The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

But the LORD said to me, “Don’t say, ‘I am a child;’ for you must go to whomever I send you, and you must say whatever I command you. Don’t be afraid because of them, for I am with you to rescue you,” says the LORD. Then the LORD stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. Then the LORD said to me, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth. Behold, I have today set you over the nations and over the kingdoms, to uproot and to tear down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” Moreover the LORD’s word came to me, saying, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” I said, “I see a branch of an almond tree.” Then the LORD said to me, “You have seen well; for I watch over my word to perform it.”

For even in Thessalonica you sent once and again to my need. Not that I seek for the gift, but I seek for the fruit that increases to your account. But I have all things and abound. I am filled, having received from Epaphroditus the things that came from you, a sweet-smelling fragrance, an acceptable and well-pleasing sacrifice to God. My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be the glory forever and ever! Amen.

The LORD’s hand was there on me; and he said to me, “Arise, go out into the plain, and I will talk with you there.” Then I arose, and went out into the plain, and behold, the LORD’s glory stood there, like the glory which I saw by the river Chebar. Then I fell on my face. Then the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet. He spoke with me, and said to me, “Go, shut yourself inside your house. But you, son of man, behold, they will put ropes on you, and will bind you with them, and you will not go out among them. I will make your tongue stick to the roof of your mouth so that you will be mute and will not be able to correct them, for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth, and you shall tell them, ‘This is what the Lord GOD says.’ He who hears, let him hear; and he who refuses, let him refuse; for they are a rebellious house.”

“Get behind me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only.’”

“‘“I will make the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem void in this place. I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hand of those who seek their life. I will give their dead bodies to be food for the birds of the sky and for the animals of the earth. I will make this city an astonishment and a hissing. Everyone who passes by it will be astonished and hiss because of all its plagues. I will cause them to eat the flesh of their sons and the flesh of their daughters. They will each eat the flesh of his friend in the siege and in the distress with which their enemies, and those who seek their life, will distress them.”’

Guard your steps when you go to God’s house; for to draw near to listen is better than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they don’t know that they do evil. Don’t be rash with your mouth, and don’t let your heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven, and you on earth. Therefore let your words be few. For as a dream comes with a multitude of cares, so a fool’s speech with a multitude of words. When you vow a vow to God, don’t defer to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you vow.

Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, which you are.

You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!” That which I have heard from the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you. The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?” The watchman said, “The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again.” The burden on Arabia. You will lodge in the thickets in Arabia, you caravans of Dedanites.

But if any man thinks that he is behaving inappropriately toward his virgin, if she is past the flower of her age, and if need so requires, let him do what he desires. He doesn’t sin. Let them marry. But he who stands steadfast in his heart, having no urgency, but has power over his own will, and has determined in his own heart to keep his own virgin, does well. So then both he who gives his own virgin in marriage does well, and he who doesn’t give her in marriage does better. A wife is bound by law for as long as her husband lives; but if the husband is dead, she is free to be married to whomever she desires, only in the Lord. But she is happier if she stays as she is, in my judgment, and I think that I also have God’s Spirit.

“Allow the little children to come to me, and don’t hinder them, for God’s Kingdom belongs to such as these. Most certainly, I tell you, whoever doesn’t receive God’s Kingdom like a little child, he will in no way enter into it.”