M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Hezekiah King of Judah
29 Hezekiah became king when he was twenty-five years old, and he ruled as king in Jerusalem for twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.
2 He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, like everything that his father David had done.
Restoration of the Temple
3 In the first month of the first year of his reign, Hezekiah opened the doors of the House of the Lord and repaired them. 4 He brought the priests and the Levites and assembled them in the eastern square. 5 He said to them:
Listen to me, you Levites! Consecrate yourselves now, and consecrate the House of the Lord, the God of your fathers. Remove the filth from the holy place, 6 for our fathers have been unfaithful. They have done evil in the eyes of the Lord our God. They have forsaken him. They have turned their faces away from the dwelling of the Lord. They have turned their backs. 7 They also have shut the doors of the porch of the temple and have extinguished the lamps. They have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel.
8 So the wrath of the Lord is on Judah and Jerusalem. He has made them into an object of terror, horror, and hissing, as you see with your own eyes. 9 Look! Our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons, our daughters, and our wives are in captivity because of this. 10 Now it is in my heart to make a covenant with the Lord, the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us. 11 Now, you my sons, do not be negligent, for you are the ones the Lord has chosen to stand in his presence, to minister to him, to serve him, and to burn incense to him.
12 These are the Levites who responded:
from the descendants of the Kohathites: Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah,
from the descendants of Merari: Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jahallelel,
from the Gershonites: Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah,
13 from the descendants of Elizaphan: Shimri and Jeiel, from the descendants of Asaph: Zechariah and Mattaniah,
14 from the descendants of Heman: Jehiel and Shimei, and from the descendants of Jeduthun: Shemaiah and Uzziel.
15 They gathered their brother Levites, consecrated themselves, and went to cleanse the House of the Lord, as the king commanded by the words of the Lord.
16 The priests entered the inner part of the Lord’s house to cleanse it. They brought every unclean thing that they found in the Lord’s temple out into the courtyard of the House of the Lord. The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley.
17 On the first day of the first month, they began to consecrate the temple. By the eighth day of the month they had gotten as far as the porch of the Lord. They continued to purify the House of the Lord for eight more days. On the sixteenth day of the first month, they completed the work.
18 They went in to King Hezekiah and said, “We have cleansed the entire House of the Lord, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the table for the presentation of bread and all its utensils. 19 We have prepared and consecrated all the utensils which King Ahaz discarded during his reign, when he was unfaithful. Look! They are right there in front of the altar of the Lord.”
20 King Hezekiah got up early. He gathered the officials of the city and went up to the House of the Lord.
21 They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary, and for Judah. He commanded the sons of Aaron, the priests, to offer them on the altar of the Lord. 22 So they slaughtered the cattle. The priests collected the blood and splashed it against the altar. They killed the rams and splashed the blood against the altar. They killed the lambs and splashed the blood against the altar. 23 Then they brought the male goats for the sin offering to the king and the assembly, and they laid their hands on them. 24 The priests slaughtered them and made a sin offering with their blood on the altar to make atonement for all Israel, because the king had commanded a burnt offering and a sin offering for all Israel.
25 He stationed the Levites in the House of the Lord with cymbals, harps, and lyres according to the command of David, of Gad the king’s seer, and of Nathan the prophet, because a command that comes through the hand of his prophets is a command from the hand of the Lord. 26 The Levites stood with the musical instruments prescribed by David, and the priests stood with the trumpets.
27 Hezekiah commanded that the burnt offering be offered on the altar. At the time that the burnt offering began, the song to the Lord and the trumpets also began. While the instruments prescribed by David king of Israel were playing, 28 the whole assembly bowed down and worshipped. The singers sang. The trumpeters sounded the trumpets. All this continued until the burnt offering was completed.
29 When the burnt offering was finished, the king and all those present with him bowed down and worshipped.
30 King Hezekiah and his officials commanded the Levites to sing praises to the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. They sang glad praises and bowed down and worshipped.
31 Hezekiah responded, “Now you have taken up your duty to the Lord.[a] Approach and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the House of the Lord.” The assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings. All those whose hearts were willing brought burnt offerings.
32 The number of burnt offerings which the assembly brought was seventy cattle, one hundred rams, and two hundred lambs. All these served as a burnt offering to the Lord. 33 The consecrated offerings consisted of six hundred cattle and three thousand sheep.
34 But the priests were too few to be able to skin all the burnt offerings. So, their brothers, the Levites, helped them until the work was completed and until more priests had consecrated themselves, because the Levites were more upright in heart[b] in consecrating themselves than the priests.
35 In addition to the great number of burnt offerings, they presented both the fat of the fellowship offerings and the drink offerings that accompanied the burnt offerings. So the service of the House of the Lord was restored.
36 Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced because God had restored this for the people, and all this had been done very quickly.
