The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

Then he measured the wall of the house, six cubits; and the width of every side room, four cubits, all around the house on every side. The side rooms were in three stories, one over another, and thirty in each story. They entered into the wall which belonged to the house for the side rooms all around, that they might be supported and not penetrate the wall of the house. The side rooms were wider on the higher levels, because the walls were narrower at the higher levels. Therefore the width of the house increased upward; and so one went up from the lowest level to the highest through the middle level.

“If you will return, Israel,” says the LORD, “if you will return to me, and if you will put away your abominations out of my sight; then you will not be removed; and you will swear, ‘As the LORD lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness. The nations will bless themselves in him, and they will glory in him.” For the LORD says to the men of Judah and to Jerusalem, “Break up your fallow ground, and don’t sow among thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, and take away the foreskins of your heart, you men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of the evil of your doings. Declare in Judah, and publish in Jerusalem; and say, ‘Blow the trumpet in the land!’ Cry aloud and say, ‘Assemble yourselves! Let’s go into the fortified cities!’ Set up a standard toward Zion. Flee for safety! Don’t wait; for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.”

But you didn’t learn Christ that way, if indeed you heard him and were taught in him, even as truth is in Jesus: that you put away, as concerning your former way of life, the old man that grows corrupt after the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, who in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.

“‘The Lord GOD says: “Because Moab and Seir say, ‘Behold, the house of Judah is like all the nations,’ therefore, behold, I will open the side of Moab from the cities, from his cities which are on its frontiers, the glory of the country, Beth Jeshimoth, Baal Meon, and Kiriathaim, to the children of the east, to go against the children of Ammon; and I will give them for a possession, that the children of Ammon may not be remembered among the nations. I will execute judgments on Moab. Then they will know that I am the LORD.”

The LORD said this to me: “Go and stand in the gate of the children of the people, through which the kings of Judah come in and by which they go out, and in all the gates of Jerusalem. Tell them, ‘Hear the LORD’s word, you kings of Judah, all Judah, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that enter in by these gates: The LORD says, “Be careful, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem. Don’t carry a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day. Don’t do any work, but make the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your fathers.

Now he who establishes us with you in Christ and anointed us is God, who also sealed us and gave us the down payment of the Spirit in our hearts. But I call God for a witness to my soul, that to spare you, I didn’t come to Corinth. We don’t control your faith, but are fellow workers with you for your joy. For you stand firm in faith.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were carried away captive to Babylon. The captain of the guard took Jeremiah and said to him, “The LORD your God pronounced this evil on this place; and the LORD has brought it, and done according as he spoke. Because you have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing has come on you. Now, behold, I release you today from the chains which are on your hand. If it seems good to you to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will take care of you; but if it seems bad to you to come with me into Babylon, don’t. Behold, all the land is before you. Where it seems good and right to you to go, go there.” Now while he had not yet gone back, “Go back then,” he said, “to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people; or go wherever it seems right to you to go.” So the captain of the guard gave him food and a present, and let him go. Then Jeremiah went to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and lived with him among the people who were left in the land.

In the tenth year, in the tenth month, on the twelfth day of the month, the LORD’s word came to me, saying, “Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt, and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Speak and say, ‘The Lord GOD says: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lies in the middle of his rivers, that has said, ‘My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.’ I will put hooks in your jaws, and I will make the fish of your rivers stick to your scales. I will bring you up out of the middle of your rivers, with all the fish of your rivers which stick to your scales. I’ll cast you out into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your rivers. You’ll fall on the open field. You won’t be brought together or gathered. I have given you for food to the animals of the earth and to the birds of the sky.

Then Jeremiah the prophet spoke all these words to Zedekiah king of Judah in Jerusalem, when the king of Babylon’s army was fighting against Jerusalem and against all the cities of Judah that were left, against Lachish and against Azekah; for these alone remained of the cities of Judah as fortified cities. The word came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people who were at Jerusalem, to proclaim liberty to them, that every man should let his male servant, and every man his female servant, who is a Hebrew or a Hebrewess, go free, that no one should make bondservants of them, of a Jew his brother. All the princes and all the people obeyed who had entered into the covenant, that everyone should let his male servant and everyone his female servant go free, that no one should make bondservants of them any more. They obeyed and let them go, but afterwards they turned, and caused the servants and the handmaids whom they had let go free to return, and brought them into subjection for servants and for handmaids.

Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you not to obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed among you as crucified? I just want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain?