M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
41 One night two years later, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing on the bank of the Nile River, 2 when suddenly, seven sleek, fat cows came up out of the river and began grazing in the grass. 3 Then seven other cows came up from the river, but they were very skinny and all their ribs stood out. They went over and stood beside the fat cows. 4 Then the skinny cows ate the fat ones! At which point, Pharaoh woke up!
5 Soon he fell asleep again and had a second dream. This time he saw seven heads of grain on one stalk, with every kernel well formed and plump. 6 Then, suddenly, seven more heads appeared on the stalk, but these were shriveled and withered by the east wind. 7 And these thin heads swallowed up the seven plump, well-formed heads! Then Pharaoh woke up again and realized it was all a dream. 8 Next morning, as he thought about it, he became very concerned as to what the dreams might mean; he called for all the magicians and sages of Egypt and told them about it, but not one of them could suggest what his dreams meant. 9 Then the king’s wine taster spoke up. “Today I remember my sin!” he said. 10 “Some time ago when you were angry with a couple of us and put me and the chief baker in jail in the castle of the captain of the guard, 11 the chief baker and I each had a dream one night. 12 We told the dreams to a young Hebrew fellow there who was a slave of the captain of the guard, and he told us what our dreams meant. 13 And everything happened just as he said: I was restored to my position of wine taster, and the chief baker was executed, and impaled on a pole.”
14 Pharaoh sent at once for Joseph. He was brought hastily from the dungeon, and after a quick shave and change of clothes, came in before Pharaoh.
15 “I had a dream last night,” Pharaoh told him, “and none of these men can tell me what it means. But I have heard that you can interpret dreams, and that is why I have called for you.”
16 “I can’t do it by myself,” Joseph replied, “but God will tell you what it means!”
17 So Pharaoh told him the dream. “I was standing upon the bank of the Nile River,” he said, 18 “when suddenly, seven fat, healthy-looking cows came up out of the river and began grazing along the riverbank. 19 But then seven other cows came up from the river, very skinny and bony—in fact, I’ve never seen such poor-looking specimens in all the land of Egypt. 20 And these skinny cattle ate up the seven fat ones that had come out first, 21 and afterwards they were still as skinny as before! Then I woke up.
22 “A little later I had another dream. This time there were seven heads of grain on one stalk, and all seven heads were plump and full. 23 Then, out of the same stalk, came seven withered, thin heads. 24 And the thin heads swallowed up the fat ones! I told all this to my magicians, but not one of them could tell me the meaning.”
25 “Both dreams mean the same thing,” Joseph told Pharaoh. “God was telling you what he is going to do here in the land of Egypt. 26 The seven fat cows (and also the seven fat, well-formed heads of grain) mean that there are seven years of prosperity ahead. 27 The seven skinny cows (and also the seven thin and withered heads of grain) indicate that there will be seven years of famine following the seven years of prosperity.
28 “So God has showed you what he is about to do: 29 The next seven years will be a period of great prosperity throughout all the land of Egypt; 30 but afterwards there will be seven years of famine so great that all the prosperity will be forgotten and wiped out; famine will consume the land. 31 The famine will be so terrible that even the memory of the good years will be erased. 32 The double dream gives double impact, showing that what I have told you is certainly going to happen, for God has decreed it, and it is going to happen soon. 33 My suggestion is that you find the wisest man in Egypt and put him in charge of administering a nationwide farm program. 34-35 Let Pharaoh divide Egypt into five administrative districts,[a] and let the officials of these districts gather into the royal storehouses all the excess crops of the next seven years, 36 so that there will be enough to eat when the seven years of famine come. Otherwise, disaster will surely strike.”
37 Joseph’s suggestions were well received by Pharaoh and his assistants. 38 As they discussed who should be appointed for the job, Pharaoh said, “Who could do it better than Joseph? For he is a man who is obviously filled with the Spirit of God.” 39 Turning to Joseph, Pharaoh said to him, “Since God has revealed the meaning of the dreams to you, you are the wisest man in the country! 40 I am hereby appointing you to be in charge of this entire project. What you say goes, throughout all the land of Egypt. I alone will outrank you.”
41-42 Then Pharaoh placed his own signet ring on Joseph’s finger as a token of his authority, and dressed him in beautiful clothing and placed the royal gold chain about his neck and declared, “See, I have placed you in charge of all the land of Egypt.”
43 Pharaoh also gave Joseph the chariot of his second-in-command, and wherever he went the shout arose, “Kneel down!” 44 And Pharaoh declared to Joseph, “I, the king of Egypt, swear that you shall have complete charge over all the land of Egypt.”
45 Pharaoh gave him a name meaning “He has the godlike power of life and death!”[b] And he gave him a wife, a girl named Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis. So Joseph became famous throughout the land of Egypt. 46 He was thirty years old as he entered the service of the king. Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and began traveling all across the land.
47 And sure enough, for the next seven years there were bumper crops everywhere. 48 During those years, Joseph requisitioned for the government a portion of all the crops grown throughout Egypt, storing them in nearby cities. 49 After seven years of this, the granaries were full to overflowing, and there was so much that no one kept track of the amount.
