1. Praise be to God, Who hath created the heavens and the earth, and hath appointed darkness and light. Yet those who disbelieve ascribe rivals unto their Lord.

2. He it is Who hath created you from clay, and hath decreed a term for you. A term is fixed with Him. Yet still ye doubt!

3. He is God in the heavens and in the earth. He knoweth both your secret and your utterance, and He knoweth what ye earn.

4. Never came there unto them a revelation of the revelations of God but they did turn away from it.

5. And they denied the truth when it came unto them. But there will come unto them the tidings of that which they used to deride.

6. See they not how many a generation We destroyed before them, whom We had established in the earth more firmly than We have established you, and We shed on them abundant showers from the sky, and made the rivers flow beneath them. Yet we destroyed them for their sins, and created after them another generation.

7. Had we sent down unto thee Mohammed actual writing upon parchment, so that they could feel it with their hands, those who disbelieve would have said: This is naught else than mere magic.

8. They say: Why hath not an angel been sent down unto him? If We sent down an angel, then the matter would be judged; no further time would be allowed them for reflection.

9. Had we appointed him Our messenger an angel, We assuredly had made him as a man that he might speak to men; and thus obscured for them the truth they now obscure.

10. Messengers of God have been derided before thee, but that whereat they scoffed surrounded such of them as did deride.

11. Say unto the disbelievers: Travel in the land, and see the nature of the consequence for the rejecters!

12. Say: Unto whom belongeth whatsoever is in the heavens and the earth? Say: Unto God. He hath prescribed for Himself mercy, that He may bring you all together to the Day of Resurrection whereof there is no doubt. Those who ruin their souls will not believe.

13. Unto Him belongeth whatsoever resteth in the night and the day. He is the Hearer, the Knower.

14. Say: Shall I choose for a protecting friend other than God, the Originator of the heavens and the earth, Who feedeth and is never fed? Say: I am ordered to be the first to surrender unto Him. And be not thou O Mohammed of the idolaters.

15. Say: I fear, if I rebel against my Lord, the retribution of an Awful Day.

16. He from whom such retribution is averted on that day, God hath in truth had mercy on him. That will be the signal triumph.

17. If God touch thee with affliction, there is none that can relieve therefrom save Him, and if He touch thee with good fortune there is none that can impair it; for He is Able to do all things.

18. He is the Omnipotent over His slaves, and He is the Wise, the Knower.

19. Say O Mohammed: What thing is of most weight in testimony? Say: God is Witness between me and you. And this record hath been inspired in me, that I may warn therewith you and whomsoever it may reach. Do ye in sooth bear witness that there are gods beside God? Say: I bear no such witness. Say: He is only One God. Lo! I am innocent of that which ye associate with Him.

20. Those unto whom We gave the Scripture recognise this revelation as they recognise their sons. Those who ruin their own souls will not believe.

21. Who doth greater wrong than he who inventeth a lie against God or denieth His revelations? Lo! the wrongdoers will not be successful.

22. And on the day We gather them together We shall say unto those who ascribed partners unto God: Where are now those partners of your make-believe?

23. Then will they have no contention save that they will say: By God, our Lord, we never were idolaters.

24. See how they lie against themselves, and how the thing which they devised hath failed them!

25. Of them are some who listen unto thee, but We have placed upon their hearts veils, lest they should understand, and in their ears a deafness. If they saw every token they would not believe therein; to the point that, when they come unto thee to argue with thee, the disbelievers say: This is naught else than fables of the men of old.

140 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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