The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

The word which came to Jeremiah from the LORD, after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were carried away captive to Babylon. The captain of the guard took Jeremiah and said to him, “The LORD your God pronounced this evil on this place; and the LORD has brought it, and done according as he spoke. Because you have sinned against the LORD, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing has come on you. Now, behold, I release you today from the chains which are on your hand. If it seems good to you to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will take care of you; but if it seems bad to you to come with me into Babylon, don’t. Behold, all the land is before you. Where it seems good and right to you to go, go there.” Now while he had not yet gone back, “Go back then,” he said, “to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people; or go wherever it seems right to you to go.” So the captain of the guard gave him food and a present, and let him go. Then Jeremiah went to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and lived with him among the people who were left in the land.

“At the time of the end the king of the south will contend with him; and the king of the north will come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, with horsemen, and with many ships. He will enter into the countries, and will overflow and pass through. He will enter also into the glorious land, and many countries will be overthrown; but these will be delivered out of his hand: Edom, Moab, and the chief of the children of Ammon. He will also stretch out his hand on the countries. The land of Egypt won’t escape. But he will have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt. The Libyans and the Ethiopians will follow his steps. But news out of the east and out of the north will trouble him; and he will go out with great fury to destroy and utterly to sweep away many. He will plant the tents of his palace between the sea and the glorious holy mountain; yet he will come to his end, and no one will help him.

“Yet you say, ‘Why doesn’t the son bear the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done that which is lawful and right, and has kept all my statutes, and has done them, he will surely live. The soul who sins, he shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be on him. “But if the wicked turns from all his sins that he has committed, and keeps all my statutes, and does that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live. He shall not die. None of his transgressions that he has committed will be remembered against him. In his righteousness that he has done, he shall live. Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked?” says the Lord GOD, “and not rather that he should return from his way, and live? “But when the righteous turns away from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, should he live? None of his righteous deeds that he has done will be remembered. In his trespass that he has trespassed, and in his sin that he has sinned, in them he shall die.

“Your words have been harsh against me,” says the LORD. “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against you?’ You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God,’ and ‘What profit is it that we have followed his instructions and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of Armies? Now we call the proud happy; yes, those who work wickedness are built up; yes, they tempt God, and escape.’ Then those who feared the LORD spoke one with another; and the LORD listened and heard, and a book of memory was written before him for those who feared the LORD and who honored his name. They shall be mine,” says the LORD of Armies, “my own possession in the day that I make. I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him. Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who doesn’t serve him.

I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, four horns. I asked the angel who talked with me, “What are these?” He answered me, “These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.” The LORD showed me four craftsmen. Then I asked, “What are these coming to do?” He said, “These are the horns which scattered Judah, so that no man lifted up his head; but these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.”

“But I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt. I will yet again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the solemn feast. I have also spoken to the prophets, and I have multiplied visions; and by the ministry of the prophets I have used parables. If Gilead is wicked, surely they are worthless. In Gilgal they sacrifice bulls. Indeed, their altars are like heaps in the furrows of the field. Jacob fled into the country of Aram. Israel served to get a wife. For a wife he tended flocks and herds. By a prophet the LORD brought Israel up out of Egypt, and by a prophet he was preserved. Ephraim has bitterly provoked anger. Therefore his blood will be left on him, and his Lord will repay his contempt.

Then they are glad because it is calm, so he brings them to their desired haven. Let them praise the LORD for his loving kindness, for his wonderful deeds for the children of men! Let them exalt him also in the assembly of the people, and praise him in the seat of the elders. He turns rivers into a desert, water springs into a thirsty ground, and a fruitful land into a salt waste, for the wickedness of those who dwell in it. He turns a desert into a pool of water, and a dry land into water springs.

Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you not to obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was openly portrayed among you as crucified? I just want to learn this from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now completed in the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if it is indeed in vain?

The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Moab, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime; but I will send a fire on Moab, and it will devour the palaces of Kerioth; and Moab will die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet; and I will cut off the judge from among them, and will kill all its princes with him,” says the LORD. The LORD says: “For three transgressions of Judah, yes, for four, I will not turn away its punishment, because they have rejected the LORD’s law, and have not kept his statutes, and their lies have led them astray, after which their fathers walked; but I will send a fire on Judah, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem.”

“This kind can come out by nothing but by prayer and fasting.”