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Acts 17:22-34
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22 Then Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I see that in every way you are very religious.
23 For as I walked around and examined your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Therefore what you worship as something unknown, I now proclaim to you.
24 The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples made by human hands.
25 Nor is He served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He Himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.
26 From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands.
27 God intended that they would seek Him and perhaps 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 have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are His offspring.’
29 Therefore, being offspring of God, we should not think that the Divine Being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by man’s skill and imagination.
30 Although God overlooked the ignorance of earlier times, He now commands all people everywhere to repent.
31 For He has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”
32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to mock him, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this topic.”
33 At that, Paul left the Areopagus.
34 But some joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others who were with them. -
Acts 13:13-41
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13 After setting sail from Paphos, Paul and his companions came to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem.
14 And from Perga, they traveled inland to Pisidian Antioch, where they entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and sat down.
15 After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the synagogue leaders sent word to them: “Brothers, if you have a word of encouragement for the people, please speak.”
16 Paul stood up, motioned with his hand, and began to speak: “Men of Israel and you Gentiles who fear God, listen to me!
17 The God of the people of Israel chose our fathers. He made them into a great people during their stay in Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He led them out of that land.
18 He endured their conduct for about forty years in the wilderness.
19 And having vanquished seven nations in Canaan, He gave their land to His people as an inheritance.
20 All this took about 450 years. After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet.
21 Then the people asked for a king, and God gave them forty years under Saul son of Kish, from the tribe of Benjamin.
22 After removing Saul, He raised up David as their king and testified about him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse a man after My own heart; he will carry out My will in its entirety.’
23 From the descendants of this man, God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as He promised.
24 Before the arrival of Jesus, John preached a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.
25 As John was completing his course, he said, ‘Who do you suppose I am? I am not that One. But He is coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’
26 Brothers, children of Abraham, and you Gentiles who fear God, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent.
27 The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning Him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath.
28 And though they found no ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have Him executed.
29 When they had carried out all that was written about Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in a tomb.
30 But God raised Him from the dead,
31 and for many days He was seen by those who had accompanied Him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now His witnesses to our people.
32 And now we proclaim to you the good news: What God promised our fathers
33 He has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: ‘You are My Son; today I have become Your Father.’
34 In fact, God raised Him from the dead, never to see decay. As He has said: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’
35 So also, He says in another Psalm: ‘You will not let Your Holy One see decay.’
36 For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep. His body was buried with his fathers and saw decay.
37 But the One whom God raised from the dead did not see decay.
38 Therefore let it be known to you, brothers, that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
39 Through Him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.
40 Watch out, then, that what was spoken by the prophets does not happen to you:
41 ‘Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish! For I am doing a work in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.’” -
Acts 7:23-38
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23 When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his brothers, the children of Israel.
24 And when he saw one of them being mistreated, Moses went to his defense and avenged him by striking down the Egyptian who was oppressing him.
25 He assumed his brothers would understand that God was using him to deliver them, but they did not.
26 The next day he came upon two Israelites who were fighting, and he tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you mistreating each other?’
27 But the man who was abusing his neighbor pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?
28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’
29 At this remark, Moses fled to the land of Midian, where he lived as a foreigner and had two sons.
30 After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
31 When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight. As he approached to look more closely, the voice of the Lord came to him:
32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.
33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.
34 I have indeed seen the oppression of My people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’
35 This Moses, whom they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ is the one whom God sent to be their ruler and redeemer through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
36 He led them out and performed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for forty years in the wilderness.
37 This is the same Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’
38 He was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. And he received living words to pass on to us. -
Acts 7:1-8
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1 Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?”
2 And Stephen declared: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran,
3 and told him, ‘Leave your country and your kindred and go to the land I will show you.’
4 So Abraham left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God brought him out of that place and into this land where you are now living.
5 He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised to give possession of the land to Abraham and his descendants, even though he did not yet have a child.
6 God told him that his descendants would be foreigners in a strange land, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
7 ‘But I will punish the nation that enslaves them,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come forth and worship Me in this place.’
8 Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs. -
Acts 3:11-26
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11 While the man clung to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and ran to them in the walkway called Solomon’s Colonnade.
12 And when Peter saw this, he addressed the people: “Men of Israel, why are you surprised by this? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?
13 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus. You handed Him over and rejected Him before Pilate, even though he had decided to release Him.
14 You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.
15 You killed the Author of life, but God raised Him from the dead, and we are witnesses of the fact.
16 By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know has been made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through Him that has given him this complete healing in your presence.
17 And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders.
18 But in this way God has fulfilled what He foretold through all the prophets, saying that His Christ would suffer.
19 Repent, then, and turn back, so that your sins may be wiped away,
20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus, the Christ, who has been appointed for you.
21 Heaven must take Him in until the time comes for the restoration of all things, which God announced long ago through His holy prophets.
22 For Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to Him in everything He tells you.
23 Everyone who does not listen to Him will be completely cut off from among his people.’
24 Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have proclaimed these days.
25 And you are sons of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers when He said to Abraham, ‘Through your offspring all the families of the earth will be blessed.’
26 When God raised up His Servant, He sent Him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.” -
Acts 2:14-36
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14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, lifted up his voice, and addressed the crowd: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen carefully to my words.
15 These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It is only the third hour of the day!
16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
17 ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on My menservants and maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
19 I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
20 The sun will be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the coming of the great and glorious Day of the Lord.
21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
22 Men of Israel, listen to this message: Jesus of Nazareth was a man certified by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through Him, as you yourselves know.
23 He was delivered up by God’s set plan and foreknowledge, and you, by the hands of the lawless, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross.
24 But God raised Him from the dead, releasing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for Him to be held in its clutches.
25 David says about Him: ‘I saw the Lord always before me; because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.
26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will dwell in hope,
27 because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life; You will fill me with joy in Your presence.’
29 Brothers, I can tell you with confidence that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that He would place one of his descendants on his throne.
31 Foreseeing this, David spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His body see decay.
32 God has raised this Jesus to life, to which we are all witnesses.
33 Exalted, then, to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.
34 For David did not ascend into heaven, but he himself says: ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand
35 until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”’
36 Therefore let all Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ!”
