Thus Says The Lord

In most parts of the Bible, everything is implicitly or explicitly introduced with "Thus says the Lord". It is... not merely a sacred book but a book so remorselessly and continuously sacred that it does not invite - it excludes or repels - the merely aesthetic approach. You can read it as literature only by a tour de force... It demands incessantly to be taken on its own terms: it will not continue to give literary delight very long, except to those who go to it for something quite different.

- C. S. Lewis in "They Asked for a Paper"