The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

A song. A Psalm by Asaph.

God, don’t keep silent. Don’t keep silent, and don’t be still, God. For, behold, your enemies are stirred up. Those who hate you have lifted up their heads. They conspire with cunning against your people. They plot against your cherished ones. “Come,” they say, “let’s destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.” For they have conspired together with one mind. They form an alliance against you.

Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand. Belshazzar, while he tasted the wine, commanded that the golden and silver vessels which Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple which was in Jerusalem be brought to him, that the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, might drink from them. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of God’s house which was at Jerusalem; and the king and his lords, his wives and his concubines, drank from them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of bronze, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour, the fingers of a man’s hand came out and wrote near the lamp stand on the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace. The king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king’s face was changed in him, and his thoughts troubled him; and the joints of his thighs were loosened, and his knees struck one against another.

“Behold, I have created the blacksmith who fans the coals into flame, and forges a weapon for his work; and I have created the destroyer to destroy. No weapon that is formed against you will prevail; and you will condemn every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the LORD’s servants, and their righteousness is of me,” says the LORD.

As many as I love, I reprove and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with me. He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.”

“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.”

I hate double-minded men, but I love your law. You are my hiding place and my shield. I hope in your word. Depart from me, you evildoers, that I may keep the commandments of my God. Uphold me according to your word, that I may live. Let me not be ashamed of my hope. Hold me up, and I will be safe, and will have respect for your statutes continually. You reject all those who stray from your statutes, for their deceit is in vain. You put away all the wicked of the earth like dross. Therefore I love your testimonies. My flesh trembles for fear of you. I am afraid of your judgments.

For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in, and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob. This is my covenant with them, when I will take away their sins.”

Referring to

Isaiah @isaiah · Isaiah 27:6-11

In days to come, Jacob will take root. Israel will blossom and bud. They will fill the surface of the world with fruit. Has he struck them as he struck those who struck them? Or are they killed like those who killed them were killed? In measure, when you send them away, you contend with them. He has removed them with his rough blast in the day of the east wind. Therefore by this the iniquity of Jacob will be forgiven, and this is all the fruit of taking away his sin: that he makes all the stones of the altar as chalk stones that are beaten in pieces, so that the Asherah poles and the incense altars shall rise no more. For the fortified city is solitary, a habitation deserted and forsaken, like the wilderness. The calf will feed there, and there he will lie down, and consume its branches. When its boughs are withered, they will be broken off. The women will come and set them on fire, for they are a people of no understanding. Therefore he who made them will not have compassion on them, and he who formed them will show them no favor.

Referring to

Isaiah @isaiah · Isaiah 59:16-21

He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor. Therefore his own arm brought salvation to him; and his righteousness sustained him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a mantle. According to their deeds, he will repay as appropriate: wrath to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies. He will repay the islands their due. So they will fear the LORD’s name from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun; for he will come as a rushing stream, which the LORD’s breath drives. “A Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from disobedience in Jacob,” says the LORD. “As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit who is on you, and my words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth, nor out of the mouth of your offspring, nor out of the mouth of your offspring’s offspring,” says the LORD, “from now on and forever.”

Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom which he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you and personally drag you before the courts? Don’t they blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called?

“Why do we sit still? Assemble yourselves! Let’s enter into the fortified cities, and let’s be silent there; for the LORD our God has put us to silence, and given us poisoned water to drink, because we have sinned against the LORD. We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of healing, and behold, dismay! The snorting of his horses is heard from Dan. The whole land trembles at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones; for they have come, and have devoured the land and all that is in it, the city and those who dwell therein.” “For, behold, I will send serpents, adders among you, which will not be charmed; and they will bite you,” says the LORD. Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow! My heart is faint within me. Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a land that is very far off: “Isn’t the LORD in Zion? Isn’t her King in her?” “Why have they provoked me to anger with their engraved images, and with foreign idols?”

Take the plunder of silver. Take the plunder of gold, for there is no end of treasure, an abundance of every precious thing. She is empty, void, and waste. The heart melts, the knees knock together, their bodies and faces have grown pale. Where is the den of the lions, and the feeding place of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked with the lion’s cubs, and no one made them afraid? The lion tore in pieces enough for his cubs, and strangled prey for his lionesses, and filled his caves with the kill and his dens with prey. “Behold, I am against you,” says the LORD of Armies, “and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword will devour your young lions; and I will cut off your prey from the earth, and the voice of your messengers will no longer be heard.”