1. To the extent to which you value guilt, to that extent will you perceive a world in which attack is justified. ²To the extent to which you recognize that guilt is meaningless, to that extent you will perceive attack cannot be justified. ³This is in accord with perception’s fundamental law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you want it there. ⁴Perception has no other law than this. ⁵The rest but stems from this, to hold it up and offer it support. ⁶This is perception’s form, adapted to this world, of God’s more basic law; that love creates itself, and nothing but itself.

2. God’s laws do not obtain directly to a world perception rules, for such a world could not have been created by the Mind to which perception has no meaning. ²Yet are His laws reflected everywhere. ³Not that the world where this reflection is, is real at all. ⁴Only because His Son believes it is, and from His Son’s belief He could not let Himself be separate entirely. ⁵He could not enter His Son’s insanity with him, but He could be sure His sanity went there with him, so he could not be lost forever in the madness of his wish.

3. Perception rests on choosing; knowledge does not. ²Knowledge has but one law because it has but one Creator. ³But this world has two who made it, and they do not see it as the same. ⁴To each it has a different purpose, and to each it is a perfect means to serve the goal for which it is perceived. ⁵For specialness, it is the perfect frame to set it off; the perfect battleground to wage its wars, the perfect shelter for illusions which it would make real. ⁶Not one but it upholds in its perception; not one but can be fully justified.

4. There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that anything could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the laws of God; not as the law itself upholds the universe as God created it, but in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has. ²Corrected error is the error’s end. ³And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error.

5. There is another purpose in the world that error made, because it has another Maker Who can reconcile its goal with His Creator’s purpose. ²In His perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness. ³Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness. ⁴Nothing remains an instant, to obscure the sinlessness that shines unchanged, beyond the pitiful attempts of specialness to put it out of mind, where it must be, and light the body up instead of it. ⁵The lamps of Heaven are not for mind to choose to see them where it will. ⁶If it elects to see them elsewhere from their home, as if they lit a place where they could never be, then must the Maker of the world correct your error, lest you remain in darkness where the lamps are not.

6. Everyone here has entered darkness, yet no one has entered it alone. ²Nor need he stay more than an instant. ³For he has come with Heaven’s Help within him, ready to lead him out of darkness into light at any time. ⁴The time he chooses can be any time, for help is there, awaiting but his choice. ⁵And when he chooses to avail himself of what is given him, then will he see each situation that he thought before was means to justify his anger turned to an event which justifies his love. ⁶He will hear plainly that the calls to war he heard before are really calls to peace. ⁷He will perceive that where he gave attack is but another altar where he can, with equal ease and far more happiness, bestow forgiveness. ⁸And he will reinterpret all temptation as just another chance to bring him joy.

7. How can a misperception be a sin? ²Let all your brother’s errors be to you nothing except a chance for you to see the workings of the Helper given you to see the world He made instead of yours. ³What, then, is justified? ⁴What do you want? ⁵For these two questions are the same. ⁶And when you see them as the same, your choice is made. ⁷For it is seeing them as one that brings release from the belief there are two ways to see. ⁸This world has much to offer to your peace, and many chances to extend your own forgiveness. ⁹Such its purpose is, to those who want to see peace and forgiveness descend on them, and offer them the light.

8. The Maker of the world of gentleness has perfect power to offset the world of violence and hate that seems to stand between you and His gentleness. ²It is not there in His forgiving eyes. ³And therefore it need not be there in yours. ⁴Sin is the fixed belief perception cannot change. ⁵What has been damned is damned and damned forever, being forever unforgivable. ⁶If, then, it is forgiven, sin’s perception must have been wrong. ⁷And thus is change made possible. ⁸The Holy Spirit, too, sees what He sees as far beyond the chance of change. ⁹But on His vision sin cannot encroach, for sin has been corrected by His sight. ¹⁰And thus it must have been an error, not a sin. ¹¹For what it claimed could never be, has been. ¹²Sin is attacked by punishment, and so preserved. ¹³But to forgive it is to change its state from error into truth.

9. The Son of God could never sin, but he can wish for what would hurt him. ²And he has the power to think he can be hurt. ³What could this be except a misperception of himself? ⁴Is this a sin or a mistake, forgivable or not? ⁵Does he need help or condemnation? ⁶Is it your purpose that he be saved or damned? ⁷Forgetting not that what he is to you will make this choice your future? ⁸For you make it now, the instant when all time becomes a means to reach a goal. ⁹Make, then, your choice. ¹⁰But recognize that in this choice the purpose of the world you see is chosen, and will be justified.