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?