1. Is it not true you do not recognize some of the forms attack can take? ²If it is true attack in any form will hurt you, and will do so just as much as in another form that you do recognize, then it must follow that you do not always recognize the source of pain. ³Attack in any form is equally destructive. ⁴Its purpose does not change. ⁵Its sole intent is murder, and what form of murder serves to cover the massive guilt and frantic fear of punishment the murderer must feel? ⁶He may deny he is a murderer and justify his savagery with smiles as he attacks. ⁷Yet he will suffer, and will look on his intent in nightmares where the smiles are gone, and where the purpose rises to meet his horrified awareness and pursue him still. ⁸For no one thinks of murder and escapes the guilt the thought entails. ⁹If the intent is death, what matter the form it takes?

2. Is death in any form, however lovely and charitable it may seem to be, a blessing and a sign the Voice for God speaks through you to your brother? ²The wrapping does not make the gift you give. ³An empty box, however beautiful and gently given, still contains nothing. ⁴And neither the receiver nor the giver is long deceived. ⁵Withhold forgiveness from your brother and you attack him. ⁶You give him nothing, and receive of him but what you gave.

3. Salvation is no compromise of any kind. ²To compromise is to accept but part of what you want; to take a little and give up the rest. ³Salvation gives up nothing. ⁴It is complete for everyone. ⁵Let the idea of compromise but enter, and the awareness of salvation’s purpose is lost because it is not recognized. ⁶It is denied where compromise has been accepted, for compromise is the belief salvation is impossible. ⁷It would maintain you can attack a little, love a little, and know the difference. ⁸Thus it would teach a little of the same can still be different, and yet the same remain intact, as one. ⁹Does this make sense? ¹⁰Can it be understood?

4. This course is easy just because it makes no compromise. ²Yet it seems difficult to those who still believe that compromise is possible. ³They do not see that, if it is, salvation is attack. ⁴Yet it is certain the belief that salvation is impossible cannot uphold a quiet, calm assurance it has come. ⁵Forgiveness cannot be withheld a little. ⁶Nor is it possible to attack for this and love for that and understand forgiveness. ⁷Would you not want to recognize assault upon your peace in any form, if only thus does it become impossible that you lose sight of it? ⁸It can be kept shining before your vision, forever clear and never out of sight, if you defend it not.

5. Those who believe that peace can be defended, and that attack is justified on its behalf, cannot perceive it lies within them. ²How could they know? ³Could they accept forgiveness side by side with the belief that murder takes some forms by which their peace is saved? ⁴Would they be willing to accept the fact their savage purpose is directed against themselves? ⁵No one unites with enemies, nor is at one with them in purpose. ⁶And no one compromises with an enemy but hates him still, for what he kept from him.

6. Mistake not truce for peace, nor compromise for the escape from conflict. ²To be released from conflict means that it is over. ³The door is open; you have left the battleground. ⁴You have not lingered there in cowering hope that it will not return because the guns are stilled an instant, and the fear that haunts the place of death is not apparent. ⁵There is no safety in a battleground. ⁶You can look down on it in safety from above and not be touched. ⁷But from within it you can find no safety. ⁸Not one tree left still standing will shelter you. ⁹Not one illusion of protection stands against the faith in murder. ¹⁰Here stands the body, torn between the natural desire to communicate and the unnatural intent to murder and to die. ¹¹Think you the form that murder takes can offer safety? ¹²Can guilt be absent from a battlefield?