1. Our Shu a-hunting forth has gone; In four-horsed chariot grand he shone. As ribbon in his grasp each rein; With measured steps, like dancers twain, The outside horses flew. They now have reached the marshy ground; At once the flames break out around. With naked arm and chest Shu stands; A tiger fierce his nervous hands Grapple and soon subdue. He then presents it to the duke, While all with wonder on him look. But, Shu, try not such sport again. What grief were ours if you were slain! Your daring we should rue.

2. Our Shu a-hunting drove away, His four steeds all of color bay. The outsides followed close behind The insides, finest of their kind, Like wild geese on the wing. They now have gained the marshy ground; At once the flames blaze all around. Few archers can with Shu compare; A charioteer of cunning rare, The steeds before him spring. Now they dash on in course direct; Now they're brought up and quickly checkt. Forth flies the arrow, fleet and stark, Nor fails to hit its proper mark, His left hand following.

3. Our Shu a-hunting drove away, His four steeds all of color gray. With heads in line the insides sped; The outsides followed like the head Succeeded by the arms. They now have reached the marshy ground; One blaze of flame wraps all around; Soon cease the hunt's alarms. Shu's steeds before him slowly move; His skill the arrows cease to prove. Straightway the quiver's lid is closed, And in its case the bow reposed. How his fine bearing charms!

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, Finnish, and Norse traditions. It includes King James biblical text and Apocrypha, Pickthall's Quran, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, Legge's Four Books, Tao Te Ching, and Book of Poetry, Chamberlain's Kojiki, West's Bundahishn, Kern's Lotus Sutra, Haug and West's Arda Viraf, Crawford's Kalevala, and Bellows' Poetic Edda.

The committed manifests and chapter files currently describe 121 books, 2,724 chapters, and 63,141 verse records. In poetry and prose works, a verse record can represent a line or paragraph rather than a canonically numbered scriptural verse.

Licensing

The application source is AGPL-3.0. Generated text downloads and their structured arrangement are CC BY-SA 4.0; the underlying historic source texts are treated as public-domain inputs. The corpus metadata therefore describes the distributed arrangement with its CC BY-SA license rather than the Public Domain Mark.

Concordance and Related Passages

The concordance is an exact-word occurrence index with linked records grouped by work. Related Passages is separate: a TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency) cosine-similarity index compares chapter vocabulary after stop-word removal and stores up to five cross-book matches above its threshold. It is a lexical discovery aid, not a claim of historical or theological equivalence.

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. Light and dark themes are available through 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.