The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

There is no one like you, LORD. You are great, and your name is great in might. Who shouldn’t fear you, King of the nations? For it belongs to you. Because among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their royal estate, there is no one like you. But they are together brutish and foolish, instructed by idols! It is just wood. There is silver beaten into plates, which is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the engraver and of the hands of the goldsmith. Their clothing is blue and purple. They are all the work of skillful men. But the LORD is the true God. He is the living God, and an everlasting King. At his wrath, the earth trembles. The nations aren’t able to withstand his indignation.

Now the natural man doesn’t receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him; and he can’t know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is to be judged by no one. “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he should instruct him?” But we have Christ’s mind.

I have winnowed them with a fan in the gates of the land. I have bereaved them of children. I have destroyed my people. They didn’t return from their ways. Their widows are increased more than the sand of the seas. I have brought on them against the mother of the young men a destroyer at noonday. I have caused anguish and terrors to fall on her suddenly. She who has borne seven languishes. She has given up the spirit. Her sun has gone down while it was yet day. She has been disappointed and confounded. I will deliver their residue to the sword before their enemies,” says the LORD.

Now when I came to Troas for the Good News of Christ, and when a door was opened to me in the Lord, I had no relief for my spirit, because I didn’t find Titus my brother, but taking my leave of them, I went out into Macedonia. Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and reveals through us the sweet aroma of his knowledge in every place. For we are a sweet aroma of Christ to God in those who are being saved and in those who perish: to the one a stench from death to death, to the other a sweet aroma from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as so many, peddling the word of God. But as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, we speak in Christ.

“Ah Lord GOD! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm. There is nothing too hard for you. You show loving kindness to thousands, and repay the iniquity of the fathers into the bosom of their children after them. The great, the mighty God, the LORD of Armies is your name: great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of men, to give everyone according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings; who performed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, even to this day, both in Israel and among other men; and made yourself a name, as it is today; and brought your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs, with wonders, with a strong hand, with an outstretched arm, and with great terror; and gave them this land, which you swore to their fathers to give them, a land flowing with milk and honey.

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.

Now these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the residue of the elders of the captivity, and to the priests, to the prophets, and to all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had carried away captive from Jerusalem to Babylon, (after Jeconiah the king, the queen mother, the eunuchs, the princes of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen, and the smiths had departed from Jerusalem), by the hand of Elasah the son of Shaphan and Gemariah the son of Hilkiah, (whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon). It said:

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ our hope, to Timothy, my true child in faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

“Call together the archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow. Encamp against her all around. Let none of it escape. Pay her back according to her work. According to all that she has done, do to her; for she has been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel. Therefore her young men will fall in her streets. All her men of war will be brought to silence in that day,” says the LORD. “Behold, I am against you, you proud one,” says the Lord, GOD of Armies; “for your day has come, the time that I will visit you. The proud one will stumble and fall, and no one will raise him up. I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it will devour all who are around him.” The LORD of Armies says: “The children of Israel and the children of Judah are oppressed together. All who took them captive hold them fast. They refuse to let them go. Their Redeemer is strong. The LORD of Armies is his name. He will thoroughly plead their cause, that he may give rest to the earth, and disquiet the inhabitants of Babylon.

For if a woman is not covered, let her hair also be cut off. But if it is shameful for a woman to have her hair cut off or be shaved, let her be covered. For a man indeed ought not to have his head covered, because he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For man is not from woman, but woman from man; for man wasn’t created for the woman, but woman for the man. For this cause the woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels.