1. Alif. Lam. Mim. Sad.

2. It is a Scripture that is revealed unto thee Mohammed - so let there be no heaviness in thy heart therefrom - that thou mayst warn thereby, and it is a Reminder unto believers.

3. Saying: Follow that which is sent down unto you from your Lord, and follow no protecting friends beside Him. Little do ye recollect!

4. How many a township have We destroyed! As a raid by night, or while they slept at noon, Our terror came unto them.

5. No plea had they, when Our terror came unto them, save that they said: Lo! We were wrong-doers.

6. Then verily We shall question those unto whom Our message hath been sent, and verily We shall question the messengers.

7. Then verily We shall narrate unto them the event with knowledge, for We were not absent when it came to pass.

8. The weighing on that day is the true weighing. As for those whose scale is heavy, they are the successful.

9. And as for those whose scale is light: those are they who lose their souls because they used to wrong Our revelations.

10. And We have given you mankind power in the earth, and appointed for you therein livelihoods. Little give ye thanks!

11. And We created you, then fashioned you, then told the angels: Fall ye prostrate before Adam! And they fell prostrate, all save the Devil, who was not of those who make prostration.

12. He said: What hindered thee that thou didst not fall prostrate when I bade thee? the Devil said: I am better than him. Thou createdst me of fire while him Thou didst create of mud.

13. He said: Then go down hence! It is not for thee to show pride here, so go forth! Lo! thou art of those degraded.

14. He said: Reprieve me till the day when they are raised from the dead.

15. He said: Lo! thou art of those reprieved.

16. He said: Now, because Thou hast sent me astray, verily I shall lurk in ambush for them on Thy Right Path.

17. Then I shall come upon them from before them and from behind them and from their right hands and from their left hands, and Thou wilt not find most of them beholden unto Thee.

18. He said: Go forth from hence, degraded, banished. As for such of them as follow thee, surely I will fill hell with all of you.

19. And unto man: O Adam! Dwell thou and thy wife in the Garden and eat from whence ye will, but come not nigh this tree lest ye become wrong-doers.

20. Then Satan whispered to them that he might manifest unto them that which was hidden from them of their shame, and he said: Your Lord forbade you from this tree only lest ye should become angels or become of the immortals.

21. And he swore unto them saying: Lo! I am a sincere adviser unto you.

22. Thus did he lead them on with guile. And when they tasted of the tree their shame was manifest to them and they began to hide by heaping on themselves some of the leaves of the Garden. And their Lord called them, saying: Did I not forbid you from that tree and tell you: Lo! Satan is an open enemy to you?

23. They said: Our Lord! We have wronged ourselves. If thou forgive us not and have not mercy on us, surely we are of the lost!

24. He said: Go down from hence, one of you a foe unto the other. There will be for you on earth a habitation and provision for a while.

25. He said: There shall ye live, and there shall ye die, and thence shall ye be brought forth.

181 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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