M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

26 The Ziphites came to Saul to Gibeah, saying, “Doesn’t David hide himself in the hill of Hachilah, which is before the desert?” ² Then Saul arose and went down to the wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with him, to seek David in the wilderness of Ziph. ³ Saul encamped in the hill of Hachilah, which is before the desert, by the way. But David stayed in the wilderness, and he saw that Saul came after him into the wilderness. ⁴ David therefore sent out spies, and understood that Saul had certainly come. ⁵ Then David arose and came to the place where Saul had encamped; and David saw the place where Saul lay, with Abner the son of Ner, the captain of his army. Saul lay within the place of the wagons, and the people were encamped around him.

⁶ Then David answered and said to Ahimelech the Hittite, and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother of Joab, saying, “Who will go down with me to Saul to the camp?”

Abishai said, “I will go down with you.” ⁷ So David and Abishai came to the people by night; and, behold, Saul lay sleeping within the place of the wagons, with his spear stuck in the ground at his head; and Abner and the people lay around him. ⁸ Then Abishai said to David, “God has delivered up your enemy into your hand today. Now therefore please let me strike him with the spear to the earth at one stroke, and I will not strike him the second time.”

⁹ David said to Abishai, “Don’t destroy him, for who can stretch out his hand against Yahweh’s anointed, and be guiltless?” ¹⁰ David said, “As Yahweh lives, Yahweh will strike him; or his day shall come to die, or he shall go down into battle and perish. ¹¹ Yahweh forbid that I should stretch out my hand against Yahweh’s anointed; but now please take the spear that is at his head and the jar of water, and let’s go.”

¹² So David took the spear and the jar of water from Saul’s head, and they went away. No man saw it, or knew it, nor did any awake; for they were all asleep, because a deep sleep from Yahweh had fallen on them. ¹³ Then David went over to the other side, and stood on the top of the mountain far away, a great space being between them; ¹⁴ and David cried to the people, and to Abner the son of Ner, saying, “Don’t you answer, Abner?”

Then Abner answered, “Who are you who calls to the king?”

¹⁵ David said to Abner, “Aren’t you a man? Who is like you in Israel? Why then have you not kept watch over your lord the king? For one of the people came in to destroy your lord the king. ¹⁶ This thing isn’t good that you have done. As Yahweh lives, you are worthy to die, because you have not kept watch over your lord, Yahweh’s anointed. Now see where the king’s spear is, and the jar of water that was at his head.”

¹⁷ Saul recognized David’s voice, and said, “Is this your voice, my son David?”

David said, “It is my voice, my lord, O king.” ¹⁸ He said, “Why does my lord pursue his servant? For what have I done? What evil is in my hand? ¹⁹ Now therefore, please let my lord the king hear the words of his servant. If it is so that Yahweh has stirred you up against me, let him accept an offering. But if it is the children of men, they are cursed before Yahweh; for they have driven me out today that I shouldn’t cling to Yahweh’s inheritance, saying, ‘Go, serve other gods!’ ²⁰ Now therefore, don’t let my blood fall to the earth away from the presence of Yahweh; for the king of Israel has come out to seek a flea, as when one hunts a partridge in the mountains.”

²¹ Then Saul said, “I have sinned. Return, my son David; for I will no more do you harm, because my life was precious in your eyes today. Behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.”

²² David answered, “Behold the spear, O king! Let one of the young men come over and get it. ²³ Yahweh will render to every man his righteousness and his faithfulness; because Yahweh delivered you into my hand today, and I wouldn’t stretch out my hand against Yahweh’s anointed. ²⁴ Behold, as your life was respected today in my eyes, so let my life be respected in Yahweh’s eyes, and let him deliver me out of all oppression.”

²⁵ Then Saul said to David, “You are blessed, my son David. You will both do mightily, and will surely prevail.”

So David went his way, and Saul returned to his place.

7 Now concerning the things about which you wrote to me: it is good for a man not to touch a woman. ² But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. ³ Let the husband give his wife the affection owed her,^[a] and likewise also the wife her husband. ⁴ The wife doesn’t have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise also the husband doesn’t have authority over his own body, but the wife does. ⁵ Don’t deprive one another, unless it is by consent for a season, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and may be together again, that Satan doesn’t tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

⁶ But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment. ⁷ Yet I wish that all men were like me. However, each man has his own gift from God, one of this kind, and another of that kind. ⁸ But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am. ⁹ But if they don’t have self-control, let them marry. For it’s better to marry than to burn with passion. ¹⁰ But to the married I command—not I, but the Lord—that the wife not leave her husband ¹¹ (but if she departs, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband not leave his wife.

¹² But to the rest I—not the Lord—say, if any brother has an unbelieving wife, and she is content to live with him, let him not leave her. ¹³ The woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he is content to live with her, let her not leave her husband. ¹⁴ For the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but now they are holy. ¹⁵ Yet if the unbeliever departs, let there be separation. The brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us in peace. ¹⁶ For how do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?

