The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

Open your mouth for the mute, in the cause of all who are left desolate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and serve justice to the poor and needy.”

Let him who is in the field not return back to take his cloak. But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days! Pray that your flight won’t be in the winter. For in those days there will be oppression, such as there has not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be. Unless the Lord had shortened the days, no flesh would have been saved; but for the sake of the chosen ones, whom he picked out, he shortened the days.

I searched in my heart how to cheer my flesh with wine, my heart yet guiding me with wisdom, and how to lay hold of folly, until I might see what it was good for the sons of men that they should do under heaven all the days of their lives. I made myself great works. I built myself houses. I planted myself vineyards. I made myself gardens and parks, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit. I made myself pools of water, to water the forest where trees were grown.

How long, LORD? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire? Remember how short my time is, for what vanity you have created all the children of men! What man is he who shall live and not see death, who shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah. Lord, where are your former loving kindnesses, which you swore to David in your faithfulness? Remember, Lord, the reproach of your servants, how I bear in my heart the taunts of all the mighty peoples, With which your enemies have mocked, LORD, with which they have mocked the footsteps of your anointed one. Blessed be the LORD forever more. Amen, and Amen.

“‘“But they rebelled against me and wouldn’t listen to me. They didn’t all throw away the abominations of their eyes. They also didn’t forsake the idols of Egypt. Then I said I would pour out my wrath on them, to accomplish my anger against them in the middle of the land of Egypt. But I worked for my name’s sake, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations among which they were, in whose sight I made myself known to them in bringing them out of the land of Egypt. So I caused them to go out of the land of Egypt and brought them into the wilderness. I gave them my statutes and showed them my ordinances, which if a man does, he will live in them. Moreover also I gave them my Sabbaths, to be a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.

This is the word that I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt, and my Spirit lived among you. ‘Don’t be afraid.’ For this is what the LORD of Armies says: ‘Yet once more, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, the earth, the sea, and the dry land; and I will shake all nations. The treasure of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of Armies. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,’ says the LORD of Armies. ‘The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,’ says the LORD of Armies; ‘and in this place I will give peace,’ says the LORD of Armies.”

“But go your way until the end; for you will rest, and will stand in your inheritance at the end of the days.”

In him we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him to an administration of the fullness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, in him. We were also assigned an inheritance in him, having been foreordained according to the purpose of him who does all things after the counsel of his will, to the end that we should be to the praise of his glory, we who had before hoped in Christ. In him you also, having heard the word of the truth, the Good News of your salvation—in whom, having also believed, you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is a pledge of our inheritance, to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of his glory.

For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David.

How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me? Behold, and answer me, LORD, my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death; lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him;” lest my adversaries rejoice when I fall. But I trust in your loving kindness. My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has been good to me.

It will happen in that day,” says the Lord GOD, “that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day. I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will make you wear sackcloth on all your bodies, and baldness on every head. I will make it like the mourning for an only son, and its end like a bitter day. Behold, the days come,” says the Lord GOD, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the LORD’s words. They will wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east; they will run back and forth to seek the LORD’s word, and will not find it. In that day the beautiful virgins and the young men will faint for thirst. Those who swear by the sin of Samaria, and say, ‘As your god, Dan, lives,’ and, ‘As the way of Beersheba lives,’ they will fall, and never rise up again.”