M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
7 So the men of Kiriath Jearim came, took the Ark of the Lord, and brought it into Abinadab’s house on the hill. Then they consecrated his son Eleazar to watch over the Ark of the Lord. 2 So from that day the ark stayed in Kiriath Jearim for a long time—twenty years. And the entire house of Israel deeply longed for the return of the Lord.
Samuel Leads Israel to Victory
3 Samuel said to the whole house of Israel, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, put away the foreign gods and the Ashtartes[a] from among you. Direct your hearts to the Lord and serve him only. Then he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.”
4 So the people of Israel removed the Baals and the Ashtartes and served the Lord only. 5 Samuel said, “Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you.”
6 So Israel gathered together at Mizpah. They drew water and poured it out before the Lord. They fasted that day, and they said there, “We have sinned against the Lord.”
Samuel acted as judge for the people of Israel at Mizpah.
7 When the Philistines heard that the Israelites had gathered together at Mizpah, the serens of the Philistines went up against Israel. When the people of Israel heard this, they were afraid of the Philistines, 8 and the people of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not stop crying out for us to the Lord our God, so that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines.” 9 So Samuel took a nursing lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. He cried out to the Lord on behalf of Israel, and the Lord answered him.
10 As Samuel was offering the burnt offering, the Philistines approached to engage in battle with Israel, but on that day the Lord thundered against the Philistines with a loud roar and threw them into a panic, so they were struck down before Israel. 11 The men of Israel went out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines and struck them down until they arrived at a point below Beth Kar.
12 Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He named that place Ebenezer,[b] saying, “The Lord has helped us this far.”[c] 13 So the Philistines were subdued, and they no longer came into the territory of Israel. The Lord’s hand was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.
14 The cities that the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel. From Ekron all the way to Gath, Israel recovered the territory of those cities from the control of the Philistines. There was also peace between Israel and the Amorites.
15 Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. 16 Each year he would travel in a circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, and he judged Israel in all those places. 17 He then would return to Ramah, where his home was, and he would also judge Israel there. He also built an altar to the Lord there.
Israel’s Request for a King
8 When Samuel was old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. 2 The name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second was Abijah. They served as judges in Beersheba. 3 His sons did not follow in his footsteps. Instead, they turned aside to seek dishonest gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.
4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “Look, you are old, and your sons are not walking in your ways. Now appoint a king for us so that he can judge[d] us like all the other nations.” 6 But in Samuel’s eyes, their request to receive a king to judge them looked evil, so Samuel prayed to the Lord.
7 And the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people regarding everything they have said to you, because it is not you whom they have rejected. I am the one they have rejected as king over them. 8 This is just like all the actions they have taken from the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, right up to this present day. They have forsaken me and served other gods, and now they are also acting the same way toward you. 9 So now listen to them. Nevertheless, warn them strongly and show them what the king who reigns over them will do.”
10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people, who had asked him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who reigns over you will do. He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and with his teams of horses,[e] and they will have to run ahead of his chariots. 12 He will make them serve as commanders of a thousand soldiers and as commanders of fifty. He will assign some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest. He will assign some to make his weapons and the trappings[f] for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to serve as perfume makers, cooks, and bakers. 14 He will take your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, even the best of them, and give them to his officials. 15 He will take a tenth of your seed and of the produce of your vineyards, and he will give it to the members of his court and to his officials. 16 He will take your male servants, your female servants, your best young men,[g] and your donkeys, and he will use them to do his work. 17 He will take a tenth from your flocks, and you will become his servants. 18 In that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you on that day.”
19 But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel. Instead they said, “No, we want to have a king over us, 20 so that we also can be like all the nations, and our king can judge us and lead us out to fight our battles.”
21 Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he repeated them in the hearing of the Lord. 22 The Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to them, and appoint a king for them.”
So Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Each of you go home to your own city.”
