1. That southern hill, sublime, uprears its craggy height; Such thou, Grand Master Yin, before the nation's sight! Burning with inward grief, none name thee even in jest; Ruin impends, but thou delay'st the needed quest.

2. Sublime that southern hill, with vegetation grand! More awful thou, great Yin, whom as unjust we brand. With pestilence and death, Heaven aids disorder's sway; A silent nation frowns;—thou changest not thy way!

3. On Yin our Chou depends. By justice he should bind Our many states in one, with no disloyal mind, And guide the people right, thus helpful to the king. O cruel Heaven, that he such woes on all should bring!

4. In him, himself inert, the people put no trust. He, treacherous, from place and council keeps the just. Mean men, unfairly screened, the common weal destroy, And his vile relatives the highest posts enjoy.

5. Great Heaven, unjust, the land exhausts with all these pains. Great Heaven, unkind, these woes upon it ceaseless rains. Oh! were the good in power, men's hearts would be at peace! And 'neath impartial rule, our wranglings soon would cease.

6. O great unpitying Heaven, our troubles have no close! With every month they grow; men's minds know no repose. My heart with grief is drunk. What weak hand holds the reins? 'Tis Yin's supineness that augments the people's pains.

7. I yoke my steeds long-necked, and through the land I hie. From the distress on every side vain the attempt to fly!

8. Here evil rampant bares the spear;—they fight with rage, Then pacified and friends, in revel they engage.

9. This is from Heaven unjust. Our king has no repose. Infatuate Yin rejects all counselors as foes.

10. This song by me, Chia-fu, the king's sad case relates. Would he but change his heart, and nurse the myriad states!

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.