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The posts on the Bible overlook it as literature,
and that it is the single largest source of quotations added to the English language, including "feet of clay," "reap the whirlwind," and many, many others, 257 in total, exceeding even those attributed to Shakespeare, according to Wikipedia.
And then there are the longer passages, of which these are only a few (from the King James version):
Ecclesiastes 3, 1-8 ("To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven . . . ")
First Corinthians 13, 1-3 ("Though I speak with the tongues of men and of Angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal . . . ")
First Corinthians 13, 13 ("So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.")
Genesis 1, all ("In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void . . . ")
John 11, 35 ("Jesus wept.") (obviously not long, but included because of its power)
As a final example I cite the Twenty-Third Psalm ("The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters . . . ")
I know of no one writing today with such simplicity and power.
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