Dead to Sin and Living for God
6 What shall we say then? Shall we keep on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 Absolutely not! We died to sin. How can we go on living in it any longer? 3 Or do you not know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him by this baptism into his death, so that just as he was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too would also walk in a new life.
5 For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.
6 We know that our old self was crucified with him, to make our sinful body powerless, so that we would not continue to serve sin. 7 For the person who has died has been declared free from sin. 8 And since we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he will never die again. Death no longer has control over him. 10 For the death he died, he died to sin once and for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 11 In the same way also consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.[a]
Serve God, Not Sin, in Your Life
12 Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires. 13 Do not offer the members of your body to sin as tools of unrighteousness. Instead, offer yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, and offer the members of your body to God as tools of righteousness. 14 Indeed, sin will not continue to control you, because you are not under law but under grace.
15 What then? Should we continue to sin, because we are not under law but under grace? Absolutely not! 16 Do you not know that when you offer yourselves to obey someone as slaves, you are slaves of the one you are obeying—whether slaves of sin, resulting in death, or slaves of obedience, resulting in righteousness?
17 Thanks be to God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to the pattern of the teaching into which you were placed. 18 After you were set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. 19 (I am speaking in a human way because of the weakness of your flesh.) Indeed, just as you offered your members as slaves to impurity and lawlessness, resulting in more lawlessness, so now offer your members in the same way as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. 21 So what kind of fruit did you have then? They were things of which you are now ashamed. Yes, the final result of those things is death. 22 But now, since you were set free from sin and have become slaves to God, you have your fruit resulting in sanctification—and the final result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the undeserved gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The Lord’s Message to the Jews in Egypt
44 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who lived in the land of Egypt—in Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Memphis,[a] and also in Upper Egypt:[b]
2 This is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says. You have seen the disaster I brought on Jerusalem and all the cities of Judah. You see that today they are desolate and no one lives there 3 because they committed evil and provoked me to anger. They burned incense to serve other gods that neither they, nor you, nor your fathers knew. 4 I kept sending my servants the prophets to you again and again, saying, “Do not do this detestable thing that I hate.” 5 But they did not listen or pay attention. They did not turn away from their wickedness or stop burning incense to other gods. 6 Therefore, my wrath and anger were poured out and ignited against the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, and they were laid waste and desolate, as they are this day.
7 Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says. Why are you doing such an evil thing to yourselves? You are cutting off from Judah man and woman, children and infants, leaving no one remaining. 8 Why are you provoking me to anger with the idols your hands have made? Why are you burning incense to other gods in Egypt where you have gone to live? You will cut yourselves off, making yourselves an object of cursing and ridicule among all the nations of the earth. 9 Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, the wickedness of the king of Judah, the wickedness of their wives, your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? 10 They have not humbled themselves even to this day. They have not feared me or walked in my law or in my statutes that I set before you and your fathers.
11 Therefore the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says: I will certainly set my face against you to bring disaster, to cut off all Judah. 12 I will remove the survivors of Judah who are determined to go to Egypt and settle there, and they will be consumed. In the land of Egypt they will fall. They will be consumed by sword and famine. They will die, from the least to the greatest, by sword and famine. They will become an object of horror and derision, an object of cursing and ridicule. 13 I will punish those who go to live in the land of Egypt as I punished Jerusalem—with the sword, famine, and plague— 14 so that none of the survivors of Judah who have gone to live in Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah, to which they long to return in order to live there, because none of them will return, except a few refugees.
15 Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, and all the women who were standing there—a large crowd—and all the people living in Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt[c] answered Jeremiah: 16 “We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, 17 but instead we will continue doing everything that we said we would do. We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven, and we will pour out drink offerings to her, just as we and our ancestors, our kings, and our officials used to do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. Then we had plenty of food. We were prosperous, and we had no troubles. 18 But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and stopped pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing at all, and we have been consumed by sword and famine.”
