Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹After this, a Jewish festival took place, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

²By the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem there is a pool, called Bethesda in Aramaic, which has five colonnades.

³Within these lay a large number of the disabled — blind, lame, and paralyzed.

⁴

⁵One man was there who had been disabled for thirty-eight years.

⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and realized he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to get well?”

⁷“Sir,” the disabled man answered, “I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.”

⁸“Get up,” Jesus told him, “pick up your mat and walk.”

⁹Instantly the man got well, picked up his mat, and started to walk. Now that day was the Sabbath,

¹⁰and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “This is the Sabbath. The law prohibits you from picking up your mat.”

¹¹He replied, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”

¹²“Who is this man who told you, ‘Pick up your mat and walk’?” they asked.

¹³But the man who was healed did not know who it was, because Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

¹⁴After this, Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well. Do not sin anymore, so that something worse doesn’t happen to you.”

¹⁵The man went and reported to the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

¹⁶Therefore, the Jews began persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

¹⁷Jesus responded to them, “My Father is still working, and I am working also.”

¹⁸This is why the Jews began trying all the more to kill him: Not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God.

¹⁹Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, the Son is not able to do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does these things.

²⁰For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing, and he will show him greater works than these so that you will be amazed.

²¹And just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he wants.

²²The Father, in fact, judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son,

²³so that all people may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

²⁴“Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life.

²⁵“Truly I tell you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

²⁶For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he has granted to the Son to have life in himself.

²⁷And he has granted him the right to pass judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

²⁸Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the graves will hear his voice

²⁹and come out — those who have done good things, to the resurrection of life, but those who have done wicked things, to the resurrection of condemnation.

³⁰“I can do nothing on my own. I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

³¹“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true.

³²There is another who testifies about me, and I know that the testimony he gives about me is true.

³³You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth.

³⁴I don’t receive human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved.

³⁵John was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.

³⁶“But I have a greater testimony than John’s because of the works that the Father has given me to accomplish. These very works I am doing testify about me that the Father has sent me.

³⁷The Father who sent me has himself testified about me. You have not heard his voice at any time, and you haven’t seen his form.

³⁸You don’t have his word residing in you, because you don’t believe the one he sent.

³⁹You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me.

⁴⁰But you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life.

⁴¹“I do not accept glory from people,

⁴²but I know you — that you have no love for God within you.

⁴³I have come in my Father’s name, and yet you don’t accept me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him.

⁴⁴How can you believe, since you accept glory from one another but don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God?

⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

⁴⁶For if you believed Moses, you would believe me, because he wrote about me.

⁴⁷But if you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe my words?”

¹“You must not spread a false report. Do not join the wicked to be a malicious witness.

²“You must not follow a crowd in wrongdoing. Do not testify in a lawsuit and go along with a crowd to pervert justice.

³Do not show favoritism to a poor person in his lawsuit.

⁴“If you come across your enemy’s stray ox or donkey, you must return it to him.

⁵“If you see the donkey of someone who hates you lying helpless under its load, and you want to refrain from helping it, you must help with it.

⁶“You must not deny justice to a poor person among you in his lawsuit.

⁷Stay far away from a false accusation. Do not kill the innocent and the just, because I will not justify the guilty.

⁸You must not take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and corrupts the words of the righteous.

⁹You must not oppress a resident alien; you yourselves know how it feels to be a resident alien because you were resident aliens in the land of Egypt.

¹⁰“Sow your land for six years and gather its produce.

¹¹But during the seventh year you are to let it rest and leave it uncultivated, so that the poor among your people may eat from it and the wild animals may consume what they leave. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove.

¹²“Do your work for six days but rest on the seventh day so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female slave as well as the resident alien may be refreshed.

¹³“Pay strict attention to everything I have said to you. You must not invoke the names of other gods; they must not be heard on your lips.

¹⁴“Celebrate a festival in my honor three times a year.

¹⁵Observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you are to eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, because you came out of Egypt in that month. No one is to appear before me empty-handed.

¹⁶Also observe the Festival of Harvest with the firstfruits of your produce from what you sow in the field, and observe the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather your produce from the field.

¹⁷Three times a year all your males are to appear before the Lord GOD.

¹⁸“You must not offer the blood of my sacrifices with anything leavened. The fat of my festival offering must not remain until morning.

¹⁹“Bring the best of the firstfruits of your land to the house of the LORD your God. “You must not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.

²⁰“I am going to send an angel before you to protect you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared.

²¹Be attentive to him and listen to him. Do not defy him, because he will not forgive your acts of rebellion, for my name is in him.

²²But if you will carefully obey him and do everything I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.

²³For my angel will go before you and bring you to the land of the Amorites, Hethites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites, and I will wipe them out.

