The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

The nations will see and be ashamed of all their might. They will lay their hand on their mouth. Their ears will be deaf. They will lick the dust like a serpent. Like crawling things of the earth, they will come trembling out of their dens. They will come with fear to the LORD our God, and will be afraid because of you. Who is a God like you, who pardons iniquity, and passes over the disobedience of the remnant of his heritage? He doesn’t retain his anger forever, because he delights in loving kindness. He will again have compassion on us. He will tread our iniquities under foot. You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob, and mercy to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.

“Yet I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; and you shall acknowledge no god but me, and besides me there is no savior. I knew you in the wilderness, in the land of great drought. According to their pasture, so were they filled; they were filled, and their heart was exalted. Therefore they have forgotten me. Therefore I am like a lion to them. Like a leopard, I will lurk by the path. I will meet them like a bear that is bereaved of her cubs, and will tear the covering of their heart. There I will devour them like a lioness. The wild animal will tear them. You are destroyed, Israel, because you are against me, against your helper.

But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed, receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and defects, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you; having eyes full of adultery, and who can’t cease from sin, enticing unsettled souls, having a heart trained in greed, accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing; but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A speechless donkey spoke with a man’s voice and stopped the madness of the prophet.

Let all them be shamed who serve engraved images, who boast in their idols. Worship him, all you gods! Zion heard and was glad. The daughters of Judah rejoiced because of your judgments, LORD. For you, LORD, are most high above all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods. You who love the LORD, hate evil! He preserves the souls of his saints. He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Be glad in the LORD, you righteous people! Give thanks to his holy Name.

Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, house of Israel! The LORD says, “Don’t learn the way of the nations, and don’t be dismayed at the signs of the sky; for the nations are dismayed at them. For the customs of the peoples are vanity; for one cuts a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman with the ax. They deck it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers, so that it can’t move. They are like a palm tree, of turned work, and don’t speak. They must be carried, because they can’t move. Don’t be afraid of them; for they can’t do evil, neither is it in them to do good.”

Now therefore, please make a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust in Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Have I come up now without the LORD against this land to destroy it? The LORD said to me, “Go up against this land, and destroy it.”’”

I looked, and I heard something like a voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders. The number of them was ten thousands of ten thousands, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who has been killed to receive the power, wealth, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and blessing!” I heard every created thing which is in heaven, on the earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them, saying, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing, the honor, the glory, and the dominion, forever and ever! Amen!” The four living creatures said, “Amen!” Then the elders fell down and worshiped.

“‘“Because you have had a perpetual hostility, and have given over the children of Israel to the power of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time of the iniquity of the end, therefore, as I live,” says the Lord GOD, “I will prepare you for blood, and blood will pursue you. Since you have not hated blood, therefore blood will pursue you. Thus I will make Mount Seir an astonishment and a desolation. I will cut off from it him who passes through and him who returns. I will fill its mountains with its slain. The slain with the sword will fall in your hills and in your valleys and in all your watercourses. I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will not be inhabited. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

Therefore the LORD, the God of Armies, the Lord, says: “Wailing will be in all the wide ways. They will say in all the streets, ‘Alas! Alas!’ They will call the farmer to mourning, and those who are skillful in lamentation to wailing. In all vineyards there will be wailing, for I will pass through the middle of you,” says the LORD. “Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why do you long for the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light. As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him; or he went into the house and leaned his hand on the wall, and a snake bit him.

“Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?” “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way. From now on, sin no more.” “I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life.”