M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
31 But Jacob learned that Laban’s sons were grumbling, “He owes everything he owns to our father. All his wealth is at our father’s expense.” 2 Soon Jacob noticed a considerable cooling in Laban’s attitude toward him.
3 Jehovah now spoke to Jacob and told him, “Return to the land of your fathers, and to your relatives there; and I will be with you.”
4 So one day Jacob sent for Rachel and Leah to come out to the field where he was with the flocks, 5 to talk things over with them.
“Your father has turned against me,” he told them, “and now the God of my fathers has come and spoken to me. 6 You know how hard I’ve worked for your father, 7 but he has been completely unscrupulous and has broken his wage contract with me again and again and again. But God has not permitted him to do me any harm! 8 For if he said the speckled animals would be mine, then all the flock produced speckled; and when he changed and said I could have the streaked ones, then all the lambs were streaked! 9 In this way God has made me wealthy at your father’s expense.
10 “And at the mating season, I had a dream, and saw that the he-goats mating with the flock were streaked, speckled, and mottled. 11 Then, in my dream, the Angel of God called to me 12 and told me that I should mate the white female goats with streaked, speckled, and mottled male goats.[a] ‘For I have seen all that Laban has done to you,’ the Angel said. 13 ‘I am the God you met at Bethel,’ he continued, ‘the place where you anointed the pillar and made a vow to serve me. Now leave this country and return to the land of your birth.’”
14 Rachel and Leah replied, “That’s fine with us! There’s nothing for us here—none of our father’s wealth will come to us anyway! 15 He has reduced our rights to those of foreign women; he sold us, and what he received for us has disappeared. 16 The riches God has given you from our father were legally ours and our children’s to begin with! So go ahead and do whatever God has told you to.”
17-20 So one day while Laban was out shearing sheep, Jacob set his wives and sons on camels, and fled without telling Laban his intentions. He drove the flocks before him—Jacob’s flocks he had gotten there at Paddan-aram—and took everything he owned and started out to return to his father Isaac in the land of Canaan. 21 So he fled with all of his possessions (and Rachel stole her father’s household gods and took them with her) and crossed the Euphrates River and headed for the territory of Gilead.
22 Laban didn’t learn of their flight for three days. 23 Then, taking several men with him, he set out in hot pursuit and caught up with them seven days later, at Mount Gilead. 24 That night God appeared to Laban in a dream.
“Watch out what you say to Jacob,” he was told. “Don’t give him your blessing and don’t curse him.” 25 Laban finally caught up with Jacob as he was camped at the top of a ridge; Laban, meanwhile, camped below him in the mountains.
26 “What do you mean by sneaking off like this?” Laban demanded. “Are my daughters prisoners, captured in a battle, that you have rushed them away like this? 27 Why didn’t you give me a chance to have a farewell party, with singing and orchestra and harp? 28 Why didn’t you let me kiss my grandchildren and tell them good-bye? This is a strange way to act. 29 I could crush you, but the God of your father appeared to me last night and told me, ‘Be careful not to be too hard on Jacob!’ 30 But see here—though you feel you must go, and long so intensely for your childhood home—why have you stolen my idols?”
31 “I sneaked away because I was afraid,” Jacob answered. “I said to myself, ‘He’ll take his daughters from me by force.’ 32 But as for your household idols, a curse upon anyone who took them. Let him die! If you find a single thing we’ve stolen from you, I swear before all these men, I’ll give it back without question.” For Jacob didn’t know that Rachel had taken them.
33 Laban went first into Jacob’s tent to search there, then into Leah’s, and then searched the two tents of the concubines, but didn’t find them. Finally he went into Rachel’s tent. 34 Rachel, remember, was the one who had stolen the idols; she had stuffed them into her camel saddle and now was sitting on them! So although Laban searched the tents thoroughly, he didn’t find them.
35 “Forgive my not getting up, Father,” Rachel explained, “but I’m having my monthly period.”[b] So Laban didn’t find them.
36-37 Now Jacob got mad. “What did you find?” he demanded of Laban. “What is my crime? You have come rushing after me as though you were chasing a criminal and have searched through everything. Now put everything I stole out here in front of us, before your men and mine, for all to see and to decide whose it is! 38 Twenty years I’ve been with you, and all that time I cared for your ewes and goats so that they produced healthy offspring, and I never touched one ram of yours for food. 39 If any were attacked and killed by wild animals, did I show them to you and ask you to reduce the count of your flock? No, I took the loss. You made me pay for every animal stolen from the flocks, whether I could help it or not.[c] 40 I worked for you through the scorching heat of the day, and through the cold and sleepless nights. 41 Yes, twenty years—fourteen of them earning your two daughters, and six years to get the flock! And you have reduced my wages ten times! 42 In fact, except for the grace of God—the God of my grandfather Abraham, even the glorious God of Isaac, my father—you would have sent me off without a penny to my name. But God has seen your cruelty and my hard work, and that is why he appeared to you last night.”
