1. Here is a chapter which We have revealed and enjoined, and wherein We have revealed plain tokens, that haply ye may take heed.

2. The adulterer and the adulteress, scourge ye each one of them with a hundred stripes. And let not pity for the twain withhold you from obedience to God, if ye believe in God and the Last Day. And let a party of believers witness their punishment.

3. The adulterer shall not marry save an adulteress or an idolatress, and the adulteress none shall marry save an adulterer or an idolater. All that is forbidden unto believers.

4. And those who accuse honourable women but bring not four witnesses, scourge them with eighty stripes and never afterward accept their testimony - They indeed are evil-doers -

5. Save those who afterward repent and make amends. For such lo! God is Forgiving, Merciful.

6. As for those who accuse their wives but have no witnesses except themselves; let the testimony of one of them be four testimonies, swearing by God that he is of those who speak the truth;

7. And yet a fifth, invoking the curse of God on him if he is of those who lie.

8. And it shall avert the punishment from her if she bear witness before God four times that the thing he saith is indeed false,

9. And a fifth time that the wrath of God be upon her if he speaketh truth.

10. And had it not been for the grace of God and His mercy unto you, and that God is Clement, Wise, ye had been undone.

11. Lo! they who spread the slander are a gang among you. Deem it not a bad thing for you; nay, it is good for you. Unto every man of them will be paid that which he hath earned of the sin; and as for him among them who had the greater share therein, his will be an awful doom.

12. Why did not the believers, men and women, when ye heard it, think good of their own own folk, and say: It is a manifest untruth?

13. Why did they not produce four witnesses? Since they produce not witnesses, they verily are liars in the sight of God.

14. Had it not been for the grace of God and His mercy unto you in the world and the Hereafter an awful doom had overtaken you for that whereof ye murmured.

15. When ye welcomed it with your tongues, and uttered with your mouths that whereof ye had no knowledge, ye counted it a trifle. In the sight of God it is very great.

16. Wherefor, when ye heard it, said ye not: It is not for us to speak of this. Glory be to Thee O God! This is awful calumny.

17. God admonisheth you that ye repeat not the like thereof ever, if ye are in truth believers.

18. And He expoundeth unto you the revelations. God is Knower, Wise.

19. Lo! those who love that slander should be spread concerning those who believe, theirs will be a painful punishment in the world and the Hereafter. God knoweth. Ye know not.

20. Had it not been for the grace of God and His mercy unto you, and that God is Clement, Merciful, ye had been undone.

21. O ye who believe! Follow not the footsteps of the devil. Unto whomsoever followeth the footsteps of the devil, lo! he commandeth filthiness and wrong. Had it not been for the grace of God and His mercy unto you, not one of you would ever have grown pure. But God causeth whom He will to grow. And God is Hearer, Knower.

22. And let not those who possess dignity and ease among you swear not to give to the near of kin and to the needy, and to fugitives for the cause of God. Let them forgive and show indulgence. Yearn ye not that God may forgive you? God is Forgiving, Merciful.

23. Lo! as for those who traduce virtuous, believing women who are careless, cursed are they in the world and the Hereafter. Theirs will be an awful doom

24. On the day when their tongues and their hands and their feet testify against them as to what they used to do,

25. On that day God will pay them their just due, and they will know that God, He is the Manifest Truth.

39 more verses…

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.