1. By those that winnow with a winnowing

2. And those that bear the burden of the rain

3. And those that glide with ease upon the sea

4. And those who distribute blessings by command,

5. Lo! that wherewith ye are threatened is indeed true,

6. And lo! the judgment will indeed befall.

7. By the heaven full of paths,

8. Lo! ye, forsooth, are of various opinion concerning the truth.

9. He is made to turn away from it who is himself averse.

10. Accursed be the conjecturers

11. Who are careless in an abyss!

12. They ask: When is the Day of Judgment?

13. It is the day when they will be tormented at the Fire,

14. And it will be said unto them: Taste your torment which ye inflicted. This is what ye sought to hasten.

15. Lo! those who keep from evil will dwell amid gardens and watersprings,

16. Taking that which their Lord giveth them; for lo! aforetime they were doers of good;

17. They used to sleep but little of the night,

18. And ere the dawning of each day would seek forgiveness,

19. And in their wealth the beggar and the outcast had due share.

20. And in the earth are portents for those whose faith is sure.

21. And also in yourselves. Can ye then not see?

22. And in the heaven is your providence and that which ye are promised;

23. And by the Lord of the heavens and the earth, it is the truth, even as it is true that ye speak.

24. Hath the story of Abraham's honoured guests reached thee O Mohammed?

25. When they came in unto him and said: Peace! he answered, Peace! and thought: Folk unknown to me.

35 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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