The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

Therefore the LORD says, “If you return, then I will bring you again, that you may stand before me; and if you take out the precious from the vile, you will be as my mouth. They will return to you, but you will not return to them. I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall. They will fight against you, but they will not prevail against you; for I am with you to save you and to deliver you,” says the LORD. “I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem you out of the hand of the terrible.”

For the Chief Musician. To the tune of “Mahalath.” A contemplation by David.

The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity. There is no one who does good. God looks down from heaven on the children of men, to see if there are any who understood, who seek after God. Every one of them has gone back. They have become filthy together. There is no one who does good, no, not one. Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge, who eat up my people as they eat bread, and don’t call on God? There they were in great fear, where no fear was, for God has scattered the bones of him who encamps against you. You have put them to shame, because God has rejected them. Oh that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When God brings back his people from captivity, then Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel shall be glad.

Turn again, we beg you, God of Armies. Look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vine, the stock which your right hand planted, the branch that you made strong for yourself. It’s burned with fire. It’s cut down. They perish at your rebuke. Let your hand be on the man of your right hand, on the son of man whom you made strong for yourself. So we will not turn away from you. Revive us, and we will call on your name. Turn us again, LORD God of Armies. Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved.

Therefore when we couldn’t stand it any longer, we thought it good to be left behind at Athens alone, and sent Timothy, our brother and God’s servant in the Good News of Christ, to establish you and to comfort you concerning your faith, that no one would be moved by these afflictions. For you know that we are appointed to this task. For most certainly, when we were with you, we told you beforehand that we are to suffer affliction, even as it happened, and you know. For this cause I also, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, sent that I might know your faith, for fear that by any means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor would have been in vain.

I will make people more rare than fine gold, even a person than the pure gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place in the LORD of Armies’ wrath, and in the day of his fierce anger. It will happen that like a hunted gazelle and like sheep that no one gathers, they will each turn to their own people, and will each flee to their own land. Everyone who is found will be thrust through. Everyone who is captured will fall by the sword. Their infants also will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be ransacked, and their wives raped.

I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys. As a lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banquet hall. His banner over me is love.

“‘The sword is outside, and the pestilence and the famine within. He who is in the field will die by the sword. He who is in the city will be devoured by famine and pestilence. But of those who escape, they will escape and will be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them moaning, everyone in his iniquity. All hands will be feeble, and all knees will be weak as water. They will also clothe themselves with sackcloth, and horror will cover them. Shame will be on all faces, and baldness on all their heads.

Little children, these are the end times, and as you heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen. By this we know that it is the final hour. They went out from us, but they didn’t belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have continued with us. But they left, that they might be revealed that none of them belong to us. You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I have not written to you because you don’t know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the Antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son doesn’t have the Father. He who confesses the Son has the Father also.

“Put your sword back into its place, for all those who take the sword will die by the sword. Or do you think that I couldn’t ask my Father, and he would even now send me more than twelve legions of angels? How then would the Scriptures be fulfilled that it must be so?” “Have you come out as against a robber with swords and clubs to seize me? I sat daily in the temple teaching, and you didn’t arrest me. But all this has happened that the Scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.”

He who goes about as a tale-bearer reveals secrets; therefore don’t keep company with him who opens wide his lips. Whoever curses his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in blackness of darkness. An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning won’t be blessed in the end. Don’t say, “I will pay back evil.” Wait for the LORD, and he will save you. The LORD detests differing weights, and dishonest scales are not pleasing. A man’s steps are from the LORD; how then can man understand his way?