16. But while Sha’ul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred up within him when he saw that the city was utterly idolatrous.
17. Therefore, indeed, he was reasoning in the congregation with the Yehuḏim and with the gentile worshippers, and in the market-place daily with those who met there.
18. And some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some were saying, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange mighty ones” – because to them he brought the Good News: יהושע and the resurrection!
19. So they laid hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “Are we able to know what this fresh teaching is of which you speak?
20. “For you are bringing some strange matters to our ears. We wish, then, to know what these mean.”
21. For all the Athenians and the strangers living there spent their leisure time in doing naught but to speak or to hear what is fresh.
22. And having stood in the midst of the Areopagus Sha’ul said, “Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every matter.
23. “For passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO THE UNKNOWN MIGHTY ONE. Not knowing then whom you worship, I make Him known to you:
24. “יהוה, who made the world and all that is in it, this One being Master of heaven and earth, does not dwell in dwellings made with hands.
25. “Nor is He served with men’s hands – as if needing any – Himself giving to all life, and breath, and all else.
26. “And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having ordained beforehand the times and the boundaries of their dwelling,
27. to seek the Master, if at least they would reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.
28. “For in Him we live and move and are, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
29. “Now then, since we are the offspring of Elohim, we should not think that the Elohim is like gold or silver or stone, an image made by the skill and thought of man.
30. “Truly, then, having overlooked these times of ignorance, Elohim now commands all men everywhere to repent,
31. because He has set a day on which He is going to judge the world in righteousness by a Man whom He has appointed, having given proof of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
32. And hearing of the resurrection of the dead, some indeed mocked, while others said, “We shall hear you again concerning this.”
33. And so Sha’ul went out from among them.
34. But some men joined him and believed, among them Dionusios the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.