M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
23 You shall not spread a false report. Do not join hands with the wicked to be a malicious witness.
2 You shall not follow a crowd to do evil. Do not go along with the crowd by testifying in court to pervert justice.
3 You shall not show favoritism to a poor man in his lawsuit.
4 If you come upon your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you certainly must bring it back to him again. 5 If you see that the donkey of someone who hates you has fallen down under its load, do not pass him by. You certainly must help him with it.
6 You shall not deny justice to the poor people among you in their lawsuits.
7 Keep your distance from a false charge. Do not put those who are innocent and those who are righteous to death, for I will not acquit[a] the wicked.
8 You shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and distorts the words of the righteous.
9 You shall not oppress a resident alien, for you know how it feels to be an alien, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.
Laws About Sabbaths
10 For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, 11 but during the seventh year you are to let it rest and lie fallow, so that the needy among your people may eat, and the animals in the fields can eat what they leave. You are to deal with your vineyard and with your olive grove in the same way.
12 Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, so that your ox and your donkey will have rest, and so that the son of your female servant and the resident alien will be refreshed.
13 Be careful to do all the things that I have said to you. Do not mention the name of other gods. Do not let their names come out of your mouth.
Laws About Festivals
14 Three times a year you shall observe pilgrimage festivals for me:
15 You shall observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread.[b] For seven days you shall eat bread without yeast, as I commanded you, at the appointed time in the month of Abib (for during that month you came out from Egypt). No one is to appear before me empty-handed.
16 Next observe the Festival of Reaping[c] by presenting the first ripe produce of your labors, which you sow in the field.
Finally, observe the Festival of Ingathering,[d] at the end of the year, when you pick the fruits of your labors from the fields. 17 Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord God.
18 You shall not offer any bread made with yeast together with the blood of my sacrifices. None of the fat from my festival shall remain until morning. 19 The very first produce from your soil you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God.
You shall not boil a baby goat in its mother’s milk.
The Angel of the Lord Will Lead Israel
20 Look, I will send an angel before you to guard you on your way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared. 21 Pay attention to him. Listen to his voice. Do not provoke him, because he will not pardon your disobedience, for my Name is in him. 22 But if you carefully listen to his voice and carry out all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
23 Yes, my Angel shall go ahead of you and bring you into the territory of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Then I will cut them off. 24 You shall not bow down to their gods. Do not serve them or follow their practices, but you must completely overthrow them and demolish their sacred memorial stones. 25 You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from your midst. 26 No one will miscarry or be childless[e] in your land. I will grant you the full number of your days.
27 I will send my terror before you, and I will spread confusion among all the people to whom you come, and I will make all your enemies turn their backs and flee from you. 28 I will send the hornet ahead of you. It will drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from your presence. 29 I will not drive them out from before you in a single year, or the land would become desolate, and the wild animals would become too numerous for you. 30 As you advance, I will drive them out little by little, until you have grown in number and taken possession of the land.
31 I will establish your border from the Red Sea[f] all the way to the Mediterranean Sea,[g] and from the Wilderness[h] to the River.[i] So I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you. 32 You shall not make a treaty[j] with them or with their gods. 33 They are not to dwell in your land, or they will make you sin against me, because if you serve their gods, this will surely be a trap for you.
Jesus Changes Water Into Wine
2 Three days later, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.
3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no wine.”
4 Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with you and me? My time has not come yet.”
5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Six stone water jars, which the Jews used for ceremonial cleansing, were standing there, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.[a] 7 Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. 8 Then he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.” And they did.
9 When the master of the banquet tasted the water that had now become wine, he did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew). The master of the banquet called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when the guests have had plenty to drink, then the cheaper wine. You saved the good wine until now!”
11 This, the beginning of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
12 After this, he went down to Capernaum with his mother, brothers, and disciples, and they stayed there for a few days.
Jesus Clears Out the Temple
13 The Jewish Passover was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem.
14 In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and money changers sitting at tables. 15 He made a whip of cords and drove everyone out of the temple courts, along with the sheep and oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. 16 To those selling doves he said, “Get these things out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a place of business!”
17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[b]
18 So the Jews responded, “What sign are you going to show us to prove you can do these things?”
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again.”
20 The Jews said, “It took forty-six years to build this temple! And you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body. 22 When Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. Then they believed the Scripture and what Jesus had said.
23 While he was in Jerusalem for the Passover Festival, many believed in his name as they observed the miraculous signs he was doing. 24 But Jesus, on his part, was not entrusting himself to them, because he knew them all. 25 He did not need anyone to testify about man, because he himself knew what was in man.
Leviathan
2 Can you put a reed in his nose
or pierce his jaw with a hook?
3 Will he keep asking for your favor
or speak tender words to you?
4 Will he sign a contract with you
so that you keep him as your servant forever?
5 Can you play with him like a bird?
Can you put him on a leash for your girls?
6 Do the merchants barter for Leviathan’s meat?
Do they divide it up with the other tradesmen?
7 Can you fill his hide with harpoons
and his head with fishing spears?
