M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Contend for the faith
1 Judah, slave of Jesus the Messiah, brother of James, to those who are called, the people whom God loves and whom Jesus the Messiah keeps safe! 2 May mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.
3 Beloved, I was doing my best to write to you about the rescue in which we share, but I found it necessary to write to you to urge you to struggle hard for the faith which was given once and for all to God’s people. 4 Some people have sneaked in among you, it seems, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation—ungodly people, who are transforming God’s grace into licentiousness, and denying the one and only master, our Lord Jesus the Messiah.
False teachers
5 I do want to remind you, even though you know it all well, that when the Lord once and for all delivered his people out of the land of Egypt, he subsequently destroyed those who did not believe. 6 In the same way, when some of the angels did not keep to their rightful place of authority, but abandoned their own home, he kept them under conditions of darkness and in eternal chains to await the judgment of the great day. 7 In similar fashion, Sodom, Gomorrah and the cities round about, which had lived in gross immorality and lusted after unnatural flesh, are set before us as a pattern, undergoing the punishment of endless fire.
8 However, these people are behaving in the same way! They are dreaming their way into defiling the flesh, rejecting authority and cursing the Glorious Ones. 9 Even Michael the archangel, when disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not presume to lay against him a charge of blasphemy, but simply said, “The Lord rebuke you.” 10 These people, however, curse anything they don’t know. They are like dumb animals; there are some things they understand instinctively—but it is these very things that destroy them. 11 A curse on them! They go off in the way of Cain; they give themselves over for money into Balaam’s deceitful ways; they are destroyed in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These are the ones who pollute your love-feasts; they share your table without fear while simply looking after their own needs. They are waterless clouds blown along by the winds. They are fruitless autumn trees, doubly dead and uprooted. 13 They are stormy waves out at sea, splashing up their own shameful ways. They are wandering stars, and the deepest everlasting darkness has been kept for them in particular.
14 Enoch, the seventh in line from Adam, prophesied about these people. “Look!” he said. “The Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy ones, 15 to perform judgment against all, and to charge every human being with all the ungodly ways in which they have done ungodly things, and with every harsh word which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” 16 These people are always grumbling and complaining, chasing off after their own desires. From their mouths come arrogant words, buttering people up for the sake of gain.
Rescued by God’s power
17 But you, my beloved ones, remember the words that were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus the Messiah. 18 “In the last time,” they said to you, “there will be scornful people who follow their own ungodly desires.” 19 These are the people who cause divisions. They are living on the merely human level; they do not have the spirit. 20 But you, beloved ones, build yourselves up in your most holy faith. Pray in the holy spirit. 21 Keep yourselves in the love of God, as you wait for our Lord Jesus the Messiah to show you the mercy which leads to the life of the age to come.
22 With some people who are wavering, you must show mercy. 23 Some you must rescue, snatching them from the fire. To others you must show mercy, but with fear, hating even the clothes that have been defiled by the flesh.
24 Now to the one who is able to keep you standing upright, and to present you before his glory, undefiled and joyful— 25 to the one and only God, our savior through Jesus the Messiah our Lord, be glory, majesty, power and authority before all the ages, and now, and to all the ages to come. Amen.
Jesus before Pilate and Herod
23 The whole crowd of them got up and took Jesus to Pilate.
2 They began to accuse him. “We found this fellow,” they said, “deceiving our nation! He was forbidding people to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he is the Messiah—a king!”
3 So Pilate asked Jesus, “You are the king of the Jews?”
“You said it,” replied Jesus.
4 “I find no fault in this man,” said Pilate to the chief priests and the crowds. 5 But they became insistent.
“He’s stirring up the people,” they said, “teaching them throughout the whole of Judaea. He began in Galilee, and now he’s come here.”
6 When Pilate heard that, he asked if the man was indeed a Galilean. 7 When he learned that he was from Herod’s jurisdiction he sent him to Herod, who happened also to be in Jerusalem at that time.
8 When Herod saw Jesus he was delighted. He had been wanting to see him for quite some time now, since he’d heard about him, and had hoped to see him perform some sign or other. 9 He questioned him this way and that, but Jesus gave no answer at all. 10 The chief priests and the scribes stood by, accusing him vehemently. 11 Herod and his soldiers treated Jesus with contempt; they ridiculed him by dressing him up in a splendid robe, and sent him back to Pilate. 12 And so it happened, that very day, that Herod and Pilate became friends with each other. Up until then, they had been enemies.
Pilate pressured by the crowds
13 So Pilate called the chief priests, the rulers and the people.
14 “You brought this man before me,” he said to them, “on the grounds that he was leading the people astray. Look here, then: I examined him in your presence and I found no evidence in him of the charges you’re bringing against him. 15 Nor did Herod; he sent him back to me. Look: there is no sign that he’s done anything to deserve death. 16 So I’m going to flog him and let him go.”
18 “Take him away!” they shouted out all together. “Release Barabbas for us!” 19 (Barabbas had been thrown into prison because of an uprising that had taken place in the city, and for murder.) 20 Pilate spoke to them again, with the intention of letting Jesus go, 21 but they shouted back, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
22 “Why?” he said for the third time. “What’s he done wrong? I can’t find anything he’s done that deserves death, so I’m going to beat him and let him go.”
23 But they went on shouting out at the tops of their voices, demanding that he be crucified; and eventually their shouts won the day. 24 Pilate gave his verdict that their request should be granted. 25 He released the man they asked for, the one who’d been thrown into prison because of rebellion and murder, and gave Jesus over to their demands.
26 As they led him away, they grabbed a man from Cyrene called Simon, who was coming in to the city from the countryside, and they forced him to carry the crossbeam behind Jesus.
The crucifixion
27 A great crowd of the people followed Jesus, including women who were mourning and wailing for him. 28 Jesus turned and spoke to them.
“Daughters of Jerusalem,” he said, “don’t cry for me. Cry for yourselves instead! Cry for your children! 29 Listen: the time is coming when you will say, ‘A blessing on the barren! A blessing on wombs that never bore children, and breasts that never nursed them!’ 30 At that time people will start to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us!’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us!’ 31 Yes: if this is what they do with the green tree, what will happen to the dry one?”
32 Two other criminals were taken away with him to be executed. 33 When they came to the place called The Skull, they crucified him there, with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.
34 “Father,” said Jesus, “forgive them! They don’t know what they’re doing!”
They divided his clothes, casting lots for them.
35 The people stood around watching. The rulers hurled abuse at him.
“He rescued others,” they said, “let him try rescuing himself, if he really is the Messiah, God’s chosen one!”
36 The soldiers added their taunts, coming up and offering him cheap wine.
37 “If you’re the king of the Jews,” they said, “rescue yourself!”
38 The charge was written above him: “This is the King of the Jews.”
39 One of the bad characters who was hanging there began to insult him. “Aren’t you the Messiah?” he said. “Rescue yourself—and us, too!”
40 But the other one told him off. “Don’t you fear God?” he said. “You’re sharing the same fate that he is! 41 In our case it’s fair enough; we’re getting exactly what we asked for. But this fellow hasn’t done anything out of order.
42 “Jesus,” he went on, “remember me when you finally become king.”
43 “I’m telling you the truth,” replied Jesus, “you’ll be with me in paradise, this very day.”
The death and burial of Jesus
44 By the time of the sixth hour, darkness came over all the land. 45 The sunlight vanished until the ninth hour. The veil of the Temple was ripped down the middle. 46 Then Jesus shouted out at the top of his voice, “Here’s my spirit, Father! You can take care of it now!” And with that he died.
47 The centurion saw what happened, and praised God.
“This fellow,” he said, “really was in the right.”
48 All the crowds who had come together for the spectacle saw what happened, and they went away beating their breasts. 49 Those who knew Jesus, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, remained at a distance and watched the scene.
50 Now there was a man named Joseph, a member of the council. He was a good and righteous man, 51 and had not given his consent to the court’s verdict or actions. He was from Arimathea, a town in Judaea, and he was longing for God’s kingdom. 52 He approached Pilate and asked for Jesus’ body. 53 He took it down, wrapped it in a shroud, and put it in a tomb hollowed out of the rock, where no one had ever been laid. 54 It was the day of Preparation, and the sabbath was beginning.
55 The women who had followed Jesus, the ones who had come with him from Galilee, saw the tomb and how the body was laid. 56 Then they went back to prepare spices and ointments. On the sabbath they rested, as the commandment specified.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.