M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
8 After this David smote the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Metheg-ammah out of the hands of the Philistines.
2 He defeated Moab, and measured them with a line, making them lie down on the ground; two lines he measured to be put to death, and one full line to keep alive. And the Moabites became servants to David, bringing tribute.
3 David also defeated Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah, as he went to restore his power at the river [Euphrates].
4 David took from him 1,700 horsemen and 20,000 foot soldiers; and David hamstrung all the chariot horses, except he reserved enough of them for 100 chariots.
5 And when the Syrians of Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, David slew 22,000 of them.
6 David put garrisons in Syrian Damascus, and the Syrians became [his] servants and brought tribute. The Lord preserved and gave victory to David wherever he went.
7 And David took the shields of gold that were on the servants of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem.
8 And from Betah and Berothai, cities of Hadadezer, King David exacted an immense amount of bronze.
9 When Toi king of Hamath heard about David’s defeat of all the forces of Hadadezer,
10 [He] sent Joram his son to King David to salute and congratulate him about his battle and defeat of Hadadezer. For Hadadezer had had wars with Toi. Joram brought vessels of silver, gold, and bronze.
11 These King David dedicated to the Lord, with the silver and gold that he had dedicated from all the nations he subdued:
12 From Syria, Moab, the Ammonites, the Philistines, Amalek, and from the spoil of Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah.
13 David won renown. When he returned he slew 18,000 Edomites in the Valley of Salt.
14 He put garrisons throughout all Edom, and all the Edomites became his servants. And the Lord preserved and gave victory to [him] wherever he went.
15 So David reigned over all Israel, and executed justice and righteousness for all his people.
16 Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was recorder;
17 Zadok son of Ahitub and Ahimelech son of Abiathar were the [chief] priests, and Seraiah was the scribe;
18 Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over both the Cherethites and Pelethites [the king’s bodyguards]; and David’s sons were chief [confidential] assistants to the king.
9 And David said, Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul to whom I may show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?
2 And of the house of Saul there was a servant whose name was Ziba. When they had called him to David, he said to him, Are you Ziba? He said, I, your servant, am he.
3 The king said, Is there not still someone of the house of Saul to whom I may show the [unfailing, unsought, unlimited] mercy and kindness of God? Ziba replied, Jonathan has yet a son who is lame in his feet.(A)
4 And the king said, Where is he? Ziba replied, He is in the house of Machir son of Ammiel in Lo-debar.
5 Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir son of Ammiel at Lo-debar.
6 And Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and did obeisance. David said, Mephibosheth! And he answered, Behold your servant!
7 David said to him, Fear not, for I will surely show you kindness for Jonathan your father’s sake, and will restore to you all the land of Saul your father [grandfather], and you shall eat at my table always.
8 And [the cripple] bowed himself and said, What is your servant, that you should look upon such a dead dog as I am?
9 Then the king called to Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, I have given your master’s son [grandson] all that belonged to Saul and to all his house.
10 And you shall till the land for him, you, your sons, and your servants, and you shall bring in the produce, that your master’s heir may have food to eat; but Mephibosheth, your master’s son [grandson], shall eat always at my table. Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.
11 Then Ziba said to the king, Your servant will do according to all my lord the king commands. So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table as one of the king’s sons.
12 Mephibosheth had a young son whose name was Micha. And all who dwelt in Ziba’s house were servants to Mephibosheth.
13 So Mephibosheth dwelt in Jerusalem, for he ate continually at the king’s table, [even though] he was lame in both feet.
2 But I definitely made up my mind not to grieve you with another painful and distressing visit.
2 For if I cause you pain [with merited rebuke], who is there to provide me enjoyment but the [very] one whom I have grieved and made sad?
3 And I wrote the same to you so that when I came, I might not be myself pained by those who are the [very] ones who ought to make me glad, for I trusted in you all and felt confident that my joy would be shared by all of you.
4 For I wrote you out of great sorrow and deep distress [with mental torture and anxiety] of heart, [yes, and] with many tears, not to cause you pain but in order to make you realize the overflowing love that I continue increasingly to have for you.
5 But if someone [the one among you who committed incest] has caused [all this] grief and pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure, not to put it too severely, [he has distressed] all of you.
6 For such a one this censure by the majority [which he has received is] sufficient [punishment].
7 So [instead of further rebuke, now] you should rather turn and [graciously] forgive and comfort and encourage [him], to keep him from being overwhelmed by excessive sorrow and despair.
