Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

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

³In these lay a multitude of invalids — blind, lame, and paralyzed.

⁴

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

⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?”

⁷The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”

⁸Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

⁹And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath.

¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.”

¹¹But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’”

¹²They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?”

¹³Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place.

¹⁴Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”

¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him.

¹⁶And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath.

¹⁷But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

¹⁸This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

¹⁹So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

²⁰For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel.

²¹For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

²² For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son,

²³that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

²⁴Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.

²⁵“Truly, truly, I say to 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.

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

²⁷And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

²⁸Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice

²⁹and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

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

³¹ If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true.

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

³³ You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth.

³⁴Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved.

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

³⁶But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.

³⁷And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen,

³⁸and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent.

³⁹ You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,

⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.

⁴¹ I do not receive glory from people.

⁴²But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.

⁴³I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him.

⁴⁴How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?

⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

⁴⁶For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me.

⁴⁷But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

¹“You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness.

²You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice,

³nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.

⁴“If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him.

⁵If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying down under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it; you shall rescue it with him.

⁶“You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in his lawsuit.

⁷Keep far from a false charge, and do not kill the innocent and righteous, for I will not acquit the wicked.

⁸And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and subverts the cause of those who are in the right.

⁹“You shall not oppress a sojourner. You know the heart of a sojourner, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.

¹⁰“For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield,

¹¹but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.

¹²“Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.

¹³“Pay attention to all that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let it be heard on your lips.

¹⁴“Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me.

¹⁵You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed.

¹⁶You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor.

¹⁷Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord GOD.

¹⁸“You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning.

¹⁹“The best of the firstfruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother's milk.

²⁰“Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.

²¹Pay careful attention to him and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him.

²²“But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

²³“When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out,

²⁴you shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces.

²⁵You shall serve the LORD your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from among you.

²⁶None shall miscarry or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.

²⁷I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

²⁸And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you.

²⁹I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply against you.

³⁰Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land.

³¹And I will set your border from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates, for I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you.

³²You shall make no covenant with them and their gods.

³³They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.”

¹Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,

²a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.

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

⁴Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.

⁵They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.”

⁶But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

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

⁸For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,

⁹not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.

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

¹¹And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.

¹²For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

¹³In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

¹Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said:

²“Should a multitude of words go unanswered, and a man full of talk be judged right?

³Should your babble silence men, and when you mock, shall no one shame you?

⁴For you say, ‘My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God's eyes.’

⁵But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you,

⁶and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom! For he is manifold in understanding. Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves.

⁷“Can you find out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?

⁸It is higher than heaven — what can you do? Deeper than Sheol — what can you know?

⁹Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.

¹⁰If he passes through and imprisons and summons the court, who can turn him back?

¹¹For he knows worthless men; when he sees iniquity, will he not consider it?

¹²But a stupid man will get understanding when a wild donkey's colt is born a man!

¹³“If you prepare your heart, you will stretch out your hands toward him.

¹⁴If iniquity is in your hand, put it far away, and let not injustice dwell in your tents.

¹⁵Surely then you will lift up your face without blemish; you will be secure and will not fear.

¹⁶You will forget your misery; you will remember it as waters that have passed away.

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

¹⁸And you will feel secure, because there is hope; you will look around and take your rest in security.

¹⁹You will lie down, and none will make you afraid; many will court your favor.

²⁰But the eyes of the wicked will fail; all way of escape will be lost to them, and their hope is to breathe their last.”

¹Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

²But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.

³For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴For they have no pangs until death; their bodies are fat and sleek.

⁵They are not in trouble as others are; they are not stricken like the rest of mankind.

⁶Therefore pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment.

⁷Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies.

⁸They scoff and speak with malice; loftily they threaten oppression.

⁹They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongue struts through the earth.

¹⁰Therefore his people turn back to them, and find no fault in them.

¹¹And they say, “How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”

¹²Behold, these are the wicked; always at ease, they increase in riches.

¹³All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.

¹⁴For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.

¹⁵If I had said, “I will speak thus,” I would have betrayed the generation of your children.

¹⁶But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task,

¹⁷until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end.

¹⁸Truly you set them in slippery places; you make them fall to ruin.

¹⁹How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!

²⁰Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

²¹When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart,

²²I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you.

²³Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.

²⁴You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory.

²⁵Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

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

²⁷For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you.

²⁸But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.

¹A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is his delight.

²When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom.

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

⁴Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.

⁵The righteousness of the blameless keeps his way straight, but the wicked falls by his own wickedness.

⁶The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the treacherous are taken captive by their lust.

⁷When the wicked dies, his hope will perish, and the expectation of wealth perishes too.

⁸The righteous is delivered from trouble, and the wicked walks into it instead.

⁹With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.

¹⁰When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices, and when the wicked perish there are shouts of gladness.

¹¹By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is overthrown.

¹²Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent.

¹³Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.

¹⁴Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

¹⁵Whoever puts up security for a stranger will surely suffer harm, but he who hates striking hands in pledge is secure.

¹⁶A gracious woman gets honor, and violent men get riches.

¹⁷A man who is kind benefits himself, but a cruel man hurts himself.

¹⁸The wicked earns deceptive wages, but one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward.

¹⁹Whoever is steadfast in righteousness will live, but he who pursues evil will die.

²⁰Those of crooked heart are an abomination to the LORD, but those of blameless ways are his delight.

²¹Be assured, an evil person will not go unpunished, but the offspring of the righteous will be delivered.

²²Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion.

²³The desire of the righteous ends only in good, the expectation of the wicked in wrath.

²⁴One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.

²⁵Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.

²⁶The people curse him who holds back grain, but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it.

²⁷Whoever diligently seeks good seeks favor, but evil comes to him who searches for it.

²⁸Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.

²⁹Whoever troubles his own household will inherit the wind, and the fool will be servant to the wise of heart.

³⁰The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise.

³¹If the righteous is repaid on earth, how much more the wicked and the sinner!

¹When Saul returned from following the Philistines, he was told, “Behold, David is in the wilderness of Engedi.”

²Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the Wildgoats' Rocks.

³And he came to the sheepfolds by the way, where there was a cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave.

⁴And the men of David said to him, “Here is the day of which the LORD said to you, ‘Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.’” Then David arose and stealthily cut off a corner of Saul's robe.

⁵And afterward David's heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe.

⁶He said to his men, “The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD's anointed.”

⁷So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul. And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way.

⁸Afterward David also arose and went out of the cave, and called after Saul, “My lord the king!” And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth and paid homage.

⁹And David said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of men who say, ‘Behold, David seeks your harm’?

¹⁰Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the LORD gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, ‘I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the LORD's anointed.’

¹¹See, my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand. For by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, you may know and see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it.

¹²May the LORD judge between me and you, may the LORD avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you.

¹³As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness.’ But my hand shall not be against you.

¹⁴After whom has the king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? After a dead dog! After a flea!

¹⁵May the LORD therefore be judge and give sentence between me and you, and see to it and plead my cause and deliver me from your hand.”

¹⁶As soon as David had finished speaking these words to Saul, Saul said, “Is this your voice, my son David?” And Saul lifted up his voice and wept.

¹⁷He said to David, “You are more righteous than I, for you have repaid me good, whereas I have repaid you evil.

¹⁸And you have declared this day how you have dealt well with me, in that you did not kill me when the LORD put me into your hands.

¹⁹For if a man finds his enemy, will he let him go away safe? So may the LORD reward you with good for what you have done to me this day.

²⁰And now, behold, I know that you shall surely be king, and that the kingdom of Israel shall be established in your hand.

²¹Swear to me therefore by the LORD that you will not cut off my offspring after me, and that you will not destroy my name out of my father's house.”

²²And David swore this to Saul. Then Saul went home, but David and his men went up to the stronghold.

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

²“Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the LORD.

³Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place.

⁴Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’

⁵“For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another,

⁶if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm,

⁷then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.

⁸“Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail.

⁹Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,

¹⁰and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ — only to go on doing all these abominations?

¹¹Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the LORD.

¹²Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it because of the evil of my people Israel.

¹³And now, because you have done all these things, declares the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer,

¹⁴therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, and in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Shiloh.

¹⁵And I will cast you out of my sight, as I cast out all your kinsmen, all the offspring of Ephraim.

¹⁶“As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.

¹⁷Do you not see what they are doing in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

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

¹⁹Is it I whom they provoke? declares the LORD. Is it not themselves, to their own shame?

²⁰Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, my anger and my wrath will be poured out on this place, upon man and beast, upon the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.”

²¹Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.

²²For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

²³But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’

²⁴But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.

²⁵From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day.

²⁶Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.

²⁷“So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

²⁸And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

²⁹“‘Cut off your hair and cast it away; raise a lamentation on the bare heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.’

³⁰“For the sons of Judah have done evil in my sight, declares the LORD. They have set their detestable things in the house that is called by my name, to defile it.

³¹And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.

³²Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they will bury in Topheth, because there is no room elsewhere.

³³And the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the beasts of the earth, and none will frighten them away.

³⁴And I will silence in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, for the land shall become a waste.

¹Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

²And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

³explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus, whom I proclaim to you, is the Christ.”

⁴And some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women.

⁵But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd.

⁶And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also,

⁷and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.”

⁸And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things.

⁹And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

¹⁰The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue.

¹¹Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

¹²Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.

¹³But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds.

¹⁴Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea, but Silas and Timothy remained there.

¹⁵Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him as soon as possible, they departed.

¹⁶Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols.

¹⁷So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

¹⁸Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities” — because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.

¹⁹And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?

²⁰For you bring some strange things to our ears. We wish to know therefore what these things mean.”

²¹Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.

²²So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.

²³For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.

²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,

²⁵nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.

²⁶And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,

²⁷that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually 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 indeed his offspring.’

²⁹Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.

³⁰The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,

³¹because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

³²Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, “We will hear you again about this.”

³³So Paul went out from their midst.

³⁴But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.