I've never been too sure what to make of Matthew 5:28 ("But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart."), but I do like the next verse ("And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.") Verses 38 and 39 are cool, too ("Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: / But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.")
Other nice passages on the theme of mercy are "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her", and (switching abruptly to the Talmud) Rabbi Johanan's statement that God chastised the angels for celebrating the massacre of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, which I am familiar with from family Seders in the form "How can you sing when my children are suffering?"
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"I'm sure everyone on this list will be glad to know I don't plan to reproduce myself." -Richard Stallman
Even though I consider Kodi a good guy, I still thought this topic was going to be a trap.
I will post some of my favorite passages later, but I sure won't be using the ol' King James.
O, ye of little faith! :)
I can totally sympathize with preferences for more modern (and possibly less Protestant-biased) translations than the KJV. I prefer to quote from it not because I imagine it represents the original text as well as newer translations, but because it's the book of Evangelicalism, which seems to me, for better or for worse, the most consequential form of Christianity in the contemporary US. Even though it's not actually the most popular. So the KJV seems like a good Bible for, say, a social psychologist, albeit not for a historian or a theologian.
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"I'm sure everyone on this list will be glad to know I don't plan to reproduce myself." -Richard Stallman
i just like the old sounding language. Makes it sound more authoritative than that there jazzy modern english.
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Or, to stay on the actual topic... Isaiah 49:14-16
"But Zion said, 'The LORD has forsaken me,
the LORD has forgotten me.'
'Can a mother forget the baby nursing at her breast,
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you.
See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
Your walls are ever before me.'"
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'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?'