1. For behold, the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem, and from Judah, the stay and the staff, the whole staff of bread, and the whole stay of water—

2. The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient;

3. The captain of fifty, and the honorable man, and the counselor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.

4. And I will give children unto them to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.

5. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbor; the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honorable.

6. When a man shall take hold of his brother of the house of his father, and shall say: Thou hast clothing, be thou our ruler, and let not this ruin come under thy hand—

7. In that day shall he swear, saying: I will not be a healer; for in my house there is neither bread nor clothing; make me not a ruler of the people.

8. For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen, because their tongues and their doings have been against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

9. The show of their countenance doth witness against them, and doth declare their sin to be even as Sodom, and they cannot hide it. Wo unto their souls, for they have rewarded evil unto themselves!

10. Say unto the righteous that it is well with them; for they shall eat the fruit of their doings.

11. Wo unto the wicked, for they shall perish; for the reward of their hands shall be upon them!

12. And my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they who lead thee cause thee to err and destroy the way of thy paths.

13. The Lord standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people.

14. The Lord will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people and the princes thereof; for ye have eaten up the vineyard and the spoil of the poor in your houses.

15. What mean ye? Ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor, saith the Lord God of Hosts.

16. Moreover, the Lord saith: Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretchedforth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet—

17. Therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts.

18. In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments, and cauls, and round tires like the moon;

19. The chains and the bracelets, and the mufflers;

20. The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the ear-rings;

21. The rings, and nose jewels;

22. The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping-pins;

23. The glasses, and the fine linen, and hoods, and the veils.

24. And it shall come to pass, instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle, a rent; and instead of well set hair, baldness; and instead of a stomacher, a girding of sackcloth; burning instead of beauty.

25. Thy men shall fall by the sword and thy mighty in the war.

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About this reader

What is Scripture?

Scripture is a browser-based reader for sixteen sacred texts spanning multiple religious and literary traditions. It provides chapter-by-chapter navigation, full-text search across all works, word concordance with frequency analysis, verse-linked notes, text-to-speech, and deep linking to any chapter or verse.

Traditions Represented

The collection spans Abrahamic, East Asian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Nordic traditions. Christian texts include the King James Version Old and New Testaments (1611) and Apocrypha. The Quran uses Marmaduke Pickthall's 1930 English translation. Latter-day Saint scripture includes the Book of Mormon (1830), Doctrine and Covenants (1835), and Pearl of Great Price (1851).

Confucian works include James Legge's translations of The Four Books (1893) and the Book of Poetry (1876). The Tao Te Ching uses Legge's 1891 translation. The Kojiki uses Basil Hall Chamberlain's 1919 English translation. Zoroastrian texts include the Bundahishn (E. W. West, 1880) and the Arda Viraf (Haug & West, 1872). The Lotus Sutra uses Hendrik Kern's 1884 translation. The Finnish Kalevala uses John Martin Crawford's 1888 translation, and the Norse Poetic Edda uses Henry Adams Bellows' 1923 translation.

Public Domain Translations

Every translation in this collection is in the public domain. The most recent translation dates to 1930 (Pickthall's Quran). All texts are freely available for reading, study, quotation, and redistribution with no copyright restrictions.

Concordance and Related Passages

The concordance indexes every word across all sixteen works, showing frequency and distribution. TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency) scoring identifies passages with similar vocabulary across different traditions, enabling comparative study without requiring prior knowledge of each text's structure. TF-IDF weights words that are frequent in one chapter but rare across the corpus, surfacing meaningful thematic connections rather than common function words.

Deep Linking

Every chapter and verse has a permanent URL. Chapter links follow the pattern /scripture/{work}/{book}-{chapter} (e.g., /scripture/ot/gen-1 for Genesis 1). Verse links append the verse number (e.g., /scripture/ot/gen-1:26 for Genesis 1:26). These URLs can be shared, bookmarked, or cited directly.

Accessibility

Scripture supports keyboard navigation throughout: Tab moves between controls, Enter activates verse actions, and arrow keys navigate chapters. The reading pane has a skip-to-content link. All overlays (search, concordance) are focus-trapped ARIA dialogs. Dynamic content regions use aria-live for screen reader announcements. High-contrast mode is available via the theme toggle. Verse numbers are visible to assistive technology. No flashing content or motion hazards.

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