50 During this time before the arrival of the first of the famine years, two sons were born to Joseph by Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of the sun god Re of Heliopolis. 51 Joseph named his oldest son Manasseh (meaning “Made to Forget”—what he meant was that God had made up to him for all the anguish of his youth, and for the loss of his father’s home). 52 The second boy was named Ephraim (meaning “Fruitful”—“For God has made me fruitful in this land of my slavery,” he said).
53 So at last the seven years of plenty came to an end. 54 Then the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had predicted. There were crop failures in all the surrounding countries, too, but in Egypt there was plenty of grain in the storehouses. 55 The people began to starve. They pleaded with Pharaoh for food, and he sent them to Joseph. “Do whatever he tells you to,” he instructed them.
56-57 So now, with severe famine all over the world, Joseph opened up the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians and to those from other lands who came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph.
11 As they neared Bethphage and Bethany on the outskirts of Jerusalem and came to the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples on ahead.
2 “Go into that village over there,” he told them, “and just as you enter you will see a colt tied up that has never been ridden. Untie him and bring him here. 3 And if anyone asks you what you are doing, just say, ‘Our Master needs him and will return him soon.’”
4-5 Off went the two men and found the colt standing in the street, tied outside a house. As they were untying it, some who were standing there demanded, “What are you doing, untying that colt?”
6 So they said what Jesus had told them to, and then the men agreed.
7 So the colt was brought to Jesus, and the disciples threw their cloaks across its back for him to ride on. 8 Then many in the crowd spread out their coats along the road before him, while others threw down leafy branches from the fields.
9 He was in the center of the procession with crowds ahead and behind, and all of them shouting, “Hail to the King!” “Praise God for him who comes in the name of the Lord!” . . . 10 “Praise God for the return of our father David’s kingdom. . . . ” “Hail to the King of the universe!”
11 And so he entered Jerusalem and went into the Temple. He looked around carefully at everything and then left—for now it was late in the afternoon—and went out to Bethany with the twelve disciples.
12 The next morning as they left Bethany, he felt hungry. 13 A little way off he noticed a fig tree in full leaf, so he went over to see if he could find any figs on it. But no, there were only leaves, for it was too early in the season for fruit.
14 Then Jesus said to the tree, “You shall never bear fruit again!” And the disciples heard him say it.
15 When they arrived back in Jerusalem, he went to the Temple and began to drive out the merchants and their customers, and knocked over the tables of the money changers and the stalls of those selling doves, 16 and stopped everyone from bringing in loads of merchandise.
17 He told them, “It is written in the Scriptures, ‘My Temple is to be a place of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of robbers.”
18 When the chief priests and other Jewish leaders heard what he had done, they began planning how best to get rid of him. Their problem was their fear of riots because the people were so enthusiastic about Jesus’ teaching.
19 That evening as usual they left the city.
20 Next morning, as the disciples passed the fig tree he had cursed, they saw that it was withered from the roots! 21 Then Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day and exclaimed, “Look, Teacher! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”
22-23 In reply Jesus said to the disciples, “If you only have faith in God—this is the absolute truth—you can say to this Mount of Olives, ‘Rise up and fall into the Mediterranean,’ and your command will be obeyed. All that’s required is that you really believe and have no doubt! 24
26-28 [a]By this time they had arrived in Jerusalem again, and as he was walking through the Temple area, the chief priests and other Jewish leaders came up to him demanding, “What’s going on here? Who gave you the authority to drive out the merchants?”
29 Jesus replied, “I’ll tell you if you answer one question! 30 What about John the Baptist? Was he sent by God, or not? Answer me!”
31 They talked it over among themselves. “If we reply that God sent him, then he will say, ‘All right, why didn’t you accept him?’ 32 But if we say God didn’t send him, then the people will start a riot.” (For the people all believed strongly that John was a prophet.)
33 So they said, “We can’t answer. We don’t know.”
To which Jesus replied, “Then I won’t answer your question either!”
7 “How mankind must struggle. A man’s life is long and hard, like that of a slave. 2 How he longs for the day to end. How he grinds on to the end of the week and his wages. 3 And so to me also have been allotted months of frustration, these long and weary nights. 4 When I go to bed I think, ‘Oh, that it were morning,’ and then I toss till dawn.
5 “My skin is filled with worms and blackness. My flesh breaks open, full of pus. 6 My life drags by—day after hopeless day. 7 My life is but a breath, and nothing good is left. 8 You see me now, but not for long. Soon you’ll look upon me dead. 9 As a cloud disperses and vanishes, so those who die shall go away forever— 10 gone forever from their family and their home—never to be seen again. 11 Ah, let me express my anguish. Let me be free to speak out of the bitterness of my soul.
12 “O God, am I some monster that you never leave me alone? 13-14 Even when I try to forget my misery in sleep, you terrify with nightmares. 15 I would rather die of strangulation than go on and on like this. 16 I hate my life. Oh, leave me alone for these few remaining days. 17 What is mere man that you should spend your time persecuting him? 18 Must you be his inquisitor every morning and test him every moment of the day? 19 Why won’t you leave me alone—even long enough to spit?
