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President Donald Trump is one of many high-profile conservatives taking part in a marathon Bible reading this week, with Trump’s reading of 2 Chronicles 7:11-22 airing on Tuesday night.
“America Reads the Bible,” organized by the nonprofit Christians Engaged, began on April 18 and runs through April 25. Trump recorded his reading of the 2 Chronicles passage last week, reading directly into the camera from his seat in the Oval Office. His reading will be livestreamed and aired at the Museum of the Bible.
Incidentally, his recording was made shortly after Trump’s first Truth Social post attacking Pope Leo XIV and his AI-generated image depicting himself as Jesus Christ. Trump, who later deleted the post, claimed he thought it depicted him as a doctor. The post was controversial enough to raise the ire of even stalwart supporters like conservative Christian activists Candance Owens and Sean Feucht.
So, Trump’s opportunity to publicly read some Bible verses comes at an opportune time to attempt to smooth things over with his Christian base. Before this, his most famous engagements with the Bible were when he held it up for a photo-op after police used tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful protesters, or the time he said “eye for an eye” was the verse that shaped his character.
Almost 500 people will participate in reading the entirety of the Bible in what’s being billed as a “spiritual celebration” of the country’s 250th anniversary. Members of Trump’s cabinet like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles are also participating.
In 2 Chronicles 7:11-22, God appears before King Solomon to urge obedience and caution against idolatry. It reads, in part: “As for you, if you walk before me as your father David walked, doing according to all that I have commanded you and keeping my statutes and my ordinances, then I will establish your royal throne, as I made a covenant with your father David saying, ‘You shall never lack a successor to rule over Israel’” (17-18).
We at Sojourners would caution against cherry-picking the Bible for verses to affirm one’s particular agenda. As Daniel José Camacho has written, for every “They shall beat their swords into plowshares” (Isaiah 2:4), there’s also “Beat your plowshares into swords” (Joel 3:10). Too often, verses are stripped of their original context, wielded against the poor and oppressed, misunderstood or downright misinterpreted.
Still, we haven’t given up on the Bible. We love to articulate the biblical call to social justice. In that light, here are a few other verses we’d invite the president to read and, ideally, reflect on.
If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be.
“I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me that I did not know.”
Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Shout out; do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they want God on their side.
For the wicked are found among my people. They lie in wait like hunters; destroyers, they catch humans. Like a cage full of birds, their houses are full of treachery; therefore they have become great and rich; they have grown fat and sleek. They know no limits in deeds of wickedness; they do not judge with justice the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper, and they do not defend the rights of the needy.
This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease but did not aid the poor and needy.
And the king said, “Is this not magnificent Babylon, which I have built as a royal capital by my mighty power and for my glorious majesty?” While the words were still in the king’s mouth, a voice came down from heaven: “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: The kingdom is taken from you!
Woe to those who devise wickedness and evil deeds on their beds! When the morning dawns, they perform it, because it is in their power. They covet fields and seize them, houses and take them away; they oppress householder and house, people and their inheritance.
“And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.”
“And if anyone says to you at that time, ‘Look! Here is the Messiah!’ or ‘Look! There he is!’—do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce signs and wonders, to lead astray, if possible, the elect.”
Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered and nothing secret that will not become known.
Jesus began to weep.
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable; it keeps no record of wrongs; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth with your neighbor, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Those who steal must give up stealing; rather, let them labor, doing good work with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths but only what is good for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains.
Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure during the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.
As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers and sisters. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
We haven’t given up on the Bible. We love to articulate the biblical call to social justice. In that light, here are a few other verses we’d invite the president to read and, ideally, reflect on.
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Last modified: July 18, 2026
