1. I also saw the souls of shepherds, by whom, in the world, quadrupeds and sheep were employed and fed, and preserved from the wolf and thief and tyrannical man. And at appointed times, water and grass and food were given; and they were preserved from severe cold and heat; and the males were allowed access at the usual time, and properly restrained when inopportune; whereby very great advantage, profit and benefit, food and clothing were afforded to the men of that time: Which souls walked among those who are brilliant, on a beautiful eminence, in great pleasure and joy. And it seemed to me very sublime.

2. I also saw many golden thrones, fine carpets and cushions decked with rich cloth, on which are seated the souls of householders and justices, who were heads of village families, and exercised mediation and authority, and made a desolate place prosperous; they also brought many conduits, streams, and fountains for the improvement of tillage and cultivation, and the advantage of creatures. And as they stand before those who are the guardian angels of water, and of trees, and also of the pious, in great power and triumph, they offer them blessings and praise, and repeat thanksgivings. And it seemed to me very sublime.

3. I also saw the souls of the faithful, the teachers and inquirers, in the greatest gladness on the splendid throne. And it seemed to me sublime.

4. I also saw the friendly souls of interceders and peaceseekers, who ever increased thereby their brilliance, which was like the stars and moon and sun; and they ever walked agreeably in the light of the atmosphere.

5. I also saw the pre-eminent world of the pious, which is the all-glorious light of space, much perfumed with sweet basil, all-bedecked, all-admired, and splendid, full of glory and every joy and every pleasure, with which no one is satiated. Part 4. Hell

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, Finnish, and Norse traditions. It includes King James biblical text and Apocrypha, Pickthall's Quran, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, Legge's Four Books, Tao Te Ching, and Book of Poetry, Chamberlain's Kojiki, West's Bundahishn, Kern's Lotus Sutra, Haug and West's Arda Viraf, Crawford's Kalevala, and Bellows' Poetic Edda.

The committed manifests and chapter files currently describe 121 books, 2,724 chapters, and 63,141 verse records. In poetry and prose works, a verse record can represent a line or paragraph rather than a canonically numbered scriptural verse.

Licensing

The application source is AGPL-3.0. Generated text downloads and their structured arrangement are CC BY-SA 4.0; the underlying historic source texts are treated as public-domain inputs. The corpus metadata therefore describes the distributed arrangement with its CC BY-SA license rather than the Public Domain Mark.

Concordance and Related Passages

The concordance is an exact-word occurrence index with linked records grouped by work. Related Passages is separate: a TF-IDF (term frequency-inverse document frequency) cosine-similarity index compares chapter vocabulary after stop-word removal and stores up to five cross-book matches above its threshold. It is a lexical discovery aid, not a claim of historical or theological equivalence.

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. Light and dark themes are available through 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.