Vigilantibus Veritas — Truth for Those Who Keep Watch
A Bible edition rebuilt from the oldest witnesses we have — first the Dead Sea Scrolls, then the Septuagint, then the Masoretic Text — with the apocrypha and the writings of the early church restored to the table, the words of each speaker printed in colour, and the names of God carried in their original tongues. This page is the edition's home; the app that carries it is introduced below — and it is moving to an address of its own, vigilantword.app.
The Edition
Most Bibles are translated from the Masoretic Text — Hebrew manuscripts copied in the Middle Ages. The Vigilant Word of the LORD works down a ladder of witnesses: where the older evidence speaks, it is heard first.
Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts hidden in the Judaean desert for two thousand years — the oldest biblical witnesses in existence, copied before and during the time of Christ. Where a scroll preserves a passage, its reading leads.
The ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures — the Bible most often quoted in the New Testament itself. It rests on Hebrew originals frequently older than the received text, and preserves whole books the Masoretic tradition does not.
The received Hebrew text, preserved with extraordinary care by the Masoretes. It is the edition's foundation wherever the older witnesses are silent — the floor of the ladder, not its ceiling.
Where the edition follows the Septuagint, its readings are aligned to the Göttingen Septuagint — the critical Greek text that the NETS translation renders — and expressed in the edition's own English. The reading changes; no copyrighted translation is reproduced.
The canonical New Testament is an original translation from the SBL Greek New Testament, adopting ECM and UBS readings where they are published. The older Berean wording survives only in the edition's italic disputed layer — the plus-verses and passages the manuscripts themselves dispute.
The Text
Throughout the edition, speech is printed in the colour of its speaker — so a page tells you at a glance where God speaks, where Jesus answers, where an angel interrupts. These samples are the edition's own text, exactly as it appears in the app.
The Names of God
In the Old Testament — the whole of Book One, canon, apocrypha, and pseudepigrapha — the divine names are not translated away. Each is printed transliterated, in full capitals and bold, and the name at every place is decided by the same ladder as the text: the scrolls first, then the oldest Hebrew witnesses, then the oldest Greek.
Genesis 1:1–3 · The edition's text
“When GOD began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the Spirit of ʾĔLŌHĪM was hovering over the face of the waters. Then GOD said, ‘Let there be light’ — and there was light.”
Genesis opens as one sentence of setting, not two of sequence — the rendering the Hebrew construction supports. Across Book One the layer runs to 14,486 name forms.
The Books
The Vigilant Word of the LORD is a scholarly release printed in two books. Here “Old Testament” means everything in Book One — canon, apocrypha, and pseudepigrapha together — and “New Testament” everything in Book Two. Each book is available now as an EPUB, with secure checkout handled by PayPal.
Book One
The whole first covenant in a single reading order — Genesis first — arranged by the story the books tell, from creation to the return from exile and beyond.
$19.99 — EPUB edition
Secure checkout via PayPal — after payment, PayPal brings you back here to download your EPUB. Works with Apple Books, Kobo, and most e-readers and reading apps.
Book Two
The canonical books in a fresh translation from the Greek — the Gospels standing in the order Mark, Matthew, John, Luke — followed by the writings of the early church that the centuries set aside.
$19.99 — EPUB edition
Secure checkout via PayPal — after payment, PayPal brings you back here to download your EPUB. Works with Apple Books, Kobo, and most e-readers and reading apps.
Both books in a single volume — the whole 183-book edition, end to end.
$29.99 — EPUB edition
Secure checkout via PayPal — after payment, PayPal brings you back here to download your EPUB. Works with Apple Books, Kobo, and most e-readers and reading apps.
The App
The whole edition lives in the Vigilant Word reading app — every book, every colour, every name — alongside a library of fifty further versions for comparison. It runs in the browser; there is nothing to install. The app is on its way to a home of its own at vigilantword.app; until that move lands, the buttons here open it at its current address.
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All 183 books and 50,094 verses of The Vigilant Word of the LORD, with its colour-coded speech and transliterated names intact — Genesis opens the library, as it should.
The American Standard, Berean Standard, and King James with Apocrypha are built in; the Geneva, Douay-Rheims, Tyndale, Wycliffe, and Rotherham Bibles, the JPS Tanakh, the Peshitta, the Septuagint, and the great codices — Sinaiticus and Vaticanus in a text-critical translation made for this reader — open on demand.
Every word in the text opens a word study: the Greek or Hebrew behind it, its Strong's number, its range of meanings, and how the versions render it. Try it below.
By reference (“John 1:1”), by full text across the whole library, or by Strong's number — every occurrence of a word, gathered in one place.
Reading plans carry you through the New Testament in 90 days or the Old Testament in 180. A daily streak keeps count, with milestones at 7, 30, 100, and 365 days.
Light and dark themes, type from 12 to 32 points, a choice of font families, line spacing, and justified text. You can even import your own Bible in JSON, USFM, or OSIS.
Word Study
In the app, tapping any word opens its study card. Here is the same thing, with the app's own entries — try beginning, Word, and church.
John 1:1 “In the was the , and the Word was with GOD, and the Word was GOD.”
Matthew 16:18 · Jesus speaks “…and I also say to you that you are Petros (Peter), and on this rock I will build my , and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.”
In the reader, every word works this way — these three are wired up here as a taste.