The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

A Prayer by David.

Hear, LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul, for I am godly. You, my God, save your servant who trusts in you. Be merciful to me, Lord, for I call to you all day long. Bring joy to the soul of your servant, for to you, Lord, do I lift up my soul. For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, abundant in loving kindness to all those who call on you. Hear, LORD, my prayer. Listen to the voice of my petitions.

How shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the exalted God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams? With tens of thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my disobedience? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does the LORD require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?

Don’t withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in the power of your hand to do it. Don’t say to your neighbor, “Go, and come again; tomorrow I will give it to you,” when you have it by you. Don’t devise evil against your neighbor, since he dwells securely by you. Don’t strive with a man without cause, if he has done you no harm.

“Woe to the rebellious children”, says the LORD, “who take counsel, but not from me; and who make an alliance, but not with my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; who set out to go down into Egypt without asking for my advice, to strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh, and to take refuge in the shadow of Egypt! Therefore the strength of Pharaoh will be your shame, and the refuge in the shadow of Egypt your confusion. For their princes are at Zoan, and their ambassadors have come to Hanes. They shall all be ashamed because of a people that can’t profit them, that are not a help nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach.” The burden of the animals of the South. Through the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches on the shoulders of young donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to an unprofitable people.

Now I desire to remind you, though you already know this, that the Lord, having saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who didn’t believe. Angels who didn’t keep their first domain, but deserted their own dwelling place, he has kept in everlasting bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, having in the same way as these given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh, are shown as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way, these also in their dreaming defile the flesh, despise authority, and slander celestial beings. But Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil and arguing about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him an abusive condemnation, but said, “May the Lord rebuke you!” But these speak evil of whatever things they don’t know. They are destroyed in these things that they understand naturally, like the creatures without reason.

There shall be no strange god in you, neither shall you worship any foreign god. I am the LORD, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people didn’t listen to my voice. Israel desired none of me. So I let them go after the stubbornness of their hearts, that they might walk in their own counsels. Oh that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the LORD would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. But he would have also fed them with the finest of the wheat. I will satisfy you with honey out of the rock.”

“‘“For I will take you from among the nations and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you. I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will keep my ordinances and do them.

Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed. Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin. The sin, when it is full grown, produces death. Don’t be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation nor turning shadow. Of his own will he gave birth to us by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

The shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for war. On their heads were something like golden crowns, and their faces were like people’s faces. They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like those of lions. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron. The sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots and horses rushing to war. They have tails like those of scorpions, with stingers. In their tails they have power to harm men for five months. They have over them as king the angel of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is “Abaddon”, but in Greek, he has the name “Apollyon”. The first woe is past. Behold, there are still two woes coming after this.

But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus; for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, that no one would boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before that we would walk in them.