Acts 17:29
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.’
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.”
Do read the surrounding verses too, because the context often says more than a single verse.
Compare
- BSB
- 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.
- KJV
- Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device.
- WEB
- Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, or silver, or stone, engraved by art and design of man.
- ASV
- Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and device of man.
- DARBY
- Being therefore [the] offspring of God, we ought not to think that which is divine to be like gold or silver or stone, [the] graven form of man's art and imagination.
- BLB
- Therefore, being offspring of God, we ought not to consider the Divine Being to be like gold or silver or stone, a graven thing of man’s craft and imagination.
- ÅB
- Siden vi er Guds slekt må vi ikke tro at guddommen ligner et bilde av gull eller sølv eller stein, formet av menneskelig kunst og tanke.
- OTB
- Siden vi altså er Guds slekt, bør vi ikke tenke at den guddommelige natur er lik gull eller sølv eller stein, et bilde laget av menneskelig design og dyktighet.
- B1930
- Da vi nu altså er Guds ætt, bør vi ikke tro at guddommen er lik gull eller sølv eller sten, et billedverk av menneskelig kunst og tanke.
Study notes (Tyndale)
Original text and word study
Cross references
Isaiah 40:25
“To whom will you liken Me, or who is My equal?” asks the Holy One.
Read in contextIsaiah 46:5–6
To whom will you liken Me or count Me equal? To whom will you compare Me, that we should be alike?
Read in contextExodus 20:4
You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the earth below, or in the waters beneath.
Read in contextPsalms 115:4–8
Their idols are silver and gold, made by the hands of men.
Read in contextHabakkuk 2:19–20
Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’ or to silent stone, ‘Arise!’ Can it give guidance? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, yet there is no breath in it at all.”
Read in contextRomans 1:20–23
For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from His workmanship, so that men are without excuse.
Read in contextJeremiah 10:4–10
They adorn it with silver and gold and fasten it with hammer and nails, so that it will not totter.
Read in contextPsalms 106:20
They exchanged their Glory for the image of a grass-eating ox.
Read in context