²⁴Do not bow in worship to their gods, and do not serve them. Do not imitate their practices. Instead, demolish them and smash their sacred pillars to pieces.

²⁵Serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water. I will remove illnesses from you.

²⁶No woman will miscarry or be childless in your land. I will give you the full number of your days.

²⁷“I will cause the people ahead of you to feel terror and will throw into confusion all the nations you come to. I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you in retreat.

²⁸I will send hornets in front of you, and they will drive the Hivites, Canaanites, and Hethites away from you.

²⁹I will not drive them out ahead of you in a single year; otherwise, the land would become desolate, and wild animals would multiply against you.

³⁰I will drive them out little by little ahead of you until you have become numerous and take possession of the land.

³¹I will set your borders from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates River. For I will place the inhabitants of the land under your control, and you will drive them out ahead of you.

³²You must not make a covenant with them or their gods.

³³They must not remain in your land, or else they will make you sin against me. If you serve their gods, it will be a snare for you.”

¹Now the main point of what is being said is this: We have this kind of high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,

²a minister of the sanctuary and the true tabernacle that was set up by the Lord and not man.

³For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; therefore, it was necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.

⁴Now if he were on earth, he wouldn’t be a priest, since there are those offering the gifts prescribed by the law.

⁵These serve as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was warned when he was about to complete the tabernacle. For God said, Be careful that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.

⁶But Jesus has now obtained a superior ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been established on better promises.

⁷For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second one.

⁸But finding fault with his people, he says: See, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah —

⁹not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. I showed no concern for them, says the Lord, because they did not continue in my covenant.

¹⁰For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

¹¹And each person will not teach his fellow citizen, and each his brother or sister, saying, “Know the Lord,” because they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them.

¹²For I will forgive their wrongdoing, and I will never again remember their sins.

¹³By saying a new covenant, he has declared that the first is obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old is about to pass away.

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:

²Should this abundance of words go unanswered and such a talker be acquitted?

³Should your babbling put others to silence, so that you can keep on ridiculing with no one to humiliate you?

⁴You have said, “My teaching is sound, and I am pure in your sight.”

⁵But if only God would speak and open his lips against you!

⁶He would show you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides. Know then that God has chosen to overlook some of your iniquity.

⁷Can you fathom the depths of God or discover the limits of the Almighty?

⁸They are higher than the heavens — what can you do? They are deeper than Sheol — what can you know?

⁹Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea.

¹⁰If he passes by and throws someone in prison or convenes a court, who can stop him?

¹¹Surely he knows which people are worthless. If he sees iniquity, will he not take note of it?

¹²But a stupid person will gain understanding as soon as a wild donkey is born a human!

¹³As for you, if you redirect your heart and spread out your hands to him in prayer —

¹⁴if there is iniquity in your hand, remove it, and don’t allow injustice to dwell in your tents —

¹⁵then you will hold your head high, free from fault. You will be firmly established and unafraid.

¹⁶For you will forget your suffering, recalling it only as water that has flowed by.

¹⁷Your life will be brighter than noonday; its darkness will be like the morning.

¹⁸You will be confident, because there is hope. You will look carefully about and lie down in safety.

¹⁹You will lie down with no one to frighten you, and many will seek your favor.

²⁰But the sight of the wicked will fail. Their way of escape will be cut off, and their only hope is their last breath.

¹A psalm of Asaph. [1] God is indeed good to Israel, to the pure in heart.

²But as for me, my feet almost slipped; my steps nearly went astray.

³For I envied the arrogant; I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴They have an easy time until they die, and their bodies are well fed.

⁵They are not in trouble like others; they are not afflicted like most people.

⁶Therefore, pride is their necklace, and violence covers them like a garment.

⁷Their eyes bulge out from fatness; the imaginations of their hearts run wild.

⁸They mock, and they speak maliciously; they arrogantly threaten oppression.

⁹They set their mouths against heaven, and their tongues strut across the earth.

¹⁰Therefore his people turn to them and drink in their overflowing words.

¹¹The wicked say, “How can God know? Does the Most High know everything?”

¹²Look at them — the wicked! They are always at ease, and they increase their wealth.

¹³Did I purify my heart and wash my hands in innocence for nothing?

¹⁴For I am afflicted all day long and punished every morning.

¹⁵If I had decided to say these things aloud, I would have betrayed your people.

¹⁶When I tried to understand all this, it seemed hopeless

¹⁷until I entered God’s sanctuary. Then I understood their destiny.

¹⁸Indeed, you put them in slippery places; you make them fall into ruin.

¹⁹How suddenly they become a desolation! They come to an end, swept away by terrors.