43 Laban replied, “These women are my daughters, and these children are mine, and these flocks and all that you have—all are mine. So how could I harm my own daughters and grandchildren? 44 Come now and we will sign a peace pact, you and I, and will live by its terms.”
45 So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a monument, 46 and told his men to gather stones and make a heap, and Jacob and Laban ate together beside the pile of rocks. 47-48 They named it “The Witness Pile”—“Jegar-sahadutha,” in Laban’s language, and “Galeed” in Jacob’s.
“This pile of stones will stand as a witness against us if either of us trespasses across this line,[d]” Laban said. 49 So it was also called “The Watchtower” (Mizpah). For Laban said, “May the Lord see to it that we keep this bargain when we are out of each other’s sight. 50 And if you are harsh to my daughters, or take other wives, I won’t know, but God will see it. 51-52 This heap,” Laban continued, “stands between us as a witness of our vows that I will not cross this line to attack you and you will not cross it to attack me. 53 I call upon the God of Abraham and Nahor, and of their father, to destroy either one of us who does.”
So Jacob took oath before the mighty God of his father, Isaac, to respect the boundary line. 54 Then Jacob presented a sacrifice to God there at the top of the mountain, and invited his companions to a feast, and afterwards spent the night with them on the mountain. 55 Laban was up early the next morning and kissed his daughters and grandchildren, and blessed them, and returned home.
2 Several days later he returned to Capernaum, and the news of his arrival spread quickly through the city. 2 Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there wasn’t room for a single person more, not even outside the door. And he preached the Word to them. 3 Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a stretcher. 4 They couldn’t get to Jesus through the crowd, so they dug through the clay roof above his head and lowered the sick man on his stretcher, right down in front of Jesus.[a]
5 When Jesus saw how strongly they believed that he would help, Jesus said to the sick man, “Son, your sins are forgiven!”
6 But some of the Jewish religious leaders[b] said to themselves as they sat there, 7 “What? This is blasphemy! Does he think he is God? For only God can forgive sins.”
8 Jesus could read their minds and said to them at once, “Why does this bother you? 9-11 I, the Messiah,[c] have the authority on earth to forgive sins. But talk is cheap—anybody could say that. So I’ll prove it to you by healing this man.” Then, turning to the paralyzed man, he commanded, “Pick up your stretcher and go on home, for you are healed!”
12 The man jumped up, took the stretcher, and pushed his way through the stunned onlookers! Then how they praised God. “We’ve never seen anything like this before!” they all exclaimed.
13 Then Jesus went out to the seashore again and preached to the crowds that gathered around him. 14 As he was walking up the beach he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at his tax collection booth. “Come with me,” Jesus told him. “Come be my disciple.”
And Levi jumped to his feet and went along.
15 That night Levi invited his fellow tax collectors and many other notorious sinners to be his dinner guests so that they could meet Jesus and his disciples. (There were many men of this type among the crowds that followed him.) 16 But when some of the Jewish religious leaders[d] saw him eating with these men of ill repute, they said to his disciples, “How can he stand it, to eat with such scum?”
17 When Jesus heard what they were saying, he told them, “Sick people need the doctor, not healthy ones! I haven’t come to tell good people to repent, but the bad ones.”
18 John’s disciples and the Jewish leaders sometimes fasted, that is, went without food as part of their religion. One day some people came to Jesus and asked why his disciples didn’t do this too.
19 Jesus replied, “Do friends of the bridegroom refuse to eat at the wedding feast? Should they be sad while he is with them? 20 But some day he will be taken away from them, and then they will mourn. 21 Besides, going without food is part of the old way of doing things.[e] It is like patching an old garment with unshrunk cloth! What happens? The patch pulls away and leaves the hole worse than before. 22 You know better than to put new wine into old wineskins. They would burst. The wine would be spilled out and the wineskins ruined. New wine needs fresh wineskins.”
23 Another time, on a Sabbath day as Jesus and his disciples were walking through the fields, the disciples were breaking off heads of wheat and eating the grain.[f]
24 Some of the Jewish religious leaders said to Jesus, “They shouldn’t be doing that! It’s against our laws to work by harvesting grain on the Sabbath.”
25-26 But Jesus replied, “Didn’t you ever hear about the time King David and his companions were hungry, and he went into the house of God—Abiathar was high priest then—and they ate the special bread[g] only priests were allowed to eat? That was against the law too. 27 But the Sabbath was made to benefit man, and not man to benefit the Sabbath. 28 And I, the Messiah,[h] have authority even to decide what men can do on Sabbath days!”
