Hegseth Quotes Pulp Fiction at Pentagon Prayer Service — Thinks It's the Bible

On April 16, 2026, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth led a Pentagon worship service — one of the monthly prayer meetings where he has previously called on troops to "rain violence and death on the enemy" — and read aloud a passage he called "CSAR 25:17":

"The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherd the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children."

Hegseth told the assembly it came from the lead mission planner for a Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) mission in Iran, adding: "They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17."

It does not reflect Ezekiel 25:17. It reflects Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction.

Here is what Samuel L. Jackson's character Jules Winnfield says before executing people in the film:

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children."

And here is the actual Ezekiel 25:17 from the King James Bible:

"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."

They are completely different texts. The passage Hegseth read is Tarantino's invention — a piece of dialogue written for a hitman to recite before killing people, dressed up in the cadence of scripture. The CSAR version swapped "righteous man" for "downed aviator" and "charity and good will" for "camaraderie and duty," but the structure, the vocabulary, and the rhythm are unmistakably the movie, not the Bible.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed the obvious: the prayer was "obviously inspired by dialogue in Pulp Fiction."

The context makes this worse, not better:

• This was a worship service at the headquarters of the U.S. military
• It happened during an active war with Iran that has killed 13 Americans
• Two weeks earlier, Pope Leo XIV rebuked Hegseth on Palm Sunday: "Your hands are full of blood" and "No one can use Jesus to justify war"
• Hegseth has previously prayed for "overwhelming violence" and that "wicked souls" be "delivered to eternal damnation"
• In Pulp Fiction, the character who recites this passage is a professional killer who says it as a ritual before each murder

The Defense Secretary of the United States — already rebuked by the Pope for weaponizing Christianity to justify war — recited a hitman's pre-execution monologue from a Quentin Tarantino movie at a prayer meeting, in a building where people are planning real strikes that kill real people, and thought it was scripture.

Hegseth holds a degree from Princeton and two master's degrees from Harvard. He was a Fox News host for years. He is 46. He has been publicly performing Christianity as his brand for his entire career. He does not know Ezekiel 25:17 from Pulp Fiction.