The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, four-footed animals, and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves; who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar. Now at that time the king of Babylon’s army was besieging Jerusalem. Jeremiah the prophet was shut up in the court of the guard, which was in the king of Judah’s house. For Zedekiah king of Judah had shut him up, saying, “Why do you prophesy, and say, ‘The LORD says, “Behold, I will give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will take it; and Zedekiah king of Judah won’t escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but will surely be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon, and will speak with him mouth to mouth, and his eyes will see his eyes; and he will bring Zedekiah to Babylon, and he will be there until I visit him,” says the LORD, “though you fight with the Chaldeans, you will not prosper”’?”

Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God’s chosen ones and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who can’t lie, promised before time began; but in his own time revealed his word in the message with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior, to Titus, my true child according to a common faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.

Concerning Shemaiah the Nehelamite you shall speak, saying, “The LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are at Jerusalem, and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, saying, “The LORD has made you priest in the place of Jehoiada the priest, that there may be officers in the LORD’s house, for every man who is crazy and makes himself a prophet, that you should put him in the stocks and in shackles. Now therefore, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth, who makes himself a prophet to you, because he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, The captivity is long. Build houses, and dwell in them. Plant gardens, and eat their fruit?”’”

But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart;” that is, the word of faith which we preach: that if you will confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes resulting in righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in him will not be disappointed.”

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, “Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and say to them, the LORD, the God of Israel says: ‘Cursed is the man who doesn’t hear the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the iron furnace,’ saying, ‘Obey my voice and do them, according to all which I command you; so you shall be my people, and I will be your God; that I may establish the oath which I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey,’ as it is today.” Then I answered, and said, “Amen, LORD.”

Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord! To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not tiresome, but for you it is safe. Beware of the dogs; beware of the evil workers; beware of the false circumcision. For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh; though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If any other man thinks that he has confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the assembly; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless.

But I make known to you, brothers, concerning the Good News which was preached by me, that it is not according to man. For I didn’t receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my way of living in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the assembly of God and ravaged it. I advanced in the Jews’ religion beyond many of my own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets prophesy lies in my name. I didn’t send them. I didn’t command them. I didn’t speak to them. They prophesy to you a lying vision, divination, and a thing of nothing, and the deceit of their own heart. Therefore the LORD says concerning the prophets who prophesy in my name, but I didn’t send them, yet they say, ‘Sword and famine will not be in this land.’ Those prophets will be consumed by sword and famine. The people to whom they prophesy will be cast out in the streets of Jerusalem because of the famine and the sword. They will have no one to bury them—them, their wives, their sons, or their daughters, for I will pour their wickedness on them. “You shall say this word to them: “‘Let my eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease; for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach, with a very grievous wound. If I go out into the field, then behold, the slain with the sword! If I enter into the city, then behold, those who are sick with famine! For both the prophet and the priest go about in the land, and have no knowledge.’”

When I came to you, brothers, I didn’t come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith wouldn’t stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.