M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Four horsemen

6 The next thing I saw was this. When the lamb had opened one of the seven seals, I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” ² And, as I watched, there was a white horse. Its rider was holding a bow. He was given a crown, and he went off winning victories, and to win more of them.

³ When the lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” ⁴ And another horse went out, fiery red this time. Its rider was given permission to take peace away from the earth, so that people would kill one another. He was given a great sword.

⁵ When the lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” As I watched, there was a black horse. Its rider held a pair of scales in his hand. ⁶ I heard something like a voice coming from the midst of the four living creatures. “A quart of wheat for a dinar!” said the voice. “And three quarts of barley for a dinar! But don’t ruin the oil and the wine!”

⁷ When the lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” ⁸ As I looked, there was a pale horse, and its rider’s name was Death. Hades followed along behind him. They were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with death, and by means of the earth’s wild animals.

The day is coming!

⁹ When the lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been killed because of the word of God and because of the witness which they had borne. ¹⁰ They shouted at the tops of their voices. “Holy and true Master!” they called. “How much longer are you going to put off giving judgment, and avenging our blood on the earth-dwellers?” ¹¹ Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to rest for a little while yet, until the full number of those to be killed, as they had been, was reached—including both their fellow-servants and their kinsfolk.

¹² As I looked, he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake, the sun turned black like sackcloth, the whole moon became like blood, ¹³ and the stars were falling from heaven onto the earth as when a fig tree, shaken by a strong wind, drops its late fruit. ¹⁴ The heaven disappeared like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. ¹⁵ The kings of the earth, the leading courtiers, the generals, the rich, the power-brokers, and everyone, slave and free, all hid themselves among the caves and rocks of the mountains. ¹⁶ “Fall upon us!” they were saying to the mountains and the rocks. “Hide us from the face of the One who sits on the throne, and from the anger of the lamb! ¹⁷ The great day of their anger has come, and who can stand upright?”

The healing of the disabled man

5 After this there was a Jewish festival, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

² In Jerusalem, near the Sheep Gate, there is a pool which is called, in Hebrew, Bethesda. It has five porticoes, ³ where several sick people were lying. They were blind, lame and paralyzed.

⁵ There was a man who had been there, in the same sick state, for thirty-eight years. ⁶ Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had been there a long time already.

“Do you want to get well?” he asked him.

⁷ “Well, sir,” the sick man replied, “I don’t have anyone to put me into the pool when the water gets stirred up. While I’m on my way there, someone else gets down before me.”

⁸ “Get up,” said Jesus, “pick up your mattress and walk!”

⁹ At once the man was healed. He picked up his mattress and walked.

God’s son breaks the sabbath!

The day all this happened was a sabbath. ¹⁰ So the Judaeans confronted the man who had been healed.

“It’s the sabbath!” they said. “You shouldn’t be carrying your mattress!”

¹¹ “Well,” he replied, “the man who cured me told me to pick up