1. The sun and moon met in the upper sphere, The day Hsin-mao, the tenth month of the year. The moon was new, as she should reappear, And then the sun, eclipsed, showed evils near. The moon eclipsed before, and now the sun! Alas! we men below shall be undone.

2. These bodies, erring, what is bad make known;— Good men neglected; order all o'erthrown. The moon eclipsed was what full oft takes place; The sun's eclipse portends a sadder case.

3. And flashing levin shows the want of rest. With troubled streams, and tumbling mountain's crest. Large heights subside to vales; deep vales grow hills. Alas! how does the king not stop these ills?

4. Among the ministers great Huang presides; In all their duties Fan the people guides; Chia-pai administers; Chung-yun is cook; The king's decrees Tsou enters in his book; Chueh regulates the stud; the guards Yu's sphere; The wife, in beauty blazing, has no fear.

5. Great Huang, determined his own course pursues, Demands our service, nor inquires our views; Unroofs our homes; our fields makes moor or marsh; And "'Tis the law," he says, "I am not harsh."

6. Farseeing Huang has built himself a town. Three ministers are there of wealth o'ergrown. No single chief he left to guard our king, While all its streets with hoof and chariot ring.

7. I dare not my own services report; But slanderous tongues my blameless life distort. Our ills come not from Heaven, but fawning words And hidden hate, which schemers wield like swords.

8. Far off my village, great my lack of peace, And elsewhere I might go to seek for ease. Others retire, but I shall not be driven From this my post, though dark the way of Heaven.

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.