The Secretary of War stood at a Pentagon lectern Wednesday morning and told the congregation a mission planner had given him a prayer. He said it was called CSAR 25:17. He said it was meant to reflect the Bible’s Ezekiel 25:17. He asked the room to pray with him.
Then Pete Hegseth recited, in full, Samuel L. Jackson’s execution monologue from “Pulp Fiction.”
The prayer follows the movie almost word for word
“This prayer was recited by Sandy 1, which is one of the Sandies, to all Sandies, all those A-10 crews, prior to all CSAR missions,” Hegseth told the Pentagon congregation. “They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17.”
What he read next was not Ezekiel 25:17. The actual verse, in the King James Version, runs one sentence: “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”
Pete Hegseth quoted a fake Bible verse from Pulp Fiction during a Pentagon sermon.pic.twitter.com/1o3CJiJYRF
— Clash Report (@clashreport) April 16, 2026
What Hegseth read was the monologue Jules Winnfield delivers in “Pulp Fiction” before shooting a man in the chest. Jackson’s version opens: “The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.” Hegseth’s version opens: “The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men.”
The rest of the prayer follows the movie almost word for word. “Charity and good will” becomes “camaraderie and duty.” “The weak” becomes “the lost.” “My name is the Lord” becomes “my call sign is Sandy 1.” Everything else — the cadence, the phrasing, the mounting vengeance — is Tarantino.
The verse has been laundered through fiction before
Tarantino didn’t write the Ezekiel speech either.
He adapted it from a 1973 Japanese martial arts film called “Bodyguard Kiba,” re-released in the United States in 1976 as “The Bodyguard.” The film opens with a voiceover reciting the same passage, also attributed to Ezekiel 25:17. In that version, the speaker ends with, “You will know my name is Chiba the Bodyguard when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”
Tarantino changed “Chiba the Bodyguard” to “the Lord.”
Hegseth changed “the Lord” to “Sandy 1.”
Each retelling has replaced the divine authority with whoever happens to be speaking. A karate vigilante. A hitman. A combat search-and-rescue call sign. The line has now been delivered as scripture in three fictional settings across five decades, by three men claiming the mantle of vengeance.
Before reciting it, Hegseth said the worship should shape Pentagon decisions
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants,” Pope Leo XIV said during remarks at a cathedral in the Cameroon city of Bamenda, the AP reported. pic.twitter.com/zQkKSHWOvi
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) April 16, 2026
Right before he read the fake verse, Hegseth told the room what he wanted the worship service to do. “Fifteen minutes ago, I was talking about blockades with Admiral Cooper, and now we’re going to study the Lord’s word,” he said. “And may what we talk about, how we worship today inform the remainder of our day and the remainder of our week and who we are and how we conduct ourselves, no matter what we’re doing.”
In other words: whatever happens in this room is meant to shape what the Department of Defense does the rest of the week.
He then opened with “Pulp Fiction.”
It’s the second month in a row
This isn’t the first time Hegseth has delivered violence-themed devotional material at a Pentagon service. In March, at another one of these government-run worship sessions, he read a prayer he said had been delivered by a military chaplain to the troops who raided Venezuela and captured President Nicolás Maduro in January.
‘Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation,’ the prayer read. ‘Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.’
Pete Hegseth, at today’s Christian Prayer & Worship Service at the Pentagon, prays for Almighty God to “pour out your wrath” and “break the teeth of the ungodly.” He begs the Almighty to sanction “overwhelming violence” against “those who deserve no mercy” pic.twitter.com/eJyDeTANot
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) March 25, 2026
The services have been running for months. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has filed lawsuits against the Department of Defense over them. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Randy Manner told Raw Story that some military chaplains feel sidelined if they don’t align with the tone of the sessions. A defense official told the same outlet the climate inside the building is “terrifying.”
The Pentagon has not said whether Hegseth knew
The “Pulp Fiction” service happened Wednesday morning. By Wednesday evening, nine House Democrats had filed impeachment articles accusing him of war crimes and abuse of power, along with mishandling the Department of Defense. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson called the effort “another charade in an attempt to distract the American people from the major successes we have had here at the Department of War.”
Hegseth did not mention “Pulp Fiction” during the service. He did not mention Tarantino, or Samuel L. Jackson, or the scene where Jules Winnfield recites the same passage before shooting a man in the chest. The Pentagon has not responded to questions about whether he knew.
Which leaves two possibilities. Either the Secretary of Defense knowingly recited a hitman’s execution monologue as devotional material and called it scripture. Or he didn’t know — and he led a Pentagon prayer service from a movie he’d never seen.