8 I therefore beg you to reinstate him in your affections and assure him of your love for him;
9 For this was my purpose in writing you, to test your attitude and see if you would stand the test, whether you are obedient and altogether agreeable [to following my orders] in everything.
10 If you forgive anyone anything, I too forgive that one; and what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sakes in the presence [and with the approval] of Christ (the Messiah),
11 To keep Satan from getting the advantage over us; for we are not ignorant of his wiles and intentions.
12 Now when I arrived at Troas [to preach] the good news (the Gospel) of Christ, a door of opportunity was opened for me in the Lord,
13 Yet my spirit could not rest (relax, get relief) because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave from them and departed for Macedonia.
14 But thanks be to God, Who in Christ always leads us in triumph [as trophies of Christ’s victory] and through us spreads and makes evident the fragrance of the knowledge of God everywhere,
15 For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ [which exhales] unto God, [discernible alike] among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing:
16 To the latter it is an aroma [wafted] from death to death [a fatal odor, the smell of doom]; to the former it is an aroma from life to life [a vital fragrance, living and fresh]. And who is qualified (fit and sufficient) for these things? [Who is able for such a ministry? We?]
17 For we are not, like so many, [like hucksters making a trade of] peddling God’s Word [shortchanging and adulterating the divine message]; but like [men] of sincerity and the purest motive, as [commissioned and sent] by God, we speak [His message] in Christ (the Messiah), in the [very] sight and presence of God.
16 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
2 Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know, understand, and realize her [idolatrous] abominations [that they] are disgusting, detestable, and shamefully vile.
3 And say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem [representing Israel]: Your [spiritual] origin and your birth are thoroughly Canaanitish; your [spiritual] father was an Amorite and your [spiritual] mother a Hittite.(A)
4 And as for your birth, on the day you were born your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt or swaddled with bands at all.
5 No eye pitied you to do any of these things for you, to have compassion on you; but you were cast out in the open field, for your person was abhorrent and loathsome on the day that you were born.
6 And when I passed by you and saw you rolling about in your blood, I said to you in your blood, Live! Yes, I said to you still in your natal blood, Live!
7 I caused you [Israel] to multiply as the bud which grows in the field, and you increased and became tall and you came to full maidenhood and beauty; your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare.
8 Now I passed by you again and looked upon you; behold, you were maturing and at the time for love, and I spread My skirt over you and covered your nakedness. Yes, I plighted My troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord, and you became Mine.
9 Then I washed you with water; yes, I thoroughly washed away your [clinging] blood from you and I anointed you with oil.
10 I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with [fine seal] leather; and I girded you about with fine linen and covered you with silk.
11 I decked you also with ornaments and I put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck.
12 And I put a ring on your nostril and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown upon your head!
13 Thus you were decked with gold and silver, and your raiment was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth; you ate fine flour and honey and oil. And you were exceedingly beautiful and you prospered into royal estate.
14 And your renown went forth among the nations for your beauty, for it was perfect through My majesty and splendor which I had put upon you, says the Lord God.
15 But you trusted in and relied on your own beauty and were unfaithful to God and played the harlot [in idolatry] because of your renown, and you poured out your fornications upon anyone who passed by [as you worshiped the idols of every nation which prevailed over you] and your beauty was his.
16 And you took some of your garments and made for yourself gaily decorated high places or shrines and played the harlot on them—things which should not come and that which should not take place.
17 You did also take your fair jewels and beautiful vessels of My gold and My silver which I had given you and made for yourself images of men, and you played the harlot with them;
18 And you took your embroidered garments and covered them and set My oil and My incense before them.
19 My bread also which I gave you—fine flour and oil and honey with which I fed you—you have even set it before the idols for a sweet odor. Thus it was, says the Lord God.
20 Moreover, you have taken your sons and your daughters whom you have borne to Me, and you have sacrificed them [to your idols] to be destroyed. Were your harlotries too little,
21 That you have slain My children and delivered them up, in setting them apart and causing them to pass through the fire for [your idols]?
22 And in all your abominations and idolatrous whoredoms you have not [earnestly] remembered the days of your youth when you were naked and bare, rolling about in your natal blood.
23 And after all your wickedness—Woe, woe to you! says the Lord God—
24 You have built also for yourself a vaulted chamber (brothel) and have made a high place [of idol worship] in every street.
25 At every crossway you built your high place [for idol worship] and have made your beauty an abomination [abhorrent, loathsome, extremely disgusting, and detestable]; and you have made your body available to every passerby and multiplied your [idolatry and spiritual] harlotry.
