The Bible, quoted
in its own voices.

I am the LORD, and there is no one else. Besides me, there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is no one besides me. I am the LORD, and there is no one else. I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create calamity. I am the LORD, who does all these things.

I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, If you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am faint with love. How is your beloved better than another beloved, you fairest among women? How is your beloved better than another beloved, that you do so adjure us? My beloved is white and ruddy. The best among ten thousand. His head is like the purest gold. His hair is bushy, black as a raven.

“Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but to us confusion of face, as it is today; to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, who are near and who are far off, through all the countries where you have driven them, because of their trespass that they have trespassed against you. Lord, to us belongs confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him. We haven’t obeyed the LORD our God’s voice, to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. Yes, all Israel have transgressed your law, turning aside, and not obeying your voice. “Therefore the curse and the oath written in the law of Moses the servant of God has been poured out on us, for we have sinned against him.

My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh, that lies between my breasts. My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of En Gedi. Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are like doves. Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, yes, pleasant; and our couch is verdant. The beams of our house are cedars. Our rafters are firs.

The LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel, says: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go. Oh that you had listened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river and your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Your offspring also would have been as the sand and the descendants of your body like its grains. His name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me.” Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! With the sound of joyful shouting announce this, tell it even to the end of the earth; say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!” They didn’t thirst when he led them through the deserts. He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them. He also split the rock and the waters gushed out. “There is no peace”, says the LORD, “for the wicked.”

I have seen his ways, and will heal him. I will lead him also, and restore comforts to him and to his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace, to him who is far off and to him who is near,” says the LORD; “and I will heal them.” But the wicked are like the troubled sea; for it can’t rest and its waters cast up mire and mud. “There is no peace”, says my God, “for the wicked.”

Don’t be hasty in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools. Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?” For you do not ask wisely about this. Wisdom is as good as an inheritance. Yes, it is more excellent for those who see the sun. For wisdom is a defense, even as money is a defense; but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it. Consider the work of God, for who can make that straight which he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider; yes, God has made the one side by side with the other, to the end that man should not find out anything after him.

“Then one who will cause a tax collector to pass through the kingdom to maintain its glory will stand up in his place; but within a few days he shall be destroyed, not in anger, and not in battle. “In his place a contemptible person will stand up, to whom they had not given the honor of the kingdom; but he will come in a time of security, and will obtain the kingdom by flatteries. The overwhelming forces will be overwhelmed from before him, and will be broken. Yes, also the prince of the covenant. After the treaty made with him he will work deceitfully; for he will come up and will become strong with few people. In a time of security he will come even on the fattest places of the province. He will do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers’ fathers. He will scatter among them prey, plunder, and wealth. Yes, he will devise his plans against the strongholds, but only for a time.

When I, even I Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it. Then behold, there stood before me someone with the appearance of a man. I heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai, which called and said, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.” So he came near where I stood; and when he came, I was frightened, and fell on my face; but he said to me, “Understand, son of man, for the vision belongs to the time of the end.” Now as he was speaking with me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face toward the ground; but he touched me and set me upright.

“Stand now with your enchantments and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth, as if you might profit, as if you might prevail. You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you. Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by. The things that you labored in will be like this: those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way. There will be no one to save you.