The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were something like golden crowns, and their faces were like people’s faces. They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like those of lions. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots and horses rushing to war. They have tails like those of scorpions, with stingers. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months. They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is “Abaddon”, but in Greek, he has the name “Apollyon”. The first woe is past. Behold, there are still two woes coming after this.

Therefore the LORD of Armies says, “Behold, I will melt them and test them; for how should I deal with the daughter of my people? Their tongue is a deadly arrow. It speaks deceit. One speaks peaceably to his neighbor with his mouth, but in his heart, he waits to ambush him. Shouldn’t I punish them for these things?” says the LORD. “Shouldn’t my soul be avenged on a nation such as this? I will weep and wail for the mountains, and lament for the pastures of the wilderness, because they are burned up, so that no one passes through; Men can’t hear the voice of the livestock. Both the birds of the sky and the animals have fled. They are gone. “I will make Jerusalem heaps, a dwelling place of jackals. I will make the cities of Judah a desolation, without inhabitant.” Who is wise enough to understand this? Who is he to whom the mouth of the LORD has spoken, that he may declare it? Why has the land perished and burned up like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?

“‘The Lord GOD says: “For this, moreover, I will be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them: I will increase them with men like a flock. As the flock for sacrifice, as the flock of Jerusalem in her appointed feasts, so the waste cities will be filled with flocks of men. Then they will know that I am the LORD.’”

“Most certainly I tell you, I haven’t found so great a faith, not even in Israel. I tell you that many will come from the east and the west, and will sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, but the children of the Kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” “Go your way. Let it be done for you as you have believed.”

A Poem by David.

Preserve me, God, for I take refuge in you. My soul, you have said to the LORD, “You are my Lord. Apart from you I have no good thing.” As for the saints who are on the earth, they are the excellent ones in whom is all my delight. Their sorrows shall be multiplied who give gifts to another god. Their drink offerings of blood I will not offer, nor take their names on my lips. The LORD assigned my portion and my cup. You made my lot secure. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance.

My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places of the mountainside, let me see your face. Let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely. Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that plunder the vineyards; for our vineyards are in blossom. My beloved is mine, and I am his. He browses among the lilies. Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be like a roe or a young deer on the mountains of Bether.

When I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me; and behold, a scroll of a book was in it. He spread it before me. It was written within and without; and lamentations, mourning, and woe were written in it.

“Where are we to buy bread, that these may eat?”

“Egypt is a very beautiful heifer; but destruction out of the north has come. It has come. Also her hired men in the middle of her are like calves of the stall, for they also are turned back. They have fled away together. They didn’t stand, for the day of their calamity has come on them, the time of their visitation. Its sound will go like the serpent, for they will march with an army, and come against her with axes, as wood cutters. They will cut down her forest,” says the LORD, “though it can’t be searched; because they are more than the locusts, and are innumerable. The daughter of Egypt will be disappointed; she will be delivered into the hand of the people of the north.”

Vindicate me, God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation. Oh, deliver me from deceitful and wicked men. For you are the God of my strength. Why have you rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? Oh, send out your light and your truth. Let them lead me. Let them bring me to your holy hill, to your tents. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my exceeding joy. I will praise you on the harp, God, my God. Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him: my Savior, my helper, and my God.