M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
4 But Moses said, “They won’t believe me! They won’t do what I tell them to. They’ll say, ‘Jehovah never appeared to you!’”
2 “What do you have there in your hand?” the Lord asked him.
And he replied, “A shepherd’s rod.”
3 “Throw it down on the ground,” the Lord told him. So he threw it down—and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it!
4 Then the Lord told him, “Grab it by the tail!” He did, and it became a rod in his hand again!
5 “Do that and they will believe you!” the Lord told him. “Then they will realize that Jehovah, the God of their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, has really appeared to you. 6 Now reach your hand inside your robe, next to your chest.” And when he did, and took it out again, it was white with leprosy! 7 “Now put it in again,” Jehovah said. And when he did, and took it out again, it was normal, just as before!
8 “If they don’t believe the first miracle, they will the second,” the Lord said, 9 “and if they don’t accept you after these two signs, then take water from the Nile River and pour it upon the dry land, and it will turn to blood.”
10 But Moses pleaded, “O Lord, I’m just not a good speaker. I never have been, and I’m not now, even after you have spoken to me, for I have a speech impediment.”[a]
11 “Who makes mouths?” Jehovah asked him. “Isn’t it I, the Lord? Who makes a man so that he can speak or not speak, see or not see, hear or not hear? 12 Now go ahead and do as I tell you, for I will help you to speak well, and I will tell you what to say.”
13 But Moses said, “Lord, please! Send someone else.”
14 Then the Lord became angry. “All right,” he said, “your brother, Aaron,[b] is a good speaker. And he is coming here to look for you and will be very happy when he finds you. 15 So I will tell you what to tell him, and I will help both of you to speak well, and I will tell you what to do. 16 He will be your spokesman to the people. And you will be as God to him, telling him what to say. 17 And be sure to take your rod along so that you can perform the miracles I have shown you.”
18 Moses returned home and talked it over with Jethro, his father-in-law. “With your permission,” Moses said, “I will go back to Egypt and visit my relatives. I don’t even know whether they are still alive.”
“Go with my blessing,” Jethro replied.
19 Before Moses left Midian, Jehovah said to him, “Don’t be afraid to return to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.”
20 So Moses took his wife and sons and put them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt, holding tightly to the “rod of God”!
21 Jehovah told him, “When you arrive back in Egypt you are to go to Pharaoh and do the miracles I have shown you, but I will make him stubborn so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you are to tell him, ‘Jehovah says, “Israel is my eldest son, 23 and I have commanded you to let him go away and worship me, but you have refused: and now see, I will slay your eldest son.”’”
24 As Moses and his family were traveling along and had stopped for the night, Jehovah appeared to Moses and threatened to kill him. 25-26 Then Zipporah his wife took a flint knife and cut off the foreskin of her young son’s penis, and threw it against Moses’ feet, remarking disgustedly, “What a blood-smeared husband you’ve turned out to be!”
Then God left him alone.
27 Now Jehovah said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So Aaron traveled to Mount Horeb, the mountain of God, and met Moses there, and they greeted each other warmly. 28 Moses told Aaron what God had said they must do, and what they were to say, and told him about the miracles they must do before Pharaoh.
29 So Moses and Aaron returned to Egypt and summoned the elders of the people of Israel to a council meeting. 30 Aaron told them what Jehovah had said to Moses, and Moses performed the miracles as they watched. 31 Then the elders believed that God had sent them, and when they heard that Jehovah had visited them and had seen their sorrows, and had decided to rescue them, they all rejoiced and bowed their heads and worshiped.
7 When Jesus had finished his sermon he went back into the city of Capernaum.
2 Just at that time the highly prized slave of a Roman[a] army captain was sick and near death. 3 When the captain heard about Jesus, he sent some respected Jewish elders to ask him to come and heal his slave. 4 So they began pleading earnestly with Jesus to come with them and help the man. They told him what a wonderful person the captain was.
“If anyone deserves your help, it is he,” they said, 5 “for he loves the Jews and even paid personally to build us a synagogue!”