²⁰Like one waking from a dream, Lord, when arising, you will despise their image.

²¹When I became embittered and my innermost being was wounded,

²²I was stupid and didn’t understand; I was an unthinking animal toward you.

²³Yet I am always with you; you hold my right hand.

²⁴You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me up in glory.

²⁵Who do I have in heaven but you? And I desire nothing on earth but you.

²⁶My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever.

²⁷Those far from you will certainly perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.

²⁸But as for me, God’s presence is my good. I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, so I can tell about all you do.

¹Dishonest scales are detestable to the LORD, but an accurate weight is his delight.

²When arrogance comes, disgrace follows, but with humility comes wisdom.

³The integrity of the upright guides them, but the perversity of the treacherous destroys them.

⁴Wealth is not profitable on a day of wrath, but righteousness rescues from death.

⁵The righteousness of the blameless clears his path, but the wicked person will fall because of his wickedness.

⁶The righteousness of the upright rescues them, but the treacherous are trapped by their own desires.

⁷When the wicked person dies, his expectation comes to nothing, and hope placed in wealth vanishes.

⁸The righteous one is rescued from trouble; in his place, the wicked one goes in.

⁹With his mouth the ungodly destroys his neighbor, but through knowledge the righteous are rescued.

¹⁰When the righteous thrive, a city rejoices; when the wicked die, there is joyful shouting.

¹¹A city is built up by the blessing of the upright, but it is torn down by the mouth of the wicked.

¹²Whoever shows contempt for his neighbor lacks sense, but a person with understanding keeps silent.

¹³A gossip goes around revealing a secret, but a trustworthy person keeps a confidence.

¹⁴Without guidance, a people will fall, but with many counselors there is deliverance.

¹⁵If someone puts up security for a stranger, he will suffer for it, but the one who hates such agreements is protected.

¹⁶A gracious woman gains honor, but violent people gain only riches.

¹⁷A kind man benefits himself, but a cruel person brings ruin on himself.

¹⁸The wicked person earns an empty wage, but the one who sows righteousness, a true reward.

¹⁹Genuine righteousness leads to life, but pursuing evil leads to death.

²⁰Those with twisted minds are detestable to the LORD, but those with blameless conduct are his delight.

²¹Be assured that a wicked person will not go unpunished, but the offspring of the righteous will escape.

²²A beautiful woman who rejects good sense is like a gold ring in a pig’s snout.

²³The desire of the righteous turns out well, but the hope of the wicked leads to wrath.

²⁴One person gives freely, yet gains more; another withholds what is right, only to become poor.

²⁵A generous person will be enriched, and the one who gives a drink of water will receive water.

²⁶People will curse anyone who hoards grain, but a blessing will come to the one who sells it.

²⁷The one who searches for what is good seeks favor, but if someone looks for trouble, it will come to him.

²⁸Anyone trusting in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like foliage.

²⁹The one who brings ruin on his household will inherit the wind, and a fool will be a slave to someone whose heart is wise.

³⁰The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and a wise person captivates people. 

³¹If the righteous will be repaid on earth, how much more the wicked and sinful.

¹When Saul returned from pursuing the Philistines, he was told, “David is in the wilderness near En-gedi.”

²So Saul took three thousand of Israel’s fit young men and went to look for David and his men in front of the Rocks of the Wild Goats.

³When Saul came to the sheep pens along the road, a cave was there, and he went in to relieve himself. David and his men were staying in the recesses of the cave,

⁴so they said to him, “Look, this is the day the LORD told you about: ‘I will hand your enemy over to you so you can do to him whatever you desire.’” Then David got up and secretly cut off the corner of Saul’s robe.

⁵Afterward, David’s conscience bothered him because he had cut off the corner of Saul’s robe.

⁶He said to his men, “I swear before the LORD: I would never do such a thing to my lord, the LORD’s anointed. I will never lift my hand against him, since he is the LORD’s anointed.”

⁷With these words David persuaded his men, and he did not let them rise up against Saul. Then Saul left the cave and went on his way.

⁸After that, David got up, went out of the cave, and called to Saul, “My lord the king!” When Saul looked behind him, David knelt low with his face to the ground and paid homage.

⁹David said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of people who say, ‘Look, David intends to harm you’?

¹⁰You can see with your own eyes that the LORD handed you over to me today in the cave. Someone advised me to kill you, but I took pity on you and said: I won’t lift my hand against my lord, since he is the LORD’s anointed.

¹¹Look, my father! Look at the corner of your robe in my hand, for I cut it off, but I didn’t kill you. Recognize that I’ve committed no crime or rebellion. I haven’t sinned against you even though you are hunting me down to take my life.

