Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [427]

Nehemiah, chapter four, Verse 14: “And I looked and rose up and said unto the nobles, and to the rulers, and to the rest of the people, be not afraid of them: remember the Lord which is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, and your daughters, your wives and your houses.” — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 427

Note

Scripture is placed as a capping argument rather than ornament: the verse supplies exactly the escalation the parents avoided saying aloud — ‘your houses’ rhymes with the garden walls and the gun under the bed. Butler picks a verse whose archaic cadence (‘great and terrible’) comments on Dad’s soft, modern voice without undercutting it. The verse’s own rhetoric of walls and defense is the chapter’s actual subject arriving in another idiom.