may be harmed, but there is a friend who stays closer than a brother.

¹Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, “My daughter, shouldn’t I find rest for you, so that you will be taken care of?

²Now isn’t Boaz our relative? Haven’t you been working with his female servants? This evening he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor.

³Wash, put on perfumed oil, and wear your best clothes. Go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let the man know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking.

⁴When he lies down, notice the place where he’s lying, go in and uncover his feet, and lie down. Then he will explain to you what you should do.”

⁵So Ruth said to her, “I will do everything you say.”

⁶She went down to the threshing floor and did everything her mother-in-law had charged her to do.

⁷After Boaz ate, drank, and was in good spirits, he went to lie down at the end of the pile of barley, and she came secretly, uncovered his feet, and lay down.

⁸At midnight, Boaz was startled, turned over, and there lying at his feet was a woman!

⁹So he asked, “Who are you?” “I am Ruth, your servant,” she replied. “Take me under your wing, for you are a family redeemer.”

¹⁰Then he said, “May the LORD bless you, my daughter. You have shown more kindness now than before, because you have not pursued younger men, whether rich or poor.

¹¹Now don’t be afraid, my daughter. I will do for you whatever you say, since all the people in my town know that you are a woman of noble character.

¹²Yes, it is true that I am a family redeemer, but there is a redeemer closer than I am.

¹³Stay here tonight, and in the morning, if he wants to redeem you, that’s good. Let him redeem you. But if he doesn’t want to redeem you, as the LORD lives, I will. Now lie down until morning.”

¹⁴So she lay down at his feet until morning but got up while it was still dark. Then Boaz said, “Don’t let it be known that a woman came to the threshing floor.”

¹⁵And he told Ruth, “Bring the shawl you’re wearing and hold it out.” When she held it out, he shoveled six measures of barley into her shawl, and she went into the town.

¹⁶She went to her mother-in-law, Naomi, who asked her, “What happened, my daughter?” Then Ruth told her everything the man had done for her.

¹⁷She said, “He gave me these six measures of barley, because he said, ‘Don’t go back to your mother-in-law empty-handed.’”

¹⁸Naomi said, “My daughter, wait until you find out how things go, for he won’t rest unless he resolves this today.”

¹“Go down and sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, Daughter Chaldea! For you will no longer be called pampered and spoiled.

²Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil, strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, wade through the streams.

³Your nakedness will be uncovered, and your disgrace will be exposed. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.”

⁴The Holy One of Israel is our Redeemer; The LORD of Armies is his name.

⁵“Daughter Chaldea, sit in silence and go into darkness. For you will no longer be called mistress of kingdoms.

⁶I was angry with my people; I profaned my possession, and I handed them over to you. You showed them no mercy; you made your yoke very heavy on the elderly.

⁷You said, ‘I will be the queen forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or think about their outcome.

⁸“So now hear this, lover of luxury, who sits securely, who says to herself, ‘I am, and there is no one else. I will never be a widow or know the loss of children.’

⁹These two things will happen to you suddenly, in one day: loss of children and widowhood. They will happen to you in their entirety, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells.

¹⁰You were secure in your wickedness; you said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray. You said to yourself, ‘I am, and there is no one else.’

¹¹But disaster will happen to you; you will not know how to avert it. And it will fall on you, but you will be unable to ward it off. Devastation will happen to you suddenly and unexpectedly.

¹²So take your stand with your spells and your many sorceries, which you have wearied yourself with from your youth. Perhaps you will be able to succeed; perhaps you will inspire terror!

¹³You are worn out with your many consultations. So let the astrologers stand and save you — those who observe the stars, those who predict monthly what will happen to you.

¹⁴Look, they are like stubble; fire burns them. They cannot rescue themselves from the power of the flame. This is not a coal for warming themselves, or a fire to sit beside!

¹⁵This is what they are to you — those who have wearied you and have traded with you from your youth — each wanders on his own way; no one can save you.

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.