1. By the Mount,

2. And a Scripture inscribed

3. On fine parchment unrolled,

4. And the House frequented,

5. And the roof exalted,

6. And the sea kept filled,

7. Lo! the doom of thy Lord will surely come to pass;

8. There is none that can ward it off.

9. On the day when the heaven will heave with awful heaving,

10. And the mountains move away with awful movement,

11. Then woe that day unto the deniers

12. Who play in talk of grave matters;

13. The day when they are thrust with a disdainful thrust, into the fire of hell

14. And it is said unto them: This is the Fire which ye were wont to deny.

15. Is this magic, or do ye not see?

16. Endure the heat thereof, and whether ye are patient of it or impatient of it is all one for you. Ye are only being paid for what ye used to do.

17. Lo! those who kept their duty dwell in gardens and delight,

18. Happy because of what their Lord hath given them, and because their Lord hath warded off from them the torment of hell-fire.

19. And it is said unto them: Eat and drink in health as a reward for what ye used to do,

20. Reclining on ranged couches. And we wed them unto fair ones with wide, lovely eyes.

21. And they who believe and whose seed follow them in faith, We cause their seed to join them there, and We deprive them of nought of their life's work. Every man is a pledge for that which he hath earned.

22. And We provide them with fruit and meat such as they desire.

23. There they pass from hand to hand a cup wherein is neither vanity nor cause of sin.

24. And there go round, waiting on them menservants of their own, as they were hidden pearls.

25. And some of them draw near unto others, questioning,

24 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.