Acts
Chapter 17
1 When they took the road through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they reached Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews.
保禄和息拉经过安非颇里和阿颇罗尼亚，来到得撒洛尼，在那里有犹太人的会堂。
2 Following his usual custom, Paul joined them, and for three sabbaths he entered into discussions with them from the scriptures,
保禄照常例，到他们那里，一连三个安息日，根据圣经和他们辩论，
3 expounding and demonstrating that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead, and that ＂This is the Messiah, Jesus, whom I proclaim to you.＂
阐明指出默西亚必须受难，并从死者中复活；且说：＂我向你们所传报的耶稣，就是默西亚。＂
4 Some of them were convinced and joined Paul and Silas; so, too, a great number of Greeks who were worshipers, and not a few of the prominent women.
他们中有些人信服了，便与保禄和息拉联合，还有许多敬畏天主的人和希腊人，以及不少的显贵妇女。
5 But the Jews became jealous and recruited some worthless men loitering in the public square, formed a mob, and set the city in turmoil. They marched on the house of Jason, intending to bring them before the people's assembly.
但是，犹太人却起了嫉妒的心，聚集了一些市井败类，结伙成群，扰乱城市；又闯进雅松家里，搜寻保禄和息拉，要拉他们到民众那里。
6 1 When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city magistrates, shouting, ＂These people who have been creating a disturbance all over the world have now come here,
但没有搜到，就把雅松和几个弟兄，拉到本城官长前，吶喊说：＂这些扰乱天下的人，也到这里来了，
7 and Jason has welcomed them. They all act in opposition to the decrees of Caesar and claim instead that there is another king, Jesus.＂ 2
雅松竟收留了他们；这些人都背叛凯撒谕令行事，说另有一位国王，就是耶稣。＂
8 They stirred up the crowd and the city magistrates who, upon hearing these charges,
他们使群众和本城官长们听了这事，都惶惶不安。
9 took a surety payment from Jason and the others before releasing them.
本城官长便由雅松及其余的人取了保状，便将他们释放了。
10 The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas to Beroea during the night. Upon arrival they went to the synagogue of the Jews.
弟兄们便立即在夜间打发保禄和息拉去贝洛雅；他们到了那里，就进了犹太人的会堂。
11 These Jews were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with all willingness and examined the scriptures daily to determine whether these things were so.
这里的人比得撒洛尼人开明，接受这道，极其热切，天天考究圣经，看这些事是否是真的。
12 Many of them became believers, as did not a few of the influential Greek women and men.
所以他们中有许多人信从了，还有许多希腊尊贵妇女，男子也不少。
13 But when the Jews of Thessalonica learned that the word of God had now been proclaimed by Paul in Beroea also, they came there too to cause a commotion and stir up the crowds.
可是，得撒洛尼的犹太人，一知道保禄在贝洛雅也传开了天主的圣道，就到那里煽动扰乱群众。
14 So the brothers at once sent Paul on his way to the seacoast, while Silas and Timothy remained behind.
弟兄们遂立即打发保禄往海边去；息拉和弟茂德仍留在贝洛雅。
15 After Paul's escorts had taken him to Athens, they came away with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.
送保禄的人领他一直到了雅典；他们领了保禄的命令，叫息拉和弟茂德赶快来到他那里，以后就走了。
16 3 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he grew exasperated at the sight of the city full of idols.
保禄在雅典等候他们时，见城里满是偶像，心神很是悲愤。
17 So he debated in the synagogue with the Jews and with the worshipers, and daily in the public square with whoever happened to be there.
所以他就在会堂里，同犹太人和敬畏天主的人辩论，每天也在街市上，同所遇到的人辩论。
18 Even some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers 4 engaged him in discussion. Some asked, ＂What is this scavenger trying to say?＂ Others said, ＂He sounds like a promoter of foreign deities,＂ because he was preaching about‘Jesus' and ‘Resurrection.'
有几个伊壁鸩鲁派和斯多噶派的哲士同他争论，有的说：＂这个饶舌多言的人想说什么？＂有的说：＂看来他是个外国鬼神的宣传者＂──因为保禄宣讲耶稣及复活的福音。
19 They took him and led him to the Areopagus 5 and said, ＂May we learn what this new teaching is that you speak of?
他门遂带保禄，领他到了阿勒约帕哥，说：＂我们可以知道你所讲的这新道理是什么吗？
20 For you bring some strange notions to our ears; we should like to know what these things mean.＂
我们听见你说了一些新奇的事，所以我们想知道这到底有什么意思。＂
21 Now all the Athenians as well as the foreigners residing there used their time for nothing else but telling or hearing something new.
原来所有的雅典人和侨居在那里的外国人，不管其它的事，只是论谈或探听一些新奇的事。
22 Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said: 6 ＂You Athenians, I see that in every respect you are very religious.
保禄遂即站在阿勒约帕哥当中说：＂众位雅典人，我看你们在各方面都更敬畏神明，
23 For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines, I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.' 7 What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.
