Acts 17 :: New King James Version (NKJV)

Preaching Christ at Thessalonica

Paul at Thessalonica, Berea, and Athens

Act 17:1Now when they had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

Act 17:2

Act 17:2Then Paul, as his custom was, went in to them, and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

Act 17:3

Act 17:3explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer and rise again from the dead, and saying, “This Jesus whom I preach to you is the Christ.”

Act 17:4

Act 17:4And some of them were persuaded; and a great multitude of the devout Greeks, and not a few of the leading women, joined Paul and Silas.

Assault on Jason’s House

Act 17:5

Act 17:5But the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious,[fn] took some of the evil men from the marketplace, and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.

Act 17:6

Act 17:6But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.

Act 17:7

Act 17:7“Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus.”

Act 17:8

Act 17:8And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things.

Act 17:9

Act 17:9So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

Ministering at Berea

Act 17:10

Act 17:10Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.

Act 17:11

Act 17:11These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so.

Act 17:12

Act 17:12Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men.

Act 17:13

Act 17:13But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was preached by Paul at Berea, they came there also and stirred up the crowds.

Act 17:14

Act 17:14Then immediately the brethren sent Paul away, to go to the sea; but both Silas and Timothy remained there.

Act 17:15

Act 17:15So those who conducted Paul brought him to Athens; and receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him with all speed, they departed.

The Philosophers at Athens

Act 17:16

Act 17:16Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.

Act 17:17

Act 17:17Therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers, and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.

Act 17:18

Act 17:18Then[fn] certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him. And some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods,” because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.

Act 17:19

Act 17:19And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, “May we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?

Act 17:20

Act 17:20“For you are bringing some strange things to our ears. Therefore we want to know what these things mean.”

Act 17:21

Act 17:21For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.

Addressing the Areopagus

Act 17:22

Act 17:22Then Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious;

Act 17:23

Act 17:23“for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription:

TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you:

Act 17:24

Act 17:24“God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands.

Act 17:25

Act 17:25“Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things.

Act 17:26

Act 17:26“And He has made from one blood[fn] every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings,

Act 17:27

Act 17:27“so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;

Act 17:28

Act 17:28“for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’

Act 17:29

Act 17:29“Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.

Act 17:30

Act 17:30“Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,

Act 17:31

Act 17:31“because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

Act 17:32

Act 17:32And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, “We will hear you again on this matter.”

Act 17:33

Act 17:33So Paul departed from among them.

Act 17:34

Act 17:34However, some men joined him and believed, among them Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

See the NKJV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

NKJV Footnotes

(17:5)

NU-Text omits who were not persuaded; M-Text omits becoming envious.

(17:18)

NU-Text and M-Text add also.

(17:26)

NU-Text omits blood.

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For more information on this translation, see the NKJV Preface.