For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities— his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.
In the past he permitted all the nations to go their own ways,but he never left them without evidence of himself and his goodness. For instance, he sends you rain and good crops and gives you food and joyful hearts.”
The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship.Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known.They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard.Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. God has made a home in the heavens for the sun.It bursts forth like a radiant bridegroom after his wedding. It rejoices like a great athlete eager to run the race.The sun rises at one end of the heavens and follows its course to the other end. Nothing can hide from its heat.
for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it:‘ To an Unknown God.’ This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I’m telling you about.“ He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn’t live in man made temples,and human hands can’t serve his needs— for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.“ His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him— though he is not far from any one of us.For in him we live and move and exist. As some of your own poets have said,‘ We are his offspring.’And since this is true, we shouldn’t think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.“ God overlooked people’s ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him.
Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing.
But the Lord is the only true God. He is the living God and the everlasting King! The whole earth trembles at his anger. The nations cannot stand up to his wrath.Say this to those who worship other gods:“ Your so called gods, who did not make the heavens and earth, will vanish from the earth and from under the heavens.”But the Lord made the earth by his power, and he preserves it by his wisdom. With his own understanding he stretched out the heavens.When he speaks in the thunder, the heavens roar with rain. He causes the clouds to rise over the earth. He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from his storehouses.
