M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The Israelites Oppressed
1 These are the names of the sons of Israel who went to Egypt. Each man and his household went with Jacob: 2 Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah, 3 Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin, 4 Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher. 5 The total number of Jacob’s descendants was seventy people. (Joseph was already in Egypt.)
6 Then Joseph died, as did all his brothers and that entire generation. 7 However, the Israelites were fruitful, multiplied quickly, increased in number, and became very numerous. So the land was filled with them.
8 Then a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 He said to his people, “Look, the Israelites are more numerous and more powerful than we are. 10 Let’s come up with a wise plan to prevent them from increasing in number. Otherwise, if war breaks out, they would join with our enemies and fight against us. Then they would leave the land.” 11 So the Egyptians placed taskmasters over them to oppress them with forced labor. The Israelites built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. 12 But the more the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites, the more they increased in number, and the more they spread out. The Egyptians were filled with dread because of them. 13 So the Egyptians oppressed the Israelites by forcing them to work very hard. 14 The Egyptians made the Israelites’ lives bitter with hard work, with brick and mortar, and with all kinds of work in the fields. The Egyptians were merciless in the way they imposed work on the Israelites.
15 The king of Egypt also spoke to the Hebrew midwives. One of them was named Shiphrah and the other Puah. 16 He said, “When you help the Hebrew women give birth, while they are still on the delivery stool, if you see that the baby is a son, you are to kill him, but if you see that it is a daughter, let her live.” 17 The midwives, however, feared God, so they did not do what the king of Egypt told them to do, but they let the boys live.
18 The king of Egypt called for the midwives and said to them, “Why did you do this and let the boys live?”
19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women. They are vigorous, so they give birth before the midwife comes to them.”
20 So God treated the midwives well. The people also increased in number and became very numerous. 21 Because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Pharaoh, however, commanded all his people, “Every son who is born you shall throw into the Nile, but every daughter you shall let live.”
The Devil Tempts Jesus
4 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, 2 where he was tempted by the Devil for forty days. He did not eat anything during those days. When they came to an end, he was hungry. 3 The Devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”
4 Jesus answered him, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’”[a]
5 The Devil led him up to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 The Devil told him, “I will give you all this power and the glory of these kingdoms, because it has been entrusted to me, and I can give it to anyone I want. 7 So, if you worship me, it will all be yours.”
8 Jesus answered him, “It is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”[b]
9 The Devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here, 10 because it is written:
He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you.
11 And,
they will lift you up with their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”[c]
12 Jesus answered him, “It says: ‘You shall not test the Lord your God.’”[d]
13 When the Devil had finished every temptation, he left him until an opportune time.
A Prophet in His Hometown
14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through all the surrounding area. 15 He was teaching in their synagogues and being honored by everyone.
16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As was his custom, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written:
18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
19 and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.[e]
20 He rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. 21 He began to tell them, “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
22 They all spoke well of him and were impressed by the words of grace that came from his mouth. And they kept saying, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”
23 He told them, “Certainly you will quote this proverb to me, ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ Do here in your hometown everything we heard you did in Capernaum.” 24 And he said, “Amen[f] I tell you: No prophet is accepted in his hometown. 25 But truly I tell you: There were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the sky was shut for three years and six months, while a great famine came over all the land. 26 Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow of Zarephath, in Sidon. 27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was healed except Naaman the Syrian.”
28 All those who were in the synagogue were filled with rage when they heard these things. 29 They got up and drove him out of the town. They led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff. 30 But he passed through the middle of them and went on his way.
Jesus Drives Out a Demon
31 He went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee, and was teaching them on the Sabbath. 32 They were amazed by his teaching, because his message had authority. 33 In the synagogue there was a man who was possessed by the unclean spirit of a demon. He cried out with a loud voice, 34 “Leave us alone! What do you have to do with us, Jesus the Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: the Holy One of God!”
35 Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be silent, and come out of him!” The demon threw him down in front of them and came out of him without harming him.
36 They were all filled with awe and began to say to one another, “What is this message? With authority and power he commands unclean spirits, and they come out!” 37 News about him spread to every place in the surrounding area.
Jesus Heals Many
38 Jesus got up, left the synagogue, and went into Simon’s house. Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever. They asked him to help her. 39 He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. Immediately she got up and began to serve them. 40 As the sun was setting, they brought to him all who were sick with various diseases. He laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. 41 Demons also came out of many people, crying out, “You are the Son of God!” He rebuked them and did not allow them to speak, because they knew that he was the Christ.
42 When it was day, he went out to a deserted place. The crowds were looking for him. They went up to him and were trying to prevent him from leaving them. 43 But he told them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns too, because that is why I was sent.” 44 And he continued to preach in the synagogues in the land of the Jews.[g]
Round Two: Bildad’s Speech
18 Bildad the Shuhite responded:
2 How much longer are all of you going to keep hunting for words?[a]
Come to your senses! Then we can talk.
3 Why are we considered to be like cattle?
Why are we regarded as unreasoning animals in your eyes?
4 You, who tear yourself to pieces with your anger,
do you expect the earth to be made desolate for your sake?
Should rocks be moved from their place for you?
5 The light of the wicked has been extinguished,
and not a spark of his flame still shines.
6 In his tent, light becomes darkness
when the lamp beside him goes out.
7 His powerful strides are tangled up,
and his own plans bring him down.
8 Yes, his feet are caught in a net,
and he stumbles into its webbing.
9 A trap snaps at his heel,
and a snare catches him firmly.
10 A noose lies hidden on the ground for him.
A trap is set on his path.
11 Terrors frighten him on every side.
They harass him at every step.
12 His strength is eaten away by hunger,[b]
and disaster is waiting for him to stumble.
13 It eats away pieces of his skin.
Death’s firstborn child eats away pieces of him.
14 He is torn away from the safety of his tent.
He is marched off to the king of terrors.
15 Nothing that belonged to him remains in his tent.[c]
Sulfur is scattered over his dwelling.
16 His roots dry up below,
and his branches wither above.
17 All memory of him perishes from the earth.
No one on the street remembers his name.
18 He is pushed away from the light into the darkness.
He is chased out of the world.
19 He has no posterity or descendants among his people.
He leaves no survivor in his place, where he lived as an alien.
20 People in the west shudder at his fate.
People in the east are overcome with horror.
21 Certainly this is the dwelling place for an evil man.
This is the place for one who does not acknowledge God.
The Need for Church Discipline and Personal Sanctification
5 It is actually[a] reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and it is a kind of sexual immorality that not even the Gentiles practice: A man has his father’s wife! 2 Yet you are proud! Shouldn’t you have been filled with sorrow so that the man who did this deed would be removed from among you? 3 Even though I am absent in body, I am present in spirit, and as one who is present, I have already decided about the man who has done such a thing. 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, and my spirit is there, along with the power of our Lord Jesus,[b] 5 hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord Jesus.[c]
6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? 7 Purge out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, just as you are unleavened. For our Passover lamb has been sacrificed, namely, Christ! 8 So let us keep celebrating the festival, not with old yeast, not with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
9 When I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with the sexually immoral, 10 I did not at all mean the sexually immoral people of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world. 11 But in this situation, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother if he is sexually immoral, or greedy, or an idolater, or verbally abusive, or a drunkard, or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a person. 12 For what business is it of mine to judge people outside the church? Do you not judge those inside? 13 God will judge the people outside the church. “Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”[d]
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.