1. Praise be to God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, Who appointeth the angels messengers having wings two, three and four. He multiplieth in creation what He will. Lo! God is Able to do all things.

2. That which God openeth unto mankind of mercy none can withhold it; and that which He withholdeth none can release thereafter. He is the Mighty, the Wise.

3. O mankind! Remember God's grace toward you! Is there any creator other than God who provideth for you from the sky and the earth? There is no God save Him. Whither then are ye turned?

4. And if they deny thee, O Mohammed, messengers of God were denied before thee. Unto God all things are brought back.

5. O mankind! Lo! the promise of God is true. So let not the life of the world beguile you, and let not the avowed beguiler beguile you with regard to God.

6. Lo! the devil is an enemy for you, so treat him as an enemy. He only summoneth his faction to be owners of the flaming Fire.

7. Those who disbelieve, theirs will be an awful doom; and those who believe and do good works, theirs will be forgiveness and a great reward.

8. Is he, the evil of whose deeds is made fairseeming unto him so that he deemeth it good, other than Satan's dupe? God verily sendeth whom He will astray, and guideth whom He will; so let not thy soul expire in sighings for them. Lo! God is Aware of what they do!

9. And God it is Who sendeth the winds and they raise a cloud; then We lead it unto a dead land and revive therewith the earth after its death. Such is the Resurrection.

10. Whoso desireth power should know that all power belongeth to God. Unto Him good words ascend, and the pious deed doth He exalt; but those who plot iniquities, theirs will be an awful doom; and the plotting of such folk will come to naught.

11. God created you from dust, then from a little fluid, then He made you pairs the male and female. No female beareth or bringeth forth save with His knowledge. And no-one groweth old who groweth old, nor is aught lessened of his life, but it is recorded in a Book, Lo! that is easy for God.

12. And the two seas are not alike: this, fresh, sweet, good to drink, this other bitter, salt. And from them both ye eat fresh meat and derive the ornament that ye wear. And thou seest the ship cleaving them with its prow that ye may seek of His bounty, and that haply ye may give thanks.

13. He maketh the night to pass into the day and He maketh the day to pass into the night. He hath subdued the sun and moon to service. Each runneth unto an appointed term. Such is God, your Lord; His is the Sovereignty; and those unto whom ye pray instead of Him own not so much as the white spot on a date-stone.

14. If ye pray unto them they hear not your prayer, and if they heard they could not grant it you. On the Day of Resurrection they will disown association with you. None can inform you like Him Who is Aware.

15. O mankind! Ye are the poor in your relation to God. And God! He is the Absolute, the Owner of Praise.

16. If He will, He can be rid of you and bring instead of you some new creation.

17. That is not a hard thing for God.

18. And no burdened soul can bear another's burden, and if one heavy laden crieth for help with his load, naught of it will be lifted even though he unto whom he crieth be of kin. Thou warnest only those who fear their Lord in secret, and have established worship. He who groweth in goodness, groweth only for himself, he cannot by his merit redeem others. Unto God is the journeying.

19. The blind man is not equal with the seer;

20. Nor is darkness tantamount to light;

21. Nor is the shadow equal with the sun's full heat;

22. Nor are the living equal with the dead. Lo! God maketh whom He will to hear. Thou canst not reach those who are in the graves.

23. Thou art but a warner.

24. Lo! We have sent thee with the Truth, a bearer of glad tidings and a warner; and there is not a nation but a warner hath passed among them.

25. And if they deny thee, those before them also denied. Their messengers came unto them with clear proofs of God's Sovereignty, and with the Psalms and the Scripture giving light.

20 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.

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