¹²“May the LORD judge between me and you, and may the LORD take vengeance on you for me, but my hand will never be against you.

¹³As the old proverb says, ‘Wickedness comes from wicked people.’ My hand will never be against you.

¹⁴Who has the king of Israel come after? What are you chasing after? A dead dog? A single flea?

¹⁵May the LORD be judge and decide between you and me. May he take notice and plead my case and deliver me from you.”

¹⁶When David finished saying these things to him, Saul replied, “Is that your voice, David my son?” Then Saul wept aloud

¹⁷and said to David, “You are more righteous than I, for you have done what is good to me though I have done what is evil to you.

¹⁸You yourself have told me today what good you did for me: when the LORD handed me over to you, you didn’t kill me.

¹⁹When a man finds his enemy, does he let him go unharmed? May the LORD repay you with good for what you’ve done for me today.

²⁰“Now I know for certain you will be king, and the kingdom of Israel will be established in your hand.

²¹Therefore swear to me by the LORD that you will not cut off my descendants or wipe out my name from my father’s family.”

²²So David swore to Saul. Then Saul went back home, and David and his men went up to the stronghold.

¹This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

²“Stand in the gate of the house of the LORD and there call out this word: ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who enter through these gates to worship the LORD.

³“‘This is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: Correct your ways and your actions, and I will allow you to live in this place.

⁴Do not trust deceitful words, chanting, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.”

⁵Instead, if you really correct your ways and your actions, if you act justly toward one another,

⁶if you no longer oppress the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow and no longer shed innocent blood in this place or follow other gods, bringing harm on yourselves,

⁷I will allow you to live in this place, the land I gave to your ancestors long ago and forever.

⁸But look, you keep trusting in deceitful words that cannot help.

⁹“‘Do you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and follow other gods that you have not known?

¹⁰Then do you come and stand before me in this house that bears my name and say, “We are rescued, so we can continue doing all these detestable acts”?

¹¹Has this house, which bears my name, become a den of robbers in your view? Yes, I too have seen it. This is the LORD’s declaration.

¹²“‘But return to my place that was at Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first. See what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.

¹³Now, because you have done all these things — this is the LORD’s declaration — and because I have spoken to you time and time again but you wouldn’t listen, and I have called to you, but you wouldn’t answer,

¹⁴what I did to Shiloh I will do to the house that bears my name  — the house in which you trust — the place that I gave you and your ancestors.

¹⁵I will banish you from my presence, just as I banished all of your brothers, all the descendants of Ephraim.’

¹⁶“As for you, do not pray for these people. Do not offer a cry or a prayer on their behalf, and do not beg me, for I will not listen to you.

¹⁷Don’t you see how they behave in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸The sons gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead dough to make cakes for the queen of heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods so that they provoke me to anger.

¹⁹But are they really provoking me?” This is the LORD’s declaration. “Isn’t it they themselves being provoked to disgrace?”

²⁰Therefore, this is what the Lord GOD says: “Look, my anger — my burning wrath — is about to be poured out on this place, on people and animals, on the tree of the field, and on the produce of the land. My wrath will burn and not be quenched.”

²¹This is what the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves,

²²for when I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak with them or command them concerning burnt offering and sacrifice.

²³However, I did give them this command: ‘Obey me, and then I will be your God, and you will be my people. Follow every way I command you so that it may go well with you.’

²⁴Yet they didn’t listen or pay attention but followed their own advice and their own stubborn, evil heart. They went backward and not forward.

²⁵Since the day your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until today, I have sent all my servants the prophets to you time and time again.

²⁶However, my people wouldn’t listen to me or pay attention but became obstinate; they did more evil than their ancestors.

²⁷“When you speak all these things to them, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer you.

²⁸Therefore, declare to them, ‘This is the nation that would not listen to the LORD their God and would not accept discipline. Truth has perished — it has disappeared from their mouths.

²⁹Cut off the hair of your sacred vow and throw it away. Raise up a dirge on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned the generation under his wrath.’

³⁰“For the Judeans have done what is evil in my sight.” This is the LORD’s declaration. “They have set up their abhorrent things in the house that bears my name in order to defile it.

³¹They have built the high places of Topheth in Ben Hinnom Valley in order to burn their sons and daughters in the fire, a thing I did not command; I never entertained the thought.

³²“Therefore, look, the days are coming”  — the LORD’s declaration — “when this place will no longer be called Topheth and Ben Hinnom Valley, but the Valley of Slaughter. Topheth will become a cemetery, because there will be no other burial place.

³³The corpses of these people will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals of the land, with no one to scare them away.

³⁴I will remove from the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem the sound of joy and gladness and the voices of the groom and the bride, for the land will become a desolate waste.

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.