因为我行经各处，细看你们所敬之物，也见到一座祭坛，上面写着＂给未识之神。＂现在，我就将你们所敬拜而不认识的这位，传告给你们。
24 The God who made the world and all that is in it, the Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,
创造宇宙及其中万物的天主，既是天地的主宰，就不住人手所建的殿宇，
25 nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything. Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
也不受人手的侍候，好象需要什么似的，而是他将生命、呼吸和一切赏给了众人。
26 He made from one 8 the whole human race to dwell on the entire surface of the earth, and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions,
他由一个人造了全人类，使他们住在全地面上，给他们立定了年限，和他们所居处的疆界；
27 so that people might seek God, even perhaps grope for him and find him, though indeed he is not far from any one of us.
如他们寻求天主，或者可以摸索而找到他；其实，他离我们每人并不远，
28 For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,' 9 as even some of your poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.'
因为我们生活、行动、存在，都在他内，正如你们的某些诗人说的：＂原来我们也是他的子孙。＂
29 Since therefore we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divinity is like an image fashioned from gold, silver, or stone by human art and imagination.
我们既是天主的子孙，就不该想：神就像由人的艺术及思想所制的金银石刻的东西一样。
30 God has overlooked the times of ignorance, but now he demands that all people everywhere repent
天主对那愚昧无知的时代，原不深究；如今却传谕各处的人都要悔改，
31 because he has established a day on which he will‘judge the world with justice' through a man he has appointed, and he has provided confirmation for all by raising him from the dead.＂
因为他已定了一个日期，要由他所立定的人，按正义审判天下，他为给众人一个可信的凭据，就叫这人从死者中复活了。＂
32 When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, ＂We should like to hear you on this some other time.＂
他们一听见死人复活，有的讥笑，有的却说：＂关于这事，我们后来再听你罢！＂
33 And so Paul left them.
这样，保禄便从他们当中出去了。
34 But some did join him, and became believers. Among them were Dionysius, a member of the Court of the Areopagus, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
可是，也有几个人依附保禄而信从了，其中有阿勒约帕哥的官员狄约尼削，和一个名叫达玛黎的妇人；同他们一起信从的，还有其它一些人。
Footnotes(注解)
1 [6-7] The accusations against Paul and his companions echo the charges brought against Jesus in Luke 23:2.
2 [7] There is another king, Jesus: a distortion into a political sense of the apostolic proclamation of Jesus and the kingdom of God (see Acts 8:12).
3 [16-21] Paul's presence in Athens sets the stage for the great discourse before a Gentile audience in Acts 17:22-31. Although Athens was a politically insignificant city at this period, it still lived on the glories of its past and represented the center of Greek culture. The setting describes the conflict between Christian preaching and Hellenistic philosophy.
4 [18] Epicurean and Stoic philosophers: for the followers of Epicurus (342-271 B.C.), the goal of life was happiness attained through sober reasoning and the searching out of motives for all choice and avoidance. The Stoics were followers of Zeno, a younger contemporary of Alexander the Great. Zeno and his followers believed in a type of pantheism that held that the spark of divinity was present in all reality and that, in order to be free, each person must live ＂according to nature.＂ This scavenger: literally, ＂seed-picker,＂ as of a bird that picks up grain. The word is later used of scrap collectors and of people who take other people's ideas and propagate them as if they were their own. Promoter of foreign deities: according to Xenophon, Socrates was accused of promoting new deities. The accusation against Paul echoes the charge against Socrates. ＂Jesus' and ＂Resurrection': the Athenians are presented as misunderstanding Paul from the outset; they think he is preaching about Jesus and a goddess named Anastasis, i.e., Resurrection.
5 [19] To the Areopagus: the ＂Areopagus＂ refers either to the Hill of Ares west of the Acropolis or to the Council of Athens, which at one time met on the hill but which at this time assembled in the Royal Colonnade (Stoa Basileios).
6 [22-31] In Paul's appearance at the Areopagus he preaches his climactic speech to Gentiles in the cultural center of the ancient world. The speech is more theological than christological. Paul's discourse appeals to the Greek world's belief in divinity as responsible for the origin and existence of the universe. It contests the common belief in a multiplicity of gods supposedly exerting their powers through their images. It acknowledges that the attempt to find God is a constant human endeavor. It declares, further, that God is the judge of the human race, that the time of the judgment has been determined, and that it will be executed through a man whom God raised from the dead. The speech reflects sympathy with pagan religiosity, handles the subject of idol worship gently, and appeals for a new examination of divinity, not from the standpoint of creation but from the standpoint of judgment.
7 [23] To an Unknown God': ancient authors such as Pausanias, Philostratus, and Tertullian speak of Athenian altars with no specific dedication as altars of ＂unknown gods＂ or ＂nameless altars.＂
8 [26] From one: many manuscripts read ＂from one blood.＂ Fixed . . . seasons: or ＂fixed limits to the epochs.＂
9 [28] 'In him we live and move and have our being': some scholars understand this saying to be based on an earlier saying of Epimenides of Knossos (6th century B.C.). 'For we too are his offspring': here Paul is quoting Aratus of Soli, a third-century B.C. poet from Cilicia.