8 If you lay your hand on him,
you will never forget the battle and won’t do it again.
9 Listen! Any hope you have of overcoming him is unfounded.
Wouldn’t you be knocked down by the mere sight of him?
10 No one is fierce enough to risk stirring him up.[c]
Who then can stand before me?
11 Who can confront me and demand that I repay him?
Everything under the whole sky belongs to me.
12 I will tell about the parts of his body.
I will describe his power and his beautiful design.
13 Who can strip off his outer covering?
Who can touch his double layer of armor?
14 Who dares to open the doors to his mouth,
which is surrounded with terrifying teeth?
15 His back[d] is like rows of shields,
which are tightly joined together.
16 They are so close together not even a breath of air
can pass between them.
17 They are fastened to each other,
so they stick together and cannot be separated.
18 His snorts are flashes of light.
His eyes are like the eyelids of dawn.
19 Blazing torches come out of his mouth.
Sparks of fire shoot out.
20 Smoke pours out from his nostrils
like a pot boiling over a reed fire.
21 His breath sets coals on fire,
and flames come out of his mouth.
22 Strength dwells in his neck.
Despair dances ahead of him.
23 The folds of his flesh are compact,
solid and immovable.
24 His heart is as hard as rock,
as hard as a lower millstone.
25 When he rises up, the mighty are afraid.
When he thrashes around, they retreat.
26 If someone strikes him with a sword, it has no effect.
Neither do spears, arrows, or javelins.
27 To him iron is like straw;
bronze is like rotten wood.
28 Arrows do not make him flee.
To him sling stones are like chaff;
29 clubs are like stubble.
He laughs at the shaking of a javelin.
30 His underbelly is like sharp pieces of broken pottery.
It leaves marks in the mud like a threshing sledge.
31 He makes the depths boil like a cooking pot.
He makes the sea like a cauldron of ointment.
32 He leaves a shiny wake behind him.
The deep looks like a white-haired man.
33 There is nothing at all like him on earth,
a creature without fear.
34 He looks down on everything that is lofty.
He is king over every proud creature!
Bear With Me
11 I wish that you would be patient with me in regard to a little foolishness—but you are already being patient with me. 2 You see, I am jealous about you, with a godly jealousy, because I promised to present you as a pure virgin to one husband, Christ. 3 But I am afraid that somehow, just as the serpent deceived Eve with his cunning, so also your minds might be led astray from a sincere[a] and pure devotion to Christ. 4 In fact, if someone comes and preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or if you accept a different spirit, which you did not accept before, or a different “gospel,” which you did not welcome before, you put up with it all too well. 5 I do not think that I am in any way inferior to the “super-apostles.” 6 But even if I am an amateur in speech, yet I am not an amateur in knowledge. No, in everything we have clearly demonstrated that to you in every way.
7 Or did I commit a sin by humbling myself, so that you would be exalted, because I preached the gospel of God to you free of charge? 8 I robbed other churches, by receiving support from them to minister to you! 9 And when I was with you and needed something, I did not burden anyone, because when the brothers came from Macedonia, they supplied what I needed. In every way I kept myself from ever being a burden to you, and I will continue to do so. 10 As the truth of Christ is in me, this boasting about me will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. 11 Why? Because I do not love you? God knows I do. 12 But what I am doing, and will continue to do, is being done in order to cut off the opportunity of those who want an opportunity to boast that they should be considered equal to us.
13 In fact, such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 So it is no great surprise if his ministers also masquerade as ministers of righteousness. Their end will match their works.
16 I say again, no one should think that I am a fool. But if you do, then receive me as a fool, so that I may boast a little. 17 What I am saying when I boast so confidently is not the way the Lord speaks; rather, it is a foolish manner of speaking. 18 Since many are boasting as the sinful flesh does, I will also boast. 19 You gladly put up with fools, since you are just so wise! 20 In fact, you put up with it if anyone makes you his slave, robs you, takes advantage of you, looks down on you, or strikes you in the face! 21 I am ashamed to say that we were too weak for that!
However bold anyone might be (I am speaking in a foolish way), I am going to be bold too. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s seed? So am I. 23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I am speaking in a crazy way.) I am even more. I’ve done more hard work, been in prisons more often, been whipped far more, and I’ve been close to death many times. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods. One time I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. I have spent a night and a day on the open sea. 26 I have often been on journeys, in danger from rivers, in danger from robbers, in danger from my own people, in danger from Gentiles, in danger in the city, in danger in the wilderness, in danger on the sea, in danger among false brothers. 27 I have worked hard and struggled. I’ve spent many sleepless nights. I’ve been hungry and thirsty. I’ve gone without food many times. I’ve been cold and lacked clothing.
28 Besides those external matters, there is the daily pressure on me of my concern for all the churches. 29 Who is weak without my being weak? Who falls into sin without my being distressed?
30 If it is necessary that I boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is eternally blessed, knows that I am not lying. 32 In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas kept the city of Damascus on alert[b] to arrest me, 33 but I was lowered in a basket through a window in the wall and escaped from his hands.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.