6-8 Jesus went with them; but just before arriving at the house, the captain sent some friends to say, “Sir, don’t inconvenience yourself by coming to my home, for I am not worthy of any such honor or even to come and meet you. Just speak a word from where you are, and my servant boy will be healed! I know, because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my men. I only need to say ‘Go!’ and they go; or ‘Come!’ and they come; and to my slave, ‘Do this or that,’ and he does it. So just say, ‘Be healed!’ and my servant will be well again!”
9 Jesus was amazed. Turning to the crowd he said, “Never among all the Jews in Israel have I met a man with faith like this.”
10 And when the captain’s friends returned to his house, they found the slave completely healed.
11 Not long afterwards Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, with the usual great crowd at his heels. 12 A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The boy who had died was the only son of his widowed mother, and many mourners from the village were with her.
13 When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with sympathy. “Don’t cry!” he said. 14 Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Laddie,” he said, “come back to life again.”
15 Then the boy sat up and began to talk to those around him! And Jesus gave him back to his mother.
16 A great fear swept the crowd, and they exclaimed with praises to God, “A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and, “We have seen the hand of God at work today.”
17 The report of what he did that day raced from end to end of Judea and even out across the borders.
18 The disciples of John the Baptist soon heard of all that Jesus was doing. When they told John about it, 19 he sent two of his disciples to Jesus to ask him, “Are you really the Messiah?[b] Or shall we keep on looking for him?”
20-22 The two disciples found Jesus while he was curing many sick people of their various diseases—healing the lame and the blind and casting out evil spirits. When they asked him John’s question, this was his reply: “Go back to John and tell him all you have seen and heard here today: how those who were blind can see. The lame are walking without a limp. The lepers are completely healed. The deaf can hear again. The dead come back to life. And the poor are hearing the Good News. 23 And tell him, ‘Blessed is the one who does not lose his faith in me.’”[c]
24 After they left, Jesus talked to the crowd about John. “Who is this man you went out into the Judean wilderness to see?” he asked. “Did you find him weak as grass, moved by every breath of wind? 25 Did you find him dressed in expensive clothes? No! Men who live in luxury are found in palaces, not out in the wilderness. 26 But did you find a prophet? Yes! And more than a prophet. 27 He is the one to whom the Scriptures refer when they say, ‘Look! I am sending my messenger ahead of you, to prepare the way before you.’ 28 In all humanity there is no one greater than John. And yet the least citizen of the Kingdom of God is greater than he.”
29 And all who heard John preach—even the most wicked of them[d]—agreed that God’s requirements were right, and they were baptized by him. 30 All, that is, except the Pharisees and teachers of Moses’ law. They rejected God’s plan for them and refused John’s baptism.
31 “What can I say about such men?” Jesus asked. “With what shall I compare them? 32 They are like a group of children who complain to their friends, ‘You don’t like it if we play “wedding” and you don’t like it if we play “funeral”!’[e] 33 For John the Baptist used to go without food and never took a drop of liquor all his life, and you said, ‘He must be crazy!’[f] 34 But I eat my food and drink my wine, and you say, ‘What a glutton Jesus is! And he drinks! And has the lowest sort of friends!’[g] 35 But I am sure you can always justify your inconsistencies.”[h]
36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to come to his home for lunch and Jesus accepted the invitation. As they sat down to eat, 37 a woman of the streets—a prostitute—heard he was there and brought an exquisite flask filled with expensive perfume. 38 Going in, she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping, with her tears falling down upon his feet; and she wiped them off with her hair and kissed them and poured the perfume on them.
39 When Jesus’ host, a Pharisee, saw what was happening and who the woman was, he said to himself, “This proves that Jesus is no prophet, for if God had really sent him, he would know what kind of woman this one is!”
40 Then Jesus spoke up and answered his thoughts. “Simon,” he said to the Pharisee, “I have something to say to you.”
“All right, Teacher,” Simon replied, “go ahead.”
41 Then Jesus told him this story: “A man loaned money to two people—$5,000 to one and $500 to the other. 42 But neither of them could pay him back, so he kindly forgave them both, letting them keep the money! Which do you suppose loved him most after that?”
43 “I suppose the one who had owed him the most,” Simon answered.
“Correct,” Jesus agreed.