26 You have also played the harlot with the Egyptians, your neighbors, [by adopting their idolatries] whose worship is thoroughly sensuous, and you have multiplied your harlotry to provoke Me to anger.
27 Behold therefore, I have stretched out My hand against you, diminished your ordinary allowance of food, and delivered you over to the will of those who hate and despise you, the daughters of the Philistines, who turned away in shame from your despicable policy and lewd behavior [for they are faithful to their gods]!
28 You played the harlot also with the Assyrians because you were unsatiable; yes, you played the harlot with them, and yet you were not satisfied.
29 Moreover, you multiplied your harlotry with the land of trade, with Chaldea, and yet even with this you were not satisfied.
30 How weak and spent with longing and lust is your heart and mind, says the Lord God, seeing you do all these things, the work of a bold, domineering harlot,
31 In that you build your vaulted place (brothel) at the head of every street and make your high place at every crossing. But you were not like a harlot because you scorned pay.
32 Rather, you were as an adulterous wife who receives strangers instead of her husband!
33 Men give gifts to all harlots, but you give your gifts to all your lovers and hire them, bribing [the nations to ally themselves with you], that they may come to you on every side for your harlotries (your idolatrous unfaithfulnesses to God).
34 And you are different [the reverse] from other women in your harlotries, in that nobody follows you to lure you into harlotry and in that you give hire when no hire is given you; and so you are different.
35 Therefore, O harlot [Israel], hear the word of the Lord!
36 Thus says the Lord God: Because your brass [coins and gifts] and your filthiness were emptied out and your nakedness uncovered through your harlotries with your lovers, and because of all the [filthy] idols of your abominations, and the blood of your children that you gave to them,
37 Therefore behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you have taken pleasure, and all those whom you have loved with all those whom you have hated; I will even gather them [the allies you have courted] against you on every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness [making you, Israel, an object of loathing and of mockery, a spectacle among the nations].
38 And I the Lord will judge you as women who break wedlock and shed blood are judged, and I will bring upon you the blood of [your divine Husband’s] wrath and jealousy.(B)
39 And I will also give you into the hand of those [your enemies], and they shall throw down your vaulted place (brothel) and shall demolish your high places [of idolatry]; they shall strip you of your clothes and shall take your splendid jewels and leave you naked and bare.
40 They shall also bring up a company against you, and they shall stone you with stones and hew down and thrust you through with their swords.
41 And they shall burn your houses with fire and execute judgments upon you before the eyes of many women spectators [the nations]. And I will cause you to cease playing the harlot, and you also shall give hire no more.
42 So will I make My wrath toward you to rest and My jealousy shall depart from you [My adulterous wife], and I will be quiet and will be no more angry.
43 Because you have not [earnestly] remembered the days of your youth but have enraged Me with all these things, therefore behold, I also will bring your deeds down on your own head, says the Lord God. Did you not commit this lewdness above and in addition to all your other abominations?
44 Behold, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb against you: As is the mother, so is her daughter.
45 You are your [spiritual] mother’s daughter who loathed her husband and her children, and you are the sister of your sisters who loathed their husbands and their children. Your mother was a Hittite and your father an Amorite.
46 And your elder sister is Samaria, she and her daughters who dwelt in the north and at your left hand; and your younger sister who dwelt in the south and at your right hand is Sodom and her daughters.
47 Yet you were not satisfied to walk after their ways or to do after their abominations, but very soon you were more corrupt in all your ways than they were [for your sin, as those taught of God, is far blacker than theirs].(C)
48 As I live, says the Lord God, Sodom your sister has not done, she nor her daughters, as you have done, you and your daughters.
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, overabundance of food, prosperous ease, and idleness were hers and her daughters’; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
50 And they were haughty and committed abominable offenses before Me; therefore I removed them when I saw it and I saw fit.(D)
51 Neither has Samaria committed half of your sins, but you have multiplied your [idolatrous] abominations more than they and have seemed to justify your sisters [Samaria and Sodom] in all their wickedness by all the abominable things which you have done—you even make them appear righteous in comparison with you.
52 Take upon you and bear your own shame and disgrace [in your punishment], you also who called in question and judged your sisters, for you have virtually absolved them by your sins in which you behaved more abominably than they; they are more right than you. Yes, be ashamed and confounded and bear your shame and disgrace, you also, for you have seemed to justify your sisters and make them appear righteous.
