Acts 17 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

After passing through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they arrived in Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

As he usually did, Paul went in, and for three consecutive Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

explaining and demonstrating that the One had to suffer and then come back to life from the dead. "This Jesus I'm telling you about," he said, "he is the One."

Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, along with a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.

But the Jewish leaders became jealous. They recruited some troublemakers from the street gangs, formed a mob, and threw the city into chaos. They stormed Jason's house, looking for Paul and Silas to drag them out to the crowd.

When they couldn't find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials, shouting, "These people who have been turning the world upside down have shown up here too,

and Jason has welcomed them into his home. They're all defying Caesar's decrees, claiming there's another king — someone called Jesus."

When the crowd and the city officials heard this, they were deeply disturbed.

They made Jason and the others post bail, and then let them go.

That same night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. When they arrived, they went to the Jewish synagogue.

Now the people in Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica. They received the message with real enthusiasm and examined the Scriptures every day to check whether what Paul was saying was actually true.

As a result, many of them believed, including quite a few respected Greek women and men.

But when the Jewish leaders in Thessalonica found out that Paul was preaching God's message in Berea too, they went there as well to stir up and agitate the crowds.

The believers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed behind in Berea.

Those who escorted Paul brought him all the way to Athens. They left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as quickly as possible.

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply troubled to see how the city was completely overrun with idols.

So he debated in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, and every day in the marketplace with whoever happened to be there.

Some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers started debating with him. Some of them asked, "What is this pseudo-intellectual trying to say?" Others said, "He seems to be promoting foreign gods" — because Paul was telling people the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

They took him to the Areopagus and said, "Can we find out what this new teaching of yours is all about?

You're bringing up some strange ideas we've never heard before, and we want to know what they mean."

(All the Athenians and the foreigners living there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

Paul stood up in front of the Areopagus and said: "People of Athens, I can see that you're extremely religious in every way.

As I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So what you worship without really knowing — that's exactly what I'm here to tell you about.

The God who made the world and everything in it — he's the Lord of heaven and earth, and he doesn't live in temples built by human hands.

And he isn't served by human hands as if he needed anything. He's the one who gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

From one man he made every nation of people to live across the whole face of the earth. He set the specific times for them and the exact boundaries of where they would live.

He did this so they would search for God and maybe reach out for him and find him — though he's actually not far from any one of us.

Because in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said, 'We are, in fact, his offspring.'

So since we are God's offspring, we shouldn't think that the divine nature is anything like gold, silver, or stone — something shaped by human skill and imagination.

In the past, God overlooked that kind of ignorance, but now he's commanding all people everywhere to rethink everything.

Because he has set a day when he will judge the world fairly, through a man he has appointed. And he proved this to everyone by raising that man from the dead."

When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them started mocking him. But others said, "We'd like to hear more about this from you."

With that, Paul left the council.

But some people joined him and believed. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.