20 “Has my sin harmed you, O God, watcher of mankind? Why have you made me your target, and made my life so heavy a burden to me? 21 Why not just pardon my sin and take it all away? For all too soon I’ll lie down in the dust and die, and when you look for me, I shall be gone.”
11 I ask then, has God rejected and deserted his people the Jews? Oh no, not at all. Remember that I myself am a Jew, a descendant of Abraham and a member of Benjamin’s family.
2-3 No, God has not discarded his own people whom he chose from the very beginning. Do you remember what the Scriptures say about this? Elijah the prophet was complaining to God about the Jews, telling God how they had killed the prophets and torn down God’s altars; Elijah claimed that he was the only one left in all the land who still loved God, and now they were trying to kill him too.
4 And do you remember how God replied? God said, “No, you are not the only one left. I have seven thousand others besides you who still love me and have not bowed down to idols!”[a]
5 It is the same today. Not all the Jews have turned away from God; there are a few being saved as a result of God’s kindness in choosing them. 6 And if it is by God’s kindness, then it is not by their being good enough. For in that case the free gift would no longer be free—it isn’t free when it is earned.
7 So this is the situation: Most of the Jews have not found the favor of God they are looking for. A few have—the ones God has picked out—but the eyes of the others have been blinded. 8 This is what our Scriptures refer to when they say that God has put them to sleep, shutting their eyes and ears so that they do not understand what we are talking about when we tell them of Christ. And so it is to this very day.
9 King David spoke of this same thing when he said, “Let their good food and other blessings trap them into thinking all is well between themselves and God. Let these good things boomerang on them and fall back upon their heads to justly crush them. 10 Let their eyes be dim,” he said, “so that they cannot see, and let them walk bent-backed forever with a heavy load.”
11 Does this mean that God has rejected his Jewish people forever? Of course not! His purpose was to make his salvation available to the Gentiles, and then the Jews would be jealous and begin to want God’s salvation for themselves. 12 Now if the whole world became rich as a result of God’s offer of salvation, when the Jews stumbled over it and turned it down, think how much greater a blessing the world will share in later on when the Jews, too, come to Christ.
13 As you know, God has appointed me as a special messenger to you Gentiles. I lay great stress on this and remind the Jews about it as often as I can, 14 so that if possible I can make them want what you Gentiles have and in that way save some of them. 15 And how wonderful it will be when they become Christians! When God turned away from them it meant that he turned to the rest of the world to offer his salvation; and now it is even more wonderful when the Jews come to Christ. It will be like dead people coming back to life. 16 And since Abraham and the prophets are God’s people, their children will be too. For if the roots of the tree are holy, the branches will be too.
17 But some of these branches from Abraham’s tree, some of the Jews, have been broken off. And you Gentiles who were branches from, we might say, a wild olive tree, were grafted in. So now you, too, receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in God’s rich nourishment of his own special olive tree.
18 But you must be careful not to brag about being put in to replace the branches that were broken off. Remember that you are important only because you are now a part of God’s tree; you are just a branch, not a root.
19 “Well,” you may be saying, “those branches were broken off to make room for me, so I must be pretty good.”
20 Watch out! Remember that those branches, the Jews, were broken off because they didn’t believe God, and you are there only because you do. Do not be proud; be humble and grateful—and careful. 21 For if God did not spare the branches he put there in the first place, he won’t spare you either.
22 Notice how God is both kind and severe. He is very hard on those who disobey, but very good to you if you continue to love and trust him. But if you don’t, you too will be cut off. 23 On the other hand, if the Jews leave their unbelief behind them and come back to God, God will graft them back into the tree again. He has the power to do it.
24 For if God was willing to take you who were so far away from him—being part of a wild olive tree—and graft you into his own good tree—a very unusual thing to do—don’t you see that he will be far more ready to put the Jews back again, who were there in the first place?
25 I want you to know about this truth from God, dear brothers, so that you will not feel proud and start bragging. Yes, it is true that some of the Jews have set themselves against the Gospel now, but this will last only until all of you Gentiles have come to Christ—those of you who will. 26 And then all Israel will be saved.
Do you remember what the prophets said about this? “There shall come out of Zion a Deliverer, and he shall turn the Jews from all ungodliness. 27 At that time I will take away their sins, just as I promised.”
28 Now many of the Jews are enemies of the Gospel. They hate it. But this has been a benefit to you, for it has resulted in God’s giving his gifts to you Gentiles. Yet the Jews are still beloved of God because of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 29 For God’s gifts and his call can never be withdrawn; he will never go back on his promises. 30 Once you were rebels against God, but when the Jews refused his gifts God was merciful to you instead. 31 And now the Jews are the rebels, but some day they, too, will share in God’s mercy upon you. 32 For God has given them all up to sin[b] so that he could have mercy upon all alike.
33 Oh, what a wonderful God we have! How great are his wisdom and knowledge and riches! How impossible it is for us to understand his decisions and his methods! 34 For who among us can know the mind of the Lord? Who knows enough to be his counselor and guide? 35 And who could ever offer to the Lord enough to induce him to act? 36 For everything comes from God alone. Everything lives by his power, and everything is for his glory. To him be glory evermore.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.