44 Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, “Look! See this woman kneeling here! When I entered your home, you didn’t bother to offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45 You refused me the customary kiss of greeting, but she has kissed my feet again and again from the time I first came in. 46 You neglected the usual courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has covered my feet with rare perfume. 47 Therefore her sins—and they are many—are forgiven, for she loved me much; but one who is forgiven little, shows little love.”
48 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”
49 Then the men at the table said to themselves, “Who does this man think he is, going around forgiving sins?”
50 And Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”
21 Job’s reply:
2-3 “Listen to me; let me speak, and afterwards, mock on.
4 “I am complaining about God,[a] not man; no wonder my spirit is so troubled. 5 Look at me in horror, and lay your hand upon your mouth. 6 Even I am frightened when I see myself. Horror takes hold upon me and I shudder.
7 “The truth is that the wicked live on to a good old age and become great and powerful. 8 They live to see their children grow to maturity around them, and their grandchildren too. 9 Their homes are safe from every fear, and God does not punish them. 10 Their cattle are productive, 11 they have many happy children, 12-13 they spend their time singing and dancing. They are wealthy and need deny themselves nothing; they are prosperous to the end. 14 All this despite the fact that they ordered God away and wanted no part of him and his ways.
15 “‘Who is Almighty God?’ they scoff. ‘Why should we obey him? What good will it do us?’
16 “Look, everything the wicked touch has turned to gold! But I refuse even to deal with people like that. 17 Yet the wicked get away with it every time. They never have trouble, and God skips them when he distributes his sorrows and anger. 18 Are they driven before the wind like straw? Are they carried away by the storm? Not at all!
19 “‘Well,’ you say, ‘at least God will punish their children!’ But I say that God should punish the man who sins, not his children! Let him feel the penalty himself. 20 Yes, let him be destroyed for his iniquity. Let him drink deeply of the anger of the Almighty. 21 For when he is dead, then he will never again be able to enjoy his family.
22 “But who can rebuke God, the supreme Judge? 23-24 He destroys those who are healthy, wealthy, fat, and prosperous; 25 God also destroys those in deep and grinding poverty who have never known anything good. 26 Both alike are buried in the same dust, both eaten by the same worms.
27 “I know what you are going to say— 28 you will tell me of rich and wicked men who came to disaster because of their sins. 29 But I reply, Ask anyone who has been around and he can tell you the truth, 30-32 that the evil man is usually spared in the day of calamity and allowed to escape. No one rebukes him openly. No one repays him for what he has done. And an honor guard keeps watch at his grave. 33 A great funeral procession precedes and follows him as the soft earth covers him. 34 How can you comfort me when your whole premise is so wrong?”
8 Next is your question about eating food that has been sacrificed to idols. On this question everyone feels that only his answer is the right one! But although being a “know-it-all” makes us feel important, what is really needed to build the church is love. 2 If anyone thinks he knows all the answers, he is just showing his ignorance. 3 But the person who truly loves God is the one who is open to God’s knowledge.
4 So now, what about it? Should we eat meat that has been sacrificed to idols? Well, we all know that an idol is not really a god, and that there is only one God, and no other. 5 According to some people, there are a great many gods, both in heaven and on earth. 6 But we know that there is only one God, the Father, who created all things[a] and made us to be his own; and one Lord Jesus Christ, who made everything and gives us life.
7 However, some Christians don’t realize this. All their lives they have been used to thinking of idols as alive, and have believed that food offered to the idols is really being offered to actual gods. So when they eat such food it bothers them and hurts their tender consciences. 8 Just remember that God doesn’t care whether we eat it or not. We are no worse off if we don’t eat it, and no better off if we do. 9 But be careful not to use your freedom to eat it, lest you cause some Christian brother to sin whose conscience[b] is weaker than yours.
10 You see, this is what may happen: Someone who thinks it is wrong to eat this food will see you eating at a temple restaurant, for you know there is no harm in it. Then he will become bold enough to do it too, although all the time he still feels it is wrong. 11 So because you “know it is all right to do it,” you will be responsible for causing great spiritual damage to a brother with a tender conscience for whom Christ died. 12 And it is a sin against Christ to sin against your brother by encouraging him to do something he thinks is wrong. 13 So if eating meat offered to idols is going to make my brother sin, I’ll not eat any of it as long as I live because I don’t want to do this to him.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.