1. Would God have left the meaning of the world to your interpretation? 2If He had, it has no meaning. 3For it cannot be that meaning changes constantly, and yet is true. 4The Holy Spirit looks upon the world as with one purpose, changelessly established. 5And no situation can affect its aim, but must be in accord with it. 6For only if its aim could change with every situation could each one be open to interpretation which is different every time you think of it. 7You add an element into the script you write for every minute in the day, and all that happens now means something else. 8You take away another element, and every meaning shifts accordingly.
2. What do your scripts reflect except your plans for what the day should be? 2And thus you judge disaster and success, advance, retreat, and gain and loss. 3These judgments all are made according to the roles the script assigns. 4The fact they have no meaning in themselves is demonstrated by the ease with which these labels change with other judgments, made on different aspects of experience. 5And then, in looking back, you think you see another meaning in what went before. 6What have you really done, except to show there was no meaning there? 7But you assigned a meaning in the light of goals that change, with every meaning shifting as they change.
3. Only a constant purpose can endow events with stable meaning. 2But it must accord one meaning to them all. 3If they are given different meanings, it must be that they reflect but different purposes. 4And this is all the meaning that they have. 5Can this be meaning? 6Can confusion be what meaning means? 7Perception cannot be in constant flux, and make allowance for stability of meaning anywhere. 8Fear is a judgment never justified. 9Its presence has no meaning but to show you wrote a fearful script, and are afraid accordingly. 10But not because the thing you fear has fearful meaning in itself.
4. A common purpose is the only means whereby perception can be stabilized, and one interpretation given to the world and all experiences here. 2In this shared purpose is one judgment shared by everyone and everything you see. 3You do not have to judge, for you have learned one meaning has been given everything, and you are glad to see it everywhere. 4It cannot change because you would perceive it everywhere, unchanged by circumstance. 5And so you offer it to all events, and let them offer you stability.
5. Escape from judgment simply lies in this; all things have but one purpose, which you share with all the world. 2And nothing in the world can be opposed to it, for it belongs to everything, as it belongs to you. 3In single purpose is the end of all ideas of sacrifice, which must assume a different purpose for the one who gains and him who loses. 4There could be no thought of sacrifice apart from this idea. 5And it is this idea of different goals that makes perception shift and meaning change. 6In one united goal does this become impossible, for your agreement makes interpretation stabilize and last.
6. How can communication really be established while the symbols that are used mean different things? 2The Holy Spirit’s goal gives one interpretation, meaningful to you and to your brother. 3Thus can you communicate with him, and he with you. 4In symbols that you both can understand the sacrifice of meaning is undone. 5All sacrifice entails the loss of your ability to see relationships among events. 6And looked at separately they have no meaning. 7For there is no light by which they can be seen and understood. 8They have no purpose. 9And what they are for cannot be seen. 10In any thought of loss there is no meaning. 11No one has agreed with you on what it means. 12It is a part of a distorted script, which cannot be interpreted with meaning. 13It must be forever unintelligible. 14This is not communication. 15Your dark dreams are but the senseless, isolated scripts you write in sleep. 16Look not to separate dreams for meaning. 17Only dreams of pardon can be shared. 18They mean the same to both of you.
7. Do not interpret out of solitude, for what you see means nothing. 2It will shift in what it stands for, and you will believe the world is an uncertain place, in which you walk in danger and uncertainty. 3It is but your interpretations which are lacking in stability, for they are not in line with what you really are. 4This is a state so seemingly unsafe that fear must rise. 5Do not continue thus, my brother. 6We have one Interpreter. 7And through His use of symbols are we joined, so that they mean the same to all of us. 8Our common language lets us speak to all our brothers, and to understand with them forgiveness has been given to us all, and thus we can communicate again.