7 So the king and Haman came to Esther’s banquet. 2 Again, during the wine course, the king asked her, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? What do you wish? Whatever it is, I will give it to you, even if it is half of my kingdom!”
3 And at last Queen Esther replied, “If I have won your favor, O King, and if it please Your Majesty, save my life and the lives of my people. 4 For I and my people have been sold to those who will destroy us. We are doomed to destruction and slaughter. If we were only to be sold as slaves, perhaps I could remain quiet, though even then there would be incalculable damage to the king that no amount of money could begin to cover.”
5 “What are you talking about?” King Ahasuerus demanded. “Who would dare touch you?”
6 Esther replied, “This wicked Haman is our enemy.”
Then Haman grew pale with fright before the king and queen. 7 The king jumped to his feet and went out into the palace garden as Haman stood up to plead for his life to Queen Esther, for he knew that he was doomed. 8 In despair he fell upon the couch where Queen Esther was reclining, just as the king returned from the palace garden.
“Will he even rape the queen right here in the palace, before my very eyes?” the king roared. Instantly the death veil was placed over Haman’s face.
9 Then Harbona, one of the king’s aides, said, “Sir, Haman has just ordered a 75-foot gallows constructed, to hang Mordecai, the man who saved the king from assassination! It stands in Haman’s courtyard.”
“Hang Haman on it,” the king ordered.
10 So they did, and the king’s wrath was pacified.
2 “Well,” you may be saying, “what terrible people you have been talking about!” But wait a minute! You are just as bad. When you say they are wicked and should be punished, you are talking about yourselves, for you do these very same things. 2 And we know that God, in justice, will punish anyone who does such things as these. 3 Do you think that God will judge and condemn others for doing them and overlook you when you do them, too? 4 Don’t you realize how patient he is being with you? Or don’t you care? Can’t you see that he has been waiting all this time without punishing you, to give you time to turn from your sin? His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.
5 But no, you won’t listen; and so you are saving up terrible punishment for yourselves because of your stubbornness in refusing to turn from your sin; for there is going to come a day of wrath when God will be the just Judge of all the world. 6 He will give each one whatever his deeds deserve. 7 He will give eternal life to those who patiently do the will of God,[a] seeking for the unseen glory and honor and eternal life that he offers. 8 But he will terribly punish those who fight against the truth of God and walk in evil ways—God’s anger will be poured out upon them. 9 There will be sorrow and suffering for Jews and Gentiles alike who keep on sinning. 10 But there will be glory and honor and peace from God for all who obey him,[b] whether they are Jews or Gentiles. 11 For God treats everyone the same.
12-15 He will punish sin wherever it is found. He will punish the heathen when they sin, even though they never had God’s written laws, for down in their hearts they know right from wrong. God’s laws are written within them; their own conscience accuses them, or sometimes excuses them. And God will punish the Jews for sinning because they have his written laws but don’t obey them. They know what is right but don’t do it. After all, salvation is not given to those who know what to do, unless they do it. 16 The day will surely come when at God’s command Jesus Christ will judge the secret lives of everyone, their inmost thoughts and motives; this is all part of God’s great plan, which I proclaim.
17 You Jews think all is well between yourselves and God because he gave his laws to you;[c] you brag that you are his special friends. 18 Yes, you know what he wants; you know right from wrong and favor the right because you have been taught his laws from earliest youth. 19 You are so sure of the way to God that you could point it out to a blind man. You think of yourselves as beacon lights, directing men who are lost in darkness to God. 20 You think that you can guide the simple and teach even children the affairs of God, for you really know his laws, which are full of all knowledge and truth.
21 Yes, you teach others—then why don’t you teach yourselves? You tell others not to steal—do you steal? 22 You say it is wrong to commit adultery—do you do it? You say “Don’t pray to idols” and then make money your god instead.[d]
23 You are so proud of knowing God’s laws, but you dishonor him by breaking them. 24 No wonder the Scriptures say that the world speaks evil of God because of you.
25 Being a Jew is worth something if you obey God’s laws; but if you don’t, then you are no better off than the heathen. 26 And if the heathen obey God’s laws, won’t God give them all the rights and honors he planned to give the Jews? 27 In fact, those heathen will be much better off[e] than you Jews who know so much about God and have his promises but don’t obey his laws.
28 For you are not real Jews just because you were born of Jewish parents or because you have gone through the Jewish initiation ceremony of circumcision. 29 No, a real Jew is anyone whose heart is right with God. For God is not looking for those who cut their bodies in actual body circumcision, but he is looking for those with changed hearts and minds. Whoever has that kind of change in his life will get his praise from God, even if not from you.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.