Testament: The Bible in Animation

[repeated lines]

Moses:
Let my people go.

Meneptah II:
No. Let them stay and suffer.

Noah:
[narrating] The courts of Heaven. Dazzling, perfect. But Lucifer was not staisfied. As close to God as he could be, he wanted more.

Lucifer:
I will be greater. I will step further. Only one of a thousand thousand. YES! Above the stars of God Himself! I will be as the most high!

Michael:
Your pride will be brought down to the grave.

Lucifer:
I cannot die!

Michael:
You can long to die... and you will!

Lucifer:
Michael... do not stand in my way.

Michael:
Down Lucifer... down to Hell!

Lucifer:
I am Lucifer, the son of the morning. I will not dance at the throne of God, I will topple it.

King Nebuchadnezzer II:
Israelite? Aren't I supposed to be a donkey now? Or is it a giraffe? Or a crocodile?

Daniel:
I am only a voice for the Lord God.

King Nebuchadnezzer II:
Look, Israelite. Look at my city. The gardens, the marketplaces, the courts! I built Babylon!

Daniel:
As did a million captives, slaves, including my people.

King Nebuchadnezzer II:
No, Israelite! I built it! Only I built Babylon, the greatest city the world has ever known!

King Nebuchadnezzer II:
[to the young trainee magi] I really can't see the point in training you any more.

Caldeum - Chief Magus:
But your Majesty surely...

King Nebuchadnezzer II:
You are now full King's Magi, get them their proper robes Ashpenaz. They'll be teaching you soon Lord Magus. [he leaves]

Caldeum - Chief Magus:
[to the magi] Don't think you can get the better of me.

Belshazzar:
[seeing the writing on the wall] Magus! Magus! Read it and you'll have riches beyond man's dreams! Gold, silver, frankincense armies of slaves, anything, yes?

Caldeum - Chief Magus:
I... well... it looks like...

Belshazzar:
You'll be my chief minister, viceroy...

Daniel:
Would Your Majesty care to hear the interpretation?

Belshazzar:
You can read it?... Everything I've offered!

Daniel:
Keep your gifts! Reward someone else. Even your father, proud as he was came to understanding in the end, but not you.

[reading]

Daniel:
Mene, mene, The Lord God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel, you have been weighed in the balance and found wanting! Upharsin, your kingdom will has been divided amongst the Medes and Persians!

Caldeum - Chief Magus:
How dare he! How dare this foreigner insult the King of Babylon in this way? This is our King! And who are you? An Israeliste, a hostage! Don't listen to him Your Majesty, this is nonsense!

Ashpenaz:
Your Majesty! Your Majesty, look!

[hundreds of troops are outside]

Guard:
Your Majesty! Your Majesty, the Medes are inside the city walls! What should we do? Your Majesty?

Belshazzar:
My sword. My shield. We will fight.

Darius of the Medes:
I admire your people Daniel.

Daniel:
Then why keep us all hostage Highness? Why keep us here?

Darius of the Medes:
[laughs] Daniel! If I freed the Israelites, this whole empire would collapse. Let one tribe go free... and it's the end.

Daniel:
And yet you allow us to worship the one true God, who will one day destroy all earthly empires.

Darius of the Medes:
Worship what you want, I don't care. It's order I want.

Caldeum - Chief Magus:
[Daniel is praying] No decree issued by the King can ever be revoked. That is the law of the Medes and the Persians.

Darius of the Medes:
[sighs] Arrest him.

Samuel:
Today the Lord God has torn the kingdom of Israel from out of your hands. He will pass it to another man, a better man than you.

Saul:
Another man?

Samuel:
We shall not meet again. Not til your dying day.

Goliath:
What am I? A dog? You're sending out a boy to face me?

David:
You have defied the army of the Lord God. I have come to fight you in his name!

Goliath:
You have come to feed the vultures!

Saul:
In the name of the Lord God, we fight the enemy today.

Jonathan:
As you command father.

Saul:
I have wronged you Jonathan, and I have wronged my son David.

Jonathan:
I forgive you father. [they embrace]

Saul:
Today will decide... Forward!

David:
[narrating] In life, in death, they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions... how the mighty fall.

Jezebel:
Who is this Lord, the God of Israel? Who is he to defile the temple of my Lord Baal?

Ahab:
The Kingdom of Israel is large... surely there is room for all the Gods.

Jezebel:
Take these prophets of the Lord God of Israel and cleanse them from this Earth!

Elijah:
Take all the prophets of Baal, let not one of them escape you, let them be slain!

Elijah:
[to Baal's prophets] Call harder, for he is a God. Perhaps he is lost in thought, or he is away on a long journey. [mockingly] Perhaps he's fallen asleep!

Jonah:
In my distress, I called to the Lord.

God:
And he heard your voice.

Jonah:
When waves closed over me and I seemed to be at an end, I cried out.

God:
And he answered you.

Jonah:
As I sank into the ocean depths, I remembered the Lord.

God:
And he saved your life.

King of Ninevah:
Why does he threaten my people with messages from a God who we know nothing about?

Ramses:
I was too merciful Meneptah. I allowed this Hebrew to betray my trust. Beware of such weaknesses when you rule.

Meneptah II:
A Pharaoh must be just.

Ramses:
To Egyptians. For Hebrews the penalty for disobedience, is death. I will make the Nile red with their blood!

Moses:
Let my people go.

Meneptah II:
A petition from the Hebrew Slaves?

Aaron:
From the God of the Hebrews.

Meneptah II:
Original, though less than tactful.

Aaron:
Our God says 'Let my people go into the deser to make a sacrifice and a feast for me.'

Meneptah II:
Can't he do it here just as easily as in the desert?

Meneptah II:
[crushing a roach] So, this is the measure of your God's mercy?

Moses:
It is the measure of a Pharoah's soul. Let my people go.

Meneptah II:
I would shake them like dust from my sandals, but I have come too far.

Moses:
Once step further takes you into the dark. [the plague of darkenss falls upon Egypt] The edge of silence.

Meneptah II:
Why is the sun god powerless? The darkness depresses... chokes me.

Moses:
Terror is as old as the world Pharoah. But until now it fed on a different people. Gather your own life around you. Meneptah... you have a son.

Meneptah II:
No! You will not touch him!

Moses:
Your son, and the first born of all your people. The Lord God chooses life. Chose with him now. Let my people go.

Meneptah II:
No. Let them stay and suffer.

Child:
Moses... a cloud of dust, but wide as the horizon... and chariots! The sun glinting on armour...

Moses:
[looking into the storm] Meneptah is still Meneptah. Bring the people to the waterside.

Moses:
I was conceived in slavery... and born in the stink of death. Our tribes had multiplied, Ramses saw mutiny striding towards him, and subtracted the psace between birth and death. One swift harvest rid him of our last born sons... and his fear. And who was I after all this dark arithmetic, to be the remainder? A cuckoo, floating in Egypt's nest.