1. They ask thee O Mohammed of the spoils of war. Say: The spoils of war belong to God and the messenger, so keep your duty to God, and adjust the matter of your difference, and obey God and His messenger, if ye are true believers.

2. They only are the true believers whose hearts feel fear when God is mentioned, and when His revelations are recited unto them they increase their faith, and who trust in their Lord;

3. Who establish worship and spend of that We have bestowed on them.

4. Those are they who are in truth believers. For them are grades of honour with their Lord, and pardon, and a bountiful provision.

5. Even as thy Lord caused thee Mohammed to go forth from thy home with the Truth, and lo! a party of the believers were averse to it.

6. Disputing with thee of the Truth after it had been made manifest, as if they were being driven to death visible.

7. And when God promised you one of the two bands of the enemy that it should be yours, and ye longed that other than the armed one might be yours. And God willed that He should cause the Truth to triumph by His words, and cut the root of the disbelievers;

8. That He might cause the Truth to triumph and bring vanity to naught, however much the guilty might oppose;

9. When ye sought help of your Lord and He answered you saying: I will help you with a thousand of the angels, rank on rank.

10. God appointed it only as good tidings, and that your hearts thereby might be at rest. Victory cometh only by the help of God. Lo! God is Mighty, Wise.

11. When He made the slumber fall upon you as a reassurance from him and sent down water from the sky upon you, that thereby He might purify you, and remove from you the fear of Satan, and make strong your hearts and firm your feet thereby.

12. When thy Lord inspired the angels, saying: I am with you. So make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger.

13. That is because they opposed God and His messenger. Whoso opposeth God and His messenger, for him lo! God is severe in punishment.

14. That is the award, so taste it, and know that for disbelievers is the torment of the Fire.

15. O ye who believe! When ye meet those who disbelieve in battle, turn not your backs to them.

16. Whoso on that day turneth his back to them, unless manoeuvring for battle or intent to join a company, he truly hath incurred wrath from God, and his habitation will be hell, a hapless journey's end.

17. Ye Muslims slew them not, but God slew them. And thou Mohammed threwest not when thou didst throw, but God threw, that He might test the believers by a fair test from Him. Lo! God is Hearer, Knower.

18. That is the case; and know that God it is Who maketh weak the plan of disbelievers.

19. O Coresh! If ye sought a judgment, now hath the judgment come unto you. And if ye cease from persecuting the believers it will be better for you, but if ye return to the attack We also shall return. And your host will avail you naught, however numerous it be, and know that God is with the believers in His Guidance.

20. O ye who believe! Obey God and His messenger, and turn not away from him when ye hear him speak.

21. Be not as those who say, we hear, and they hear not.

22. Lo! the worst of beasts in God's sight are the deaf, the dumb, who have no sense.

23. Had God known of any good in them He would have made them hear, but had He made them hear they would have turned away, averse.

24. O ye who believe! Obey God, and the messenger when He calleth you to that which quickeneth you, and know that God cometh in between the man and his own heart, and that He it is unto Whom ye will be gathered.

25. And guard yourselves against a chastisement which cannot fall exclusively on those of you who are wrong-doers, and know that God is severe in punishment.

50 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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