The Angels With the Seven Last Plagues
15 Then I saw another great and remarkable sign in heaven: seven angels with seven plagues—the last plagues, because in them God’s wrath is completed.
2 And I saw what looked like a sea of glass mixed with fire. I also saw those who had won the victory over the beast and his image[a] and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass. They held the harps of God, 3 and they were singing the song of Moses, God’s servant, and the song of the Lamb. They said:
Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty.
Just and true are your ways, King of the Nations.[b]
4 Who will not fear you,[c] Lord,
and who will not praise your name?
You alone are holy!
All the nations will come and will bow down before you,
because your righteous verdicts have been revealed.
5 After these things I looked, and the sanctuary of the Tent of the Testimony was opened in heaven. 6 The seven angels who hold the seven plagues came out of the sanctuary. They were clothed with clean bright linen, and they wore gold sashes around their chests.
7 One of the four living creatures gave the seven angels the seven gold bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. 8 And the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power. No one was able to enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed.
11 Open your doors, Lebanon,
so that fire may devour your cedars.
2 Wail, you fir trees, because the cedars have fallen.
The majestic trees have been destroyed.
Wail, oaks of Bashan,
for the impenetrable forest has been felled.
3 There is a sound of shepherds wailing,
because their splendor has been destroyed.
There is a sound of young lions roaring,
for the dense thickets of the Jordan have been destroyed.
The Rejection of the Good Shepherd
4 This is what the Lord, my God, said.
Shepherd the flock which is to be slaughtered. 5 Those who buy them slaughter them and are not held accountable, and those who sell them say, “Bless the Lord! I have become rich!” Their own shepherds show them no compassion, 6 because I will no longer show compassion to the people of the land, declares the Lord.
Look, I will bring it about that each one of them will fall into the hand of his neighbor and into the hand of his king. They will crush the land, and I will rescue no one from their hands.
7 So I[a] shepherded the flock which is to be slaughtered, especially the most afflicted of the flock. I took two staffs for myself. One I called Favor and the other Union. Then I shepherded the flock. 8 I removed three shepherds in one month. I grew very impatient with the flock, and they really detested me. 9 So I said, “I will not shepherd you. Whatever is dying, let it die. Whatever is being destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who remain devour one another’s flesh.”
10 I took my staff, Favor, and I broke it in two, to cancel my covenant that I had made with all the peoples. 11 So it was cancelled on that day, and the most miserable of the flock, who were watching me, knew that this was the word of the Lord.
12 Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, pay me my wages. But if it does not, withhold them.” So they weighed out thirty pieces of silver as my wages.
13 Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, this magnificent price at which they valued me.” So I took the thirty pieces of silver, and I threw them into the House of the Lord, to the potter.
14 Then I broke my second staff, Union, to break the brotherhood between the house of Judah and the house of Israel.
A Foolish Shepherd
15 Then the Lord said to me:
Take up once again the equipment of a foolish shepherd.
16 Watch closely. I myself am going to raise up a shepherd in the land, one who will pay no attention to those who are being lost, who will not search for the scattered, who will not heal the injured, who will not nourish those who remain standing, but who nevertheless will devour the meat of the fat sheep and even tear off their hoofs.
17 Woe to my worthless shepherd,
the one who deserts the flock.
May the sword strike his arm and his right eye!
May his arm wither away to nothing,
and his right eye become completely blind.
No Greater Love—in Peace
14 “Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many mansions.[a] If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you.[b] 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that you may also be where I am. 4 You know where I am going, and you know the way.”
5 “Lord, we don’t know where you are going,” Thomas replied, “so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus said to him, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father, except through me. 7 If you know me, you would also know my Father.[c] From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
8 “Lord,” said Philip, “show us the Father, and that is enough for us.”
9 “Have I been with you so long,” Jesus answered, “and you still do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I am telling you I am not speaking on my own, but the Father who remains in me is doing his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. Or else believe[d] because of the works themselves.
12 “Amen, Amen, I tell you: The one who believes in me will do the works that I am doing. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me[e] for anything in my name, I will do it.
15 “If you love me, hold on to[f] my commands. 16 I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. 17 He is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him. You know him because he stays with you and will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will see me no longer, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 The one who has my commands and holds on to them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I too will love him and show myself to him.”
22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, what has happened that you are going to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will hold on to my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 The one who does not love me does not hold on to my words. The word that you are hearing is not mine, but it is from the Father who sent me.
25 “I have told you these things while staying with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I told you.
27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid. 28 You heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.
29 “I have told you now before it happens so that, when it does happen, you may believe. 30 I will not speak with you much longer, because the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me. 31 But I want the world to know that I love the Father and that I am doing exactly what the Father has instructed me.
“Get up. Let’s leave this place.”
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.