M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

The Northern Tribes Secede

12 Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. ² When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard of it (for he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), then Jeroboam returned from^[a] Egypt. ³ And they sent and called him; and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, ⁴ ‘Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke that he placed on us, and we will serve you.’ ⁵ He said to them, ‘Go away for three days, then come again to me.’ So the people went away.

⁶ Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the older men who had attended his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, ‘How do you advise me to answer this people?’ ⁷ They answered him, ‘If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants for ever.’ ⁸ But he disregarded the advice that the older men gave him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and now attended him. ⁹ He said to them, ‘What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, “Lighten the yoke that your father put on us”?’ ¹⁰ The young men who had grown up with him said to him, ‘Thus you should say to this people who spoke to you, “Your father made our yoke heavy, but you must lighten it for us”; thus you should say to them, “My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. ¹¹ Now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.”’

¹² So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had said, ‘Come to me again on the third day.’ ¹³ The king answered the people harshly. He disregarded the advice that the older men had given him ¹⁴ and spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, ‘My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’ ¹⁵ So the king did not listen to the people, because it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfil his word, which the Lord had spoken by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

¹⁶ When all Israel saw that the king would not listen to them, the people answered the king,

So Israel went away to their tents. ¹⁷ But Rehoboam reigned over the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah. ¹⁸ When King Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was taskmaster over the forced labour, all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam then hurriedly mounted his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. ¹⁹ So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.

First Dynasty: Jeroboam Reigns over Israel

²⁰ When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they sent and called him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. There was no one who followed the house of David, except the tribe of Judah alone.

²¹ When Rehoboam came to Jerusalem, he assembled all the house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, one hundred and eighty thousand chosen troops to fight against the house of Israel, to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam son of Solomon. ²² But the word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God: ²³ Say to King Rehoboam of Judah, son of Solomon, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people, ²⁴ ‘Thus says the Lord, You shall not go up or fight against your kindred the people of Israel. Let everyone go home, for this thing is from me.’ So they heeded the word of the Lord and went home again, according to the word of the Lord.

Jeroboam’s Golden Calves

²⁵ Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and resided there; he went out from there and built Penuel. ²⁶ Then Jeroboam said to himself, ‘Now the kingdom may well revert to the house of David. ²⁷ If this people continues to go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, the heart of this people will turn again to their master, King Rehoboam of Judah; they will kill me and return to King Rehoboam of Judah.’ ²⁸ So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold. He said to the people,^[b] ‘You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.’ ²⁹ He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan. ³⁰ And this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one at Bethel and before the other as far as Dan.^{[c] 31} He also made houses^[d] on high places, and appointed priests from among all the people, who were not Levites. ³² Jeroboam appointed a festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month like the festival that was in Judah, and he offered sacrifices on the altar; so he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves that he had made. And he placed in Bethel the priests of the high places that he had made. ³³ He went up to the altar that he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, in the month that he alone had prescribed; he appointed a festival for the people of Israel, and he went up to the altar to offer incense.

3 Finally, my brothers and sisters,^[a] rejoice^[b] in the Lord.

Breaking with the Past

To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.

² Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh!^{[c] 3} For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God^[d] and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh— ⁴ even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. ⁸ More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ,^[e] the righteousness from God based on faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ^[f] and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Pressing towards the Goal

¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal;^[g] but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ¹³ Beloved,^[h] I do not consider that I have made it my own;^[i] but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I press on towards the goal for the prize of the heavenly^[j] call of God in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you. ¹⁶ Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

¹⁷ Brothers and sisters,^[k] join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. ¹⁸ For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. ¹⁹ Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship^[l] is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹ He will transform the body of our humiliation^[m] so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory,^[n] by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

The Holy Chambers and the Outer Wall

42 Then he led me out into the outer court, towards the north, and he brought me to the chambers that were opposite the temple yard and opposite the building on the north. ² The length of the building that was on the north side^[a] was^[b] one hundred cubits, and the width fifty cubits. ³ Across the twenty cubits that belonged to the inner court, and facing the pavement that belonged to the outer court, the chambers rose^[c] gallery^[d] by gallery^[e] in three stories. ⁴ In front of the chambers was a passage on the inner side, ten cubits wide and one hundred cubits deep,^[f] and its^[g] entrances were on the north. ⁵ Now the upper chambers were narrower, for the galleries^[h] took more away from them than from the lower and middle chambers in the building. ⁶ For they were in three stories, and they had no pillars like the pillars of the outer^[i] court; for this reason the upper chambers were set back from the ground more than the lower and the middle ones. ⁷ There was a wall outside parallel to the chambers, towards the outer court, opposite the chambers, fifty cubits long. ⁸ For the chambers on the outer court were fifty cubits long, while those opposite the temple were one hundred cubits long. ⁹ At the foot of these chambers ran a passage that one entered from the east in order to enter them from the outer court. ¹⁰ The width of the passage^[j] was fixed by the wall of the court.

On the south^[k] also, opposite the vacant area and opposite the building, there were chambers ¹¹ with a passage in front of them; they were similar to the chambers on the north, of the same length and width, with the same exits^[l] and arrangements and doors. ¹² So the entrances of the chambers to the south were entered through the entrance at the head of the corresponding passage, from the east, along the matching wall.^[m]

¹³ Then he said to me, ‘The north chambers and the south chambers opposite the vacant area are the holy chambers, where the priests who approach the Lord shall eat the most holy offerings; there they shall deposit the most holy offerings—the grain-offering, the sin-offering, and the guilt-offering—for the place is holy. ¹⁴ When the priests enter the holy place, they shall not go out of it into the outer court without laying there the vestments in which they minister, for these are holy; they shall put on other garments before they go near to the area open to the people.’

¹⁵ When he had finished measuring the interior of the temple area, he led me out by the gate that faces east, and measured the temple area all round. ¹⁶ He measured the east side with the measuring reed, five hundred cubits by the measuring reed. ¹⁷ Then he turned and measured^[n] the north side, five hundred cubits by the measuring reed. ¹⁸ Then he turned and measured^[o] the south side, five hundred cubits by the measuring reed. ¹⁹ Then he turned to the west side and measured, five hundred cubits by the measuring reed. ²⁰ He measured it on the four sides. It had a wall around it, five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide, to make a separation between the holy and the common.

Psalm 94

God the Avenger of the Righteous