19 Then the women said, “When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make the cakes in her image and pour out drink offerings to her without our husbands’ approval?”
20 Then Jeremiah said to all the people, both men and women, who were answering him, 21 “Do you think the Lord did not remember the incense you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem—you, your ancestors, your kings and officials, and the people of the land? Do you think this did not enter his mind? 22 When the Lord could no longer bear your evil acts and the disgusting things you did, your land became a desolate wasteland, a cursed land, with no one living there to this day. 23 It is because you have burned incense and sinned against the Lord, because you have not obeyed him or walked in his law, his statutes, and his decrees, that this disaster has come upon you now.”
24 Jeremiah then said to all the people, including the women, “Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah in Egypt.”
25 The Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says this. You and your wives have declared with your words and your actions that you will keep the vows you made to burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her. Do what you promised! By all means, fulfill your vows!
26 But hear the word of the Lord, all you Jews living in Egypt. Listen! I swear by my great name, declares the Lord, that my name will no longer be spoken by anyone from Judah living anywhere in Egypt, nor will they swear, “As surely as the Lord God lives.” 27 Look at this! I am watching over them to bring disaster, not good, and all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will be consumed by sword and famine until they are all gone. 28 Those who escape the sword and return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah will be very few. Then all the remnant of Judah who entered Egypt to live there will know whose word will stand—mine or theirs.
29 This will be a sign to you, declares the Lord. I will punish you in this place. Then you will know that my warnings to bring disaster upon you will stand. 30 This is what the Lord says. Watch me. I am handing Pharaoh Hophra, king of Egypt, over to his enemies who seek his life, just as I handed Zedekiah king of Judah over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the enemy who sought his life.
Psalm 20
A Prayer for Victory for the King
Heading
For the choir director. A psalm by David.
The People’s Prayer
1 May the Lord answer you in the day of distress.
May the name of the God of Jacob lift you up.
2 May he send you help from the holy place.
May he support you from Zion.
3 May he remember all your sacrificial gifts. Interlude
May he accept your burnt offerings.
4 May he give you whatever your heart desires.
May he fulfill all your plans.
5 We will shout joyfully when God saves you.
In the name of our God we will lift up our banners.
May the Lord fulfill all your prayers.
The King’s Response
6 Now I know that the Lord saves his Anointed.[a]
He answers him from his holy heavens
with powerful acts of salvation from his right hand.
The People’s Prayer
7 Some rely on chariots, and some on horses,
but we rely on the name of the Lord our God.
8 They are brought to their knees and fall,
but we rise up and stand firm.
9 Lord, save the king! Answer us in the day we call!
Psalm 21
Thanksgiving for Victory
Heading
For the choir director. A psalm by David.
The People Thank the Lord for Victory
1 O Lord, the king rejoices in your strength.
He joyfully celebrates salvation from you.
2 You have granted him what his heart desired. Interlude
You have not denied the request from his lips.
3 Yes, you meet him to give him great blessings.
You place a crown of pure gold on his head.
4 He asked you for life, and you gave it to him—
length of days, forever and ever.
5 He receives great glory through the salvation you gave.
You bestow splendor and majesty on him.
6 Surely you grant him blessings forever.
You make him glad with joy in your presence.
7 Surely the king trusts in the Lord,
and through the mercy of the Most High he will not be shaken.
The People Assure the King of Future Victory
8 Your hand will reach all your enemies.
Your right hand will reach those who hate you.
9 At the time when you appear, O Lord,
you will make them like a blazing furnace.
In his anger he will swallow them.
Fire will consume them.
10 You will cause their fruit to perish from the earth,
their seed[b] from among the children of Adam.
11 Indeed, they intend[c] evil against you.
They plan wicked schemes,
but they will not succeed,
12 because you will make them turn and run
when you get ready to aim your arrows at them.
The People Praise the Lord
13 Rise up, O Lord, in your strength.
We will sing and make music because of your might.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.