1. Do not remain in conflict, for there is no war without attack. 2The fear of God is fear of life, and not of death. 3Yet He remains the only place of safety. 4In Him is no attack, and no illusion in any form stalks Heaven. 5Heaven is wholly true. 6No difference enters, and what is all the same cannot conflict. 7You are not asked to fight against your wish to murder. 8But you are asked to realize the form it takes conceals the same intent. 9And it is this you fear, and not the form. 10What is not love is murder. 11What is not loving must be an attack. 12Every illusion is an assault on truth, and every one does violence to the idea of love because it seems to be of equal truth.
2. What can be equal to the truth, yet different? 2Murder and love are incompatible. 3Yet if they both are true, then must they be the same, and indistinguishable from one another. 4So will they be to those who see God’s Son a body. 5For it is not the body that is like the Son’s Creator. 6And what is lifeless cannot be the Son of Life. 7How can a body be extended to hold the universe? 8Can it create, and be what it creates? 9And can it offer its creations all that it is and never suffer loss?
3. God does not share His function with a body. 2He gave the function to create unto His Son because it is His Own. 3It is not sinful to believe the function of the Son is murder, but it is insanity. 4What is the same can have no different function. 5Creation is the means for God’s extension, and what is His must be His Son’s as well. 6Either the Father and the Son are murderers, or neither is. 7Life makes not death, creating like itself.
4. The lovely light of your relationship is like the Love of God. 2It cannot yet assume the holy function God gave His Son, for your forgiveness of your brother is not complete as yet, and so it cannot be extended to all creation. 3Each form of murder and attack that still attracts you and that you do not recognize for what it is, limits the healing and the miracles you have the power to extend to all. 4Yet does the Holy Spirit understand how to increase your little gifts and make them mighty. 5Also He understands how your relationship is raised above the battleground, in it no more. 6This is your part; to realize that murder in any form is not your will. 7The overlooking of the battleground is now your purpose.
5. Be lifted up, and from a higher place look down upon it. 2From there will your perspective be quite different. 3Here in the midst of it, it does seem real. 4Here you have chosen to be part of it. 5Here murder is your choice. 6Yet from above, the choice is miracles instead of murder. 7And the perspective coming from this choice shows you the battle is not real, and easily escaped. 8Bodies may battle, but the clash of forms is meaningless. 9And it is over when you realize it never was begun. 10How can a battle be perceived as nothingness when you engage in it? 11How can the truth of miracles be recognized if murder is your choice?
6. When the temptation to attack rises to make your mind darkened and murderous, remember you can see the battle from above. 2Even in forms you do not recognize, the signs you know. 3There is a stab of pain, a twinge of guilt, and above all, a loss of peace. 4This you know well. 5When they occur leave not your place on high, but quickly choose a miracle instead of murder. 6And God Himself and all the lights of Heaven will gently lean to you, and hold you up. 7For you have chosen to remain where He would have you, and no illusion can attack the peace of God together with His Son.
7. See no one from the battleground, for there you look on him from nowhere. 2You have no reference point from where to look, where meaning can be given what you see. 3For only bodies could attack and murder, and if this is your purpose, then you must be one with them. 4Only a purpose unifies, and those who share a purpose have a mind as one. 5The body has no purpose of itself, and must be solitary. 6From below, it cannot be surmounted. 7From above, the limits it exerts on those in battle still are gone, and not perceived. 8The body stands between the Father and the Heaven He created for His Son because it has no purpose.
8. Think what is given those who share their Father’s purpose, and who know that it is theirs. 2They want for nothing. 3Sorrow of any kind is inconceivable. 4Only the light they love is in awareness, and only love shines upon them forever. 5It is their past, their present and their future; always the same, eternally complete and wholly shared. 6They know it is impossible their happiness could ever suffer change of any kind. 7Perhaps you think the battleground can offer something you can win. 8Can it be anything that offers you a perfect calmness, and a sense of love so deep and quiet that no touch of doubt can ever mar your certainty? 9And that will last forever?
9. Those with the strength of God in their awareness could never think of battle. 2What could they gain but loss of their perfection? 3For everything fought for on the battleground is of the body; something it seems to offer or to own. 4No one who knows that he has everything could seek for limitation, nor could he value the body’s offerings. 5The senselessness of conquest is quite apparent from the quiet sphere above the battleground. 6What can conflict with everything? 7And what is there that offers less, yet could be wanted more? 8Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make?