¹⁷ Only, as the Lord has distributed to each man, as God has called each, so let him walk. So I command in all the assemblies.

¹⁸ Was anyone called having been circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Has anyone been called in uncircumcision? Let him not be circumcised. ¹⁹ Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but what matters is keeping God’s commandments. ²⁰ Let each man stay in that calling in which he was called. ²¹ Were you called being a bondservant? Don’t let that bother you, but if you get an opportunity to become free, use it. ²² For he who was called in the Lord being a bondservant is the Lord’s free man. Likewise he who was called being free is Christ’s bondservant. ²³ You were bought with a price. Don’t become bondservants of men. ²⁴ Brothers, let each man, in whatever condition he was called, stay in that condition with God.

²⁵ Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord to be trustworthy. ²⁶ Therefore I think that because of the distress that is on us, it’s good for a man to remain as he is. ²⁷ Are you bound to a wife? Don’t seek to be freed. Are you free from a wife? Don’t seek a wife. ²⁸ But if you marry, you have not sinned. If a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have oppression in the flesh, and I want to spare you. ²⁹ But I say this, brothers: the time is short. From now on, both those who have wives may be as though they had none; ³⁰ and those who weep, as though they didn’t weep; and those who rejoice, as though they didn’t rejoice; and those who buy, as though they didn’t possess; ³¹ and those who use the world, as not using it to the fullest. For the mode of this world passes away.

³² But I desire to have you to be free from cares. He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; ³³ but he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife. ³⁴ There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband. ³⁵ This I say for your own benefit, not that I may ensnare you, but for that which is appropriate, and that you may attend to the Lord without distraction.

³⁶ But if any man thinks that he is behaving inappropriately toward his virgin, if she is past the flower of her age, and if need so requires, let him do what he desires. He doesn’t sin. Let them marry. ³⁷ But he who stands steadfast in his heart, having no urgency, but has power over his own will, and has determined in his own heart to keep his own virgin, does well. ³⁸ So then both he who gives his own virgin in marriage does well, and he who doesn’t give her in marriage does better.

³⁹ A wife is bound by law for as long as her husband lives; but if the husband is dead, she is free to be married to whomever she desires, only in the Lord. ⁴⁰ But she is happier if she stays as she is, in my judgment, and I think that I also have God’s Spirit.

5 “You, son of man, take a sharp sword. You shall take it as a barber’s razor to yourself, and shall cause it to pass over your head and over your beard. Then take balances to weigh and divide the hair. ² A third part you shall burn in the fire in the middle of the city, when the days of the siege are fulfilled. You shall take a third part, and strike with the sword around it. A third part you shall scatter to the wind, and I will draw out a sword after them. ³ You shall take a small number of these and bind them in the folds of your robe. ⁴ Of these again you shall take, and cast them into the middle of the fire, and burn them in the fire. From it a fire will come out into all the house of Israel.

⁵ “The Lord Yahweh says: ‘This is Jerusalem. I have set her in the middle of the nations, and countries are around her. ⁶ She has rebelled against my ordinances in doing wickedness more than the nations, and against my statutes more than the countries that are around her; for they have rejected my ordinances, and as for my statutes, they have not walked in them.’

⁷ “Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you are more turbulent than the nations that are around you, and have not walked in my statutes, neither have kept my ordinances, neither have followed the ordinances of the nations that are around you; ⁸ therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Behold, I, even I, am against you; and I will execute judgments among you in the sight of the nations. ⁹ I will do in you that which I have not done, and which I will not do anything like it any more, because of all your abominations. ¹⁰ Therefore the fathers will eat the sons within you, and the sons will eat their fathers. I will execute judgments on you; and I will scatter the whole remnant of you to all the winds. ¹¹ Therefore as I live,’ says the Lord Yahweh, ‘surely, because you have defiled my sanctuary with all your detestable things, and with all your abominations, therefore I will also diminish you. My eye won’t spare, and I will have no pity. ¹² A third part of you will die with the pestilence, and they will be consumed with famine within you. A third part will fall by the sword around you. A third part I will scatter to all the winds, and will draw out a sword after them.

¹³ “‘Thus my anger will be accomplished, and I will cause my wrath toward them to rest, and I will be comforted. They will know that I, Yahweh, have spoken in my zeal, when I have accomplished my wrath on them.

¹⁴ “‘Moreover I will make you a desolation and a reproach among the nations that are around you, in the sight of all that pass by. ¹⁵ So it will be a reproach and a taunt, an instruction and an astonishment, to the nations that are around you, when I execute judgments on you in anger and in wrath, and in wrathful rebukes—I, Yahweh, have spoken it— ¹⁶ when I send on them the evil arrows of famine that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you. I will increase the famine on you and will break your staff of bread. ¹⁷ I will send on you famine and evil animals, and they will bereave you. Pestilence and blood will pass through you. I will bring the sword on you. I, Yahweh, have spoken it.’”

BOOK 2

For the Chief Musician. A contemplation by the sons of Korah.