The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

The pride of Israel testifies to his face. Therefore Israel and Ephraim will stumble in their iniquity. Judah also will stumble with them. They will go with their flocks and with their herds to seek the LORD, but they won’t find him. He has withdrawn himself from them. They are unfaithful to the LORD; for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the new moon will devour them with their fields.

Does the trumpet alarm sound in a city, without the people being afraid? Does evil happen to a city, and the LORD hasn’t done it? Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, unless he reveals his secret to his servants the prophets. The lion has roared. Who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken. Who can but prophesy? Proclaim in the palaces at Ashdod, and in the palaces in the land of Egypt, and say, “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria, and see what unrest is in her, and what oppression is among them.” “Indeed they don’t know to do right,” says the LORD, “Who hoard plunder and loot in their palaces.”

But you have rejected and spurned. You have been angry with your anointed. You have renounced the covenant of your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust. You have broken down all his hedges. You have brought his strongholds to ruin. All who pass by the way rob him. He has become a reproach to his neighbors. You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries. You have made all of his enemies rejoice. Yes, you turn back the edge of his sword, and haven’t supported him in battle. You have ended his splendor, and thrown his throne down to the ground. You have shortened the days of his youth. You have covered him with shame. Selah.

For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion. Its streams will be turned into pitch, its dust into sulfur, and its land will become burning pitch. It won’t be quenched night or day. Its smoke will go up forever. From generation to generation, it will lie waste. No one will pass through it forever and ever. But the pelican and the porcupine will possess it. The owl and the raven will dwell in it. He will stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.

I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He seized the dragon, the old serpent, who is the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and bound him for a thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years were finished. After this, he must be freed for a short time. I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and such as didn’t worship the beast nor his image, and didn’t receive the mark on their forehead and on their hand. They lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead didn’t live until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over these, the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with him one thousand years.

“You hypocrites! Doesn’t each one of you free his ox or his donkey from the stall on the Sabbath and lead him away to water? Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham whom Satan had bound eighteen long years, be freed from this bondage on the Sabbath day?”

I did so as I was commanded. I brought out my baggage by day, as baggage for moving, and in the evening I dug through the wall with my hand. I brought it out in the dark, and bore it on my shoulder in their sight. In the morning, the LORD’s word came to me, saying, “Son of man, hasn’t the house of Israel, the rebellious house, said to you, ‘What are you doing?’ “Say to them, ‘The Lord GOD says: “This burden concerns the prince in Jerusalem, and all the house of Israel among whom they are.”’ “Say, ‘I am your sign. As I have done, so will it be done to them. They will go into exile, into captivity.

Therefore Daniel went in to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He went and said this to him: “Don’t destroy the wise men of Babylon. Bring me in before the king, and I will show to the king the interpretation.” Then Arioch brought in Daniel before the king in haste, and said this to him: “I have found a man of the children of the captivity of Judah who will make known to the king the interpretation.” The king answered Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to make known to me the dream which I have seen, and its interpretation?” Daniel answered before the king, and said, “The secret which the king has demanded can’t be shown to the king by wise men, enchanters, magicians, or soothsayers; but there is a God in heaven who reveals secrets, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days. Your dream and the visions of your head on your bed are these:

You were made alive when you were dead in transgressions and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the children of disobedience. We also all once lived among them in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

For you were called to this, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps, who didn’t sin, “neither was deceit found in his mouth.” When he was cursed, he didn’t curse back. When he suffered, he didn’t threaten, but committed himself to him who judges righteously. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live to righteousness. You were healed by his wounds. For you were going astray like sheep; but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.