The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

“Hear, you deaf, and look, you blind, that you may see. Who is blind, but my servant? Or who is as deaf as my messenger whom I send? Who is as blind as he who is at peace, and as blind as the LORD’s servant? You see many things, but don’t observe. His ears are open, but he doesn’t listen. It pleased the LORD, for his righteousness’ sake, to magnify the law and make it honorable. But this is a robbed and plundered people. All of them are snared in holes, and they are hidden in prisons. They have become captives, and no one delivers, and a plunder, and no one says, ‘Restore them!’

Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn’t love his brother remains in death. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him. By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, then closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain in him?

I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and traps, whose hands are chains. Whoever pleases God shall escape from her; but the sinner will be ensnared by her. “Behold, I have found this,” says the Preacher, “to one another, to find an explanation which my soul still seeks, but I have not found. I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a woman among all those. Behold, I have only found this: that God made mankind upright; but they search for many inventions.”

The LORD said to me, “Take for yourself yet again the equipment of a foolish shepherd. For, behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not visit those who are cut off, neither will seek those who are scattered, nor heal that which is broken, nor feed that which is sound; but he will eat the meat of the fat sheep, and will tear their hoofs in pieces. Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock! The sword will strike his arm and his right eye. His arm will be completely withered, and his right eye will be totally blinded!”

“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness. Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. Behold, I have given him for a witness to the peoples, a leader and commander to the peoples. Behold, you shall call a nation that you don’t know; and a nation that didn’t know you shall run to you, because of the LORD your God, and for the Holy One of Israel; for he has glorified you.”

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he carried them into the land of Shinar to the house of his god. He brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god. The king spoke to Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring in some of the children of Israel, even of the royal offspring and of the nobles: youths in whom was no defect, but well-favored, skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding science, and who had the ability to stand in the king’s palace; and that he should teach them the learning and the language of the Chaldeans. The king appointed for them a daily portion of the king’s delicacies and of the wine which he drank, and that they should be nourished three years, that at its end they should stand before the king.

All this I have seen, and applied my mind to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt. So I saw the wicked buried. Indeed they came also from holiness. They went and were forgotten in the city where they did this. This also is vanity. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. Though a sinner commits crimes a hundred times, and lives long, yet surely I know that it will be better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him. But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he lengthen days like a shadow, because he doesn’t fear God.

It is because of the LORD’s loving kindnesses that we are not consumed, because his mercies don’t fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me,” says the LORD, “so your offspring and your name shall remain. It shall happen that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, all flesh will come to worship before me,” says the LORD. “They will go out, and look at the dead bodies of the men who have transgressed against me; for their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”

Go your way—eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works. Let your garments be always white, and don’t let your head lack oil. Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity, for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor plan, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going. I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. For man also doesn’t know his time. As the fish that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them.