53 I will restore them again from their captivity, restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes in the midst of them [in the day of the Lord],(E)
54 That you [Judah], amid your shame and disgrace, may be compelled to recognize your wickedness and be thoroughly ashamed and confounded at all you have done, becoming [converted and bringing] consolation and comfort to [your sisters.]
55 And your sisters, Sodom and her daughters shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate; then you and your daughters shall return to your former estate.
56 For was your sister Sodom not mentioned by you [except] as a byword in the day of your pride,
57 Before your own wickedness was uncovered? Now you have become like her, an object of reproach and a byword for the daughters of Syria and of Edom and for all who are round about them and for the daughters of the Philistines—those round about who despise you.
58 You bear the penalty of your lewdness and your [idolatrous] abominations, says the Lord.
59 Yes, thus says the Lord God: I will even deal with you as you have done, who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant;
60 Nevertheless, I will [earnestly] remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth and I will establish with you an everlasting covenant.(F)
61 Then you will [earnestly] remember your ways and be ashamed and confounded when you shall receive your sisters, both your elder and your younger; I will give them to you as daughters, but not on account of your covenant [with Me].(G)
62 And I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord,(H)
63 That you may [earnestly] remember and be ashamed and confounded and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I have forgiven you all that you have done, says the Lord God.
Psalm 58
To the Chief Musician; [set to the tune of] “Do Not Destroy.” A record of memorable thoughts of David.
1 Do you indeed in silence speak righteousness, O you mighty ones? [Or is the righteousness, rightness, and justice you should speak quite dumb?] Do you judge fairly and uprightly, O you sons of men?
2 No, in your heart you devise wickedness; you deal out in the land the violence of your hands.
3 The ungodly are perverse and estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies.
4 Their poison is like the venom of a serpent; they are like the deaf adder or asp that stops its ear,
5 Which listens not to the voice of charmers or of the enchanter never casting spells so cunningly.
6 Break their teeth, O God, in their mouths; break out the fangs of the young lions, O Lord.
7 Let them melt away as water which runs on apace; when he aims his arrows, let them be as if they were headless or split apart.
8 Let them be as a snail dissolving slime as it passes on or as a festering sore which wastes away, like [the child to which] a woman gives untimely birth that has not seen the sun.
9 Before your pots can feel the thorns [that are placed under them for fuel], He will take them away as with a whirlwind, the green and the burning ones alike.
10 The [unyieldingly] righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance; he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked.
11 Men will say, Surely there is a reward for the [uncompromisingly] righteous; surely there is a God Who judges on the earth.
Psalm 59
To the Chief Musician; [set to the tune of] “Do Not Destroy.” Of David, a record of memorable thoughts when Saul sent men to watch his house in order to kill him.
1 Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; defend and protect me from those who rise up against me.
2 Deliver me from and lift me above those who work evil and save me from bloodthirsty men.
3 For, behold, they lie in wait for my life; fierce and mighty men are banding together against me, not for my transgression nor for any sin of mine, O Lord.
4 They run and prepare themselves, though there is no fault in me; rouse Yourself [O Lord] to meet and help me, and see!
5 You, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, arise to visit all the nations; spare none and be not merciful to any who treacherously plot evil. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
6 They return at evening, they howl and snarl like dogs, and go [prowling] about the city.
7 Behold, they belch out [insults] with their mouths; swords [of sarcasm, ridicule, slander, and lies] are in their lips, for who, they think, hears us?
8 But You, O Lord, will laugh at them [in scorn]; You will hold all the nations in derision.
9 O my Strength, I will watch and give heed to You and sing praises; for God is my Defense (my Protector and High Tower).
10 My God in His mercy and steadfast love will meet me; God will let me look [triumphantly] on my enemies (those who lie in wait for me).
11 Slay them not, lest my people forget; scatter them by Your power and make them wander to and fro, and bring them down, O Lord our Shield!
12 For the sin of their mouths and the words of their lips, let them even be trapped and taken in their pride, and for the cursing and lying which they utter.
13 Consume them in wrath, consume them so that they shall be no more; and let them know unto the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob (Israel). Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!
14 And at evening let them return; let them howl and snarl like dogs, and go prowling about the city.
15 Let them wander up and down for food and tarry all night if they are not satisfied (not getting their fill).
16 But I will sing of Your mighty strength and power; yes, I will sing aloud of Your mercy and loving-kindness in the morning; for You have been to me a defense (a fortress and a high tower) and a refuge in the day of my distress.
17 Unto You, O my Strength, I will sing praises; for God is my Defense, my Fortress, and High Tower, the God Who shows me mercy and steadfast love.
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation