M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
21 Manasseh was twelve years old when he began his fifty-five-year [wicked] reign in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hephzibah.
2 He [Hezekiah’s son] did evil in the sight of the Lord, after the [idolatrous] practices of the [heathen] nations whom the Lord cast out before the Israelites.
3 For he built up again the high places which Hezekiah his father had destroyed; and he reared up altars for Baal and made an Asherah, as did Ahab king of Israel, and worshiped all the [starry] hosts of the heavens and served them!
4 And he built [heathen] altars in the house of the Lord, of which the Lord said, In Jerusalem will I put My [a]Name [and the pledge of My presence].
5 And he [good Hezekiah’s son] built altars for all the hosts of the heavens in the two courts of the house of the Lord!
6 And he made his son pass through the fire and burned him as an offering [to Molech]; he practiced soothsaying and augury, and dealt with mediums and wizards! He did much wickedness in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him to anger.
7 He made a graven image of [the goddess] Asherah and set it in the house, of which the Lord said to David and to Solomon his son, In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, will I put My Name [and the pledge of My presence] forever;
8 And I will not cause the feet of Israel to wander any more out of the land which I gave their fathers, if only they will observe to do according to all that I have commanded them and according to all the law that My servant Moses commanded them.
9 But they would not listen; and Manasseh seduced them to do more evil than the nations did whom the Lord destroyed before the Israelites!
10 And the Lord said through His servants the prophets:
11 Because Manasseh king of Judah has committed these abominations, and has done wickedly above all that the Amorites did who were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols,
12 Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing such evil upon Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears shall tingle!
13 And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plummet of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.
14 And I will cast off the rest of My inheritance and deliver them into the hands of their enemies; and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies,
15 For they have done evil in My sight and have provoked Me to anger since their fathers came out of Egypt to this day.
16 Moreover, Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, filling Jerusalem from one end to another—besides his sin in making Judah sin, by doing evil in the sight of the Lord!(A)
17 The rest of the acts of Manasseh, all that he did, and his sin that he committed, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
18 Manasseh slept with his fathers and was buried in the garden of his own house, in the garden of Uzza. Amon his son reigned in his stead.
19 Amon was twenty-two years old when he began his two-year reign in Jerusalem. His mother was Meshullemeth daughter of Haruz of Jotbah.
20 [But] he also did evil in the sight of the Lord, as his father Manasseh had done.(B)
21 He walked in all the ways of his father; and he served the idols that his father served, and worshiped them;
22 He forsook the Lord, the God of his [forefathers], and did not walk in the way of the Lord.
23 The servants of Amon conspired against him and killed the king in his own house.
24 But the people of the land killed all those who had conspired against King Amon, and made Josiah his son king in his stead.
25 The rest of the acts of Amon, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?
26 He was buried in his tomb in the garden of Uzza. Josiah his son succeeded him.
3 So then, brethren, consecrated and set apart for God, who share in the heavenly calling, [thoughtfully and attentively] consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest Whom we confessed [as ours when we embraced the Christian faith].
2 [See how] faithful He was to Him Who appointed Him [Apostle and High Priest], as Moses was also faithful in the whole house [of God].(A)
3 Yet Jesus has been considered worthy of much greater honor and glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house [itself].
4 For [of course] every house is built and furnished by someone, but the Builder of all things and the Furnisher [of the entire equipment of all things] is God.
5 And Moses certainly was faithful in the administration of all God’s house [but it was only] as a ministering servant. [In his entire ministry he was but] a testimony to the things which were to be spoken [the revelations to be given afterward in Christ].(B)
6 But Christ (the Messiah) was faithful over His [own Father’s] house as a Son [and Master of it]. And it is we who are [now members] of this house, if we hold fast and firm to the end our joyful and exultant confidence and sense of triumph in our hope [in Christ].
7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you will hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts, as [happened] in the rebellion [of Israel] and their provocation and [a]embitterment [of Me] in the day of testing in the wilderness,
9 Where your fathers tried [My patience] and tested [My forbearance] and [b]found I stood their test, and they saw My works for forty years.
10 And so I was provoked (displeased and sorely grieved) with that generation, and said, They always err and are led astray in their hearts, and they have not perceived or recognized My ways and become progressively better and more experimentally and intimately acquainted with them.
11 Accordingly, I swore in My wrath and indignation, They shall not enter into My rest.(C)
12 [Therefore beware] brethren, take care, lest there be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to cleave to, trust in, and rely on Him], leading you to turn away and desert or stand aloof from the living God.
13 But instead warn (admonish, urge, and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [by the fraudulence, the stratagem, the trickery which the delusive glamor of his sin may play on him].
14 For we [c]have become fellows with Christ (the Messiah) and share in all He has for us, if only we hold our first newborn confidence and original assured expectation [in virtue of which we are believers] firm and unshaken to the end.
15 Then while it is [still] called Today, if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion [in the desert, when the people provoked and irritated and embittered God against them].(D)
16 For who were they who heard and yet were rebellious and provoked [Him]? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?
17 And with whom was He irritated and provoked and grieved for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose [d]dismembered bodies were strewn and left in the desert?
18 And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed [who had not listened to His word and who refused to be compliant or be persuaded]?
19 So we see that they were not able to enter [into His rest], because of their unwillingness to adhere to and trust in and rely on God [unbelief had shut them out].(E)
14 O Israel, return to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled and fallen, [visited by calamity] due to your iniquity.
2 Take with you words and return to the Lord. Say to Him, Take away all our iniquity; accept what is good and receive us graciously; so will we render [our thanks] as bullocks [to be sacrificed] and pay the confession of our lips.(A)
3 Assyria shall not save us; we will not ride upon horses, neither will we say any more to the work of our hands [idols], You are our gods. For in You [O Lord] the fatherless find love, pity, and mercy.
4 I will heal their faithlessness; I will love them freely, for My anger is turned away from [Israel].
5 I will be like the dew and the night mist to Israel; he shall grow and blossom like the lily and cast forth his roots like [the sturdy evergreens of] Lebanon.
6 His suckers and shoots shall spread, and his beauty shall be like the olive tree and his fragrance like [the cedars and aromatic shrubs of] Lebanon.
7 They that dwell under his shade shall return; they shall revive like the grain and blossom like the vine; the scent of it shall be like the wine of Lebanon.
8 Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any more with idols? I have answered [him] and will regard and watch over him; I am like a green fir or cypress tree; with Me is the fruit found [which is to nourish you].
9 Who is wise, that he may understand these things? Prudent, that he may know them? For the ways of the Lord are right and the [uncompromisingly] just shall walk in them, but transgressors shall stumble and fall in them.(B)
Psalm 139
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
1 O Lord, you have searched me [thoroughly] and have known me.
2 You know my downsitting and my uprising; You understand my thought afar off.(A)
3 You sift and search out my path and my lying down, and You are acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word in my tongue [still unuttered], but, behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.(B)
5 You have beset me and shut me in—behind and before, and You have laid Your hand upon me.
6 Your [infinite] knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high above me, I cannot reach it.
7 Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), behold, You are there.(C)
9 If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 Even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me and the night shall be [the only] light about me,
12 Even the darkness hides nothing from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.(D)
13 For You did form my inward parts; You did knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I will confess and praise You for You are fearful and wonderful and for the awful wonder of my birth! Wonderful are Your works, and that my inner self knows right well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You when I was being formed in secret [and] intricately and curiously wrought [as if embroidered with various colors] in the depths of the earth [a region of darkness and mystery].
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance, and in Your book all the days [of my life] were written before ever they took shape, when as yet there was none of them.
17 How precious and weighty also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them!(E)
18 If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, [could I count to the end] I would still be with You.
19 If You would [only] slay the wicked, O God, and the men of blood depart from me—(F)
20 Who speak against You wickedly, Your enemies who take Your name in vain!(G)
21 Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You? And am I not grieved and do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred; they have become my enemies.
23 Search me [thoroughly], O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!
24 And see if there is any wicked or hurtful way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
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