The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

By David.

The LORD is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? When evildoers came at me to eat up my flesh, even my adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an army should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, even then I will be confident. One thing I have asked of the LORD, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in the LORD’s house all the days of my life, to see the LORD’s beauty, and to inquire in his temple. For in the day of trouble, he will keep me secretly in his pavilion. In the secret place of his tabernacle, he will hide me. He will lift me up on a rock. Now my head will be lifted up above my enemies around me. I will offer sacrifices of joy in his tent. I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD. Hear, LORD, when I cry with my voice. Have mercy also on me, and answer me.

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and humility, with patience, bearing with one another in love, being eager to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, even as you also were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in us all.

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. The rich rule over the poor. The borrower is servant to the lender. He who sows wickedness reaps trouble, and the rod of his fury will be destroyed. He who has a generous eye will be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor. Drive out the mocker, and strife will go out; yes, quarrels and insults will stop. He who loves purity of heart and speaks gracefully is the king’s friend.

Why then have the people of Jerusalem fallen back by a perpetual backsliding? They cling to deceit. They refuse to return. I listened and heard, but they didn’t say what is right. No one repents of his wickedness, saying, “What have I done?” Everyone turns to his course, as a horse that rushes headlong in the battle. Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times. The turtledove, the swallow, and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don’t know the LORD’s law.

Every wise woman builds her house, but the foolish one tears it down with her own hands. He who walks in his uprightness fears the LORD, but he who is perverse in his ways despises him. The fool’s talk brings a rod to his back, but the lips of the wise protect them. Where no oxen are, the crib is clean, but much increase is by the strength of the ox. A truthful witness will not lie, but a false witness pours out lies. A scoffer seeks wisdom, and doesn’t find it, but knowledge comes easily to a discerning person.

I took the little book out of the angel’s hand, and ate it. It was as sweet as honey in my mouth. When I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. They told me, “You must prophesy again over many peoples, nations, languages, and kings.”

LORD, in trouble they have visited you. They poured out a prayer when your chastening was on them. Just as a woman with child, who draws near the time of her delivery, is in pain and cries out in her pangs, so we have been before you, LORD. We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance on the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen. Your dead shall live. Their dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the earth will cast out the departed spirits. Come, my people, enter into your rooms, and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourself for a little moment, until the indignation is past. For, behold, the LORD comes out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity. The earth also will disclose her blood, and will no longer cover her slain.

He will lift up a banner to the nations from far away, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly. No one shall be weary nor stumble among them; no one shall slumber nor sleep, neither shall the belt of their waist be untied, nor the strap of their sandals be broken, whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent. Their horses’ hoofs will be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. Their roaring will be like a lioness. They will roar like young lions. Yes, they shall roar, and seize their prey and carry it off, and there will be no one to deliver. They will roar against them in that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks to the land, behold, darkness and distress. The light is darkened in its clouds.

Baruch the son of Neriah did according to all that Jeremiah the prophet commanded him, reading in the book the LORD’s words in the LORD’s house. Now in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem, proclaimed a fast before the LORD. Then Baruch read the words of Jeremiah from the book in the LORD’s house, in the room of Gemariah the son of Shaphan the scribe, in the upper court, at the entry of the new gate of the LORD’s house, in the ears of all the people.

So she uncovered her prostitution and uncovered her nakedness. Then my soul was alienated from her, just like my soul was alienated from her sister. Yet she multiplied her prostitution, remembering the days of her youth, in which she had played the prostitute in the land of Egypt. She lusted after their lovers, whose flesh is as the flesh of donkeys, and whose issue is like the issue of horses. Thus you called to memory the lewdness of your youth, in the caressing of your nipples by the Egyptians because of your youthful breasts.