The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

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.

All of them come for violence. Their hordes face forward. They gather prisoners like sand. Yes, they scoff at kings, and princes are a derision to them. They laugh at every stronghold, for they build up an earthen ramp and take it. Then they sweep by like the wind and go on. They are indeed guilty, whose strength is their god.”

You Cushites also, you will be killed by my sword. He will stretch out his hand against the north, destroy Assyria, and will make Nineveh a desolation, as dry as the wilderness. Herds will lie down in the middle of her, all kinds of animals. Both the pelican and the porcupine will lodge in its capitals. Their calls will echo through the windows. Desolation will be in the thresholds, for he has laid bare the cedar beams. This is the joyous city that lived carelessly, that said in her heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” How she has become a desolation, a place for animals to lie down in! Everyone who passes by her will hiss and shake their fists.

Don’t stand in the crossroads to cut off those of his who escape. Don’t deliver up those of his who remain in the day of distress. For the day of the LORD is near all the nations! As you have done, it will be done to you. Your deeds will return upon your own head. For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations will drink continually. Yes, they will drink, swallow down, and will be as though they had not been. But in Mount Zion, there will be those who escape, and it will be holy. The house of Jacob will possess their possessions. The house of Jacob will be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble. They will burn among them and devour them. There will not be any remaining to the house of Esau.” Indeed, the LORD has spoken.

A Psalm by Asaph.

God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in heaps. They have given the dead bodies of your servants to be food for the birds of the sky, the flesh of your saints to the animals of the earth. They have shed their blood like water around Jerusalem. There was no one to bury them. We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and derision to those who are around us. How long, LORD? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?

Do this, knowing the time, that it is already time for you to awaken out of sleep, for salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed. The night is far gone, and the day is near. Let’s therefore throw off the deeds of darkness, and let’s put on the armor of light. Let’s walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, for its lusts.

“I sent plagues among you like I did Egypt. I have slain your young men with the sword, and have carried away your horses. I filled your nostrils with the stench of your camp, yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD. “I have overthrown some of you, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah, and you were like a burning stick plucked out of the fire; yet you haven’t returned to me,” says the LORD. “Therefore I will do this to you, Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, Israel. For, behold, he who forms the mountains, creates the wind, declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the high places of the earth: The LORD, the God of Armies, is his name.”

Don’t let the flood waters overwhelm me, neither let the deep swallow me up. Don’t let the pit shut its mouth on me. Answer me, LORD, for your loving kindness is good. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, turn to me. Don’t hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress. Answer me speedily! Draw near to my soul and redeem it. Ransom me because of my enemies. You know my reproach, my shame, and my dishonor. My adversaries are all before you. Reproach has broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; for comforters, but I found none. They also gave me poison for my food. In my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink. Let their table before them become a snare. May it become a retribution and a trap.

Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death. Don’t be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow. Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

“Ephraim, what shall I do to you? Judah, what shall I do to you? For your love is like a morning cloud, and like the dew that disappears early. Therefore I have cut them to pieces with the prophets; I killed them with the words of my mouth. Your judgments are like a flash of lightning. For I desire mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they, like Adam, have broken the covenant. They were unfaithful to me there.