1. Oh! the praise of King Wen Shall forever endure. For the people he sought, How their rest to make sure. And his work he beheld Made complete and secure; And our Wen was a sovereign true!

2. 'Twas the gift of high heaven That the throne did bestow. What success Wen achieved, When great Chung was laid low! Feng he called it, and moved There, his grand state to show; And our Wen was a sovereign true!

3. He repaired its old walls, And the old moat he cleared. As his sires had oft done, So his new seat he reared. Not in haste did he build, And the son more appeared; And our prince was a sovereign true!

4. Oh! how brightly those walls Did his merit display! From all quarters they came, And would not be said nay. For to Feng they repaired, Their true homage to pay; And our prince was a sovereign true!

5. East from Feng flowed the stream That the same name did bear. 'Twas the work of Great Yu Made the water flow there. And to Feng the states came, Wu their king to declare; And our king was a sovereign true!

6. Then to Hao Wu removed, And the pool-circled hall There he built, and received The submission of all. East, west, north, and south, Him their monarch they call; And our king was a sovereign true!

7. Having thought of the site, By the shell Wu divined. As the shell answer gave, So the site was assigned. Thus King Wu dwelt in Hao, Where his city we find; And our Wu was a sovereign true!

8. Where the Feng water flows, Is the white millet grown. In the men Wu employed How his merit was shown! To his sons he would leave His wise plans and his throne; And our Wu was a sovereign true!

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.

Scripture is part of a suite of educational simulations at a9l.im. Explore particle physics with Geon, redistricting with Gerry, or cellular metabolism with Cyano.