The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

Now as I saw the living creatures, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, for each of the four faces of it. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like a beryl. The four of them had one likeness. Their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel within a wheel. When they went, they went in their four directions. They didn’t turn when they went. As for their rims, they were high and dreadful; and the four of them had their rims full of eyes all around.

“The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond. It is engraved on the tablet of their heart, and on the horns of your altars. Even their children remember their altars and their Asherah poles by the green trees on the high hills. My mountain in the field, I will give your substance and all your treasures for a plunder, and your high places, because of sin, throughout all your borders. You, even of yourself, will discontinue from your heritage that I gave you. I will cause you to serve your enemies in the land which you don’t know, for you have kindled a fire in my anger which will burn forever.” The LORD says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, relies on strength of flesh, and whose heart departs from the LORD. For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land.

Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens his friend’s countenance. Whoever tends the fig tree shall eat its fruit. He who looks after his master shall be honored. Like water reflects a face, so a man’s heart reflects the man. Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied; and a man’s eyes are never satisfied. The crucible is for silver, and the furnace for gold; but man is refined by his praise. Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with grain, yet his foolishness will not be removed from him.

“I am the bread which came down out of heaven.” ‘I have come down out of heaven’?” “Don’t murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up in the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘They will all be taught by God.’ Therefore everyone who hears from the Father and has learned, comes to me.

But we have this treasure in clay vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves. We are pressed on every side, yet not crushed; perplexed, yet not to despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed; always carrying in the body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal flesh. So then death works in us, but life in you.

Just as I entered into judgment with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will enter into judgment with you,” says the Lord GOD. “I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. I will purge out from among you the rebels and those who disobey me. I will bring them out of the land where they live, but they shall not enter into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD.”

Now in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway. Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder came out to him.

On a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed. You also went up there to offer sacrifice. You have set up your memorial behind the doors and the posts, for you have exposed yourself to someone besides me, and have gone up. You have enlarged your bed and made a covenant for yourself with them. You loved what you saw on their bed. You went to the king with oil, increased your perfumes, sent your ambassadors far off, and degraded yourself even to Sheol. You were wearied with the length of your ways; yet you didn’t say, ‘It is in vain.’ You found a reviving of your strength; therefore you weren’t faint.

So let a man think of us as Christ’s servants and stewards of God’s mysteries. Here, moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you, or by a human court. Yes, I don’t even judge my own self. For I know nothing against myself. Yet I am not justified by this, but he who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each man will get his praise from God.

Moreover the LORD’s word came to me, saying, “Son of man, when the house of Israel lived in their own land, they defiled it by their ways and by their deeds. Their way before me was as the uncleanness of a woman in her impurity. Therefore I poured out my wrath on them for the blood which they had poured out on the land, and because they had defiled it with their idols. I scattered them among the nations, and they were dispersed through the countries. I judged them according to their way and according to their deeds. When they came to the nations where they went, they profaned my holy name, in that men said of them, ‘These are the LORD’s people, and have left his land.’ But I had respect for my holy name, which the house of Israel had profaned among the nations where they went.