Chapter 6 of the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook provides guidance on citing scripture by book, chapter, and verse. If the book and chapter have been established and citations need to specify only a verse, you can spell out the word verse the first time and treat it as implied for the citations that follow.
The voice-over quoting Psalm 55 near the end of the film The Wings of the Dove directs viewers to a possible source of the title for the original novel by Henry James. In the quotation, the speaker wishes to fly to safety on “wings like a dove” (verse 6); those who consult the psalm in full will also recognize, in the complaint of treachery by a friend (12–14) whose “soft” words are likened to “drawn swords” (21), the fatal betrayal at the core of the novel.
Works Cited
The Bible. Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha, Oxford UP, 1997.
James, Henry. The Wings of the Dove. Scribner, 1902.
The Wings of the Dove. Directed by Iain Softley, screenplay by Hossein Amini, Miramax, 1997.
Work Cited
MLA Handbook. 9th ed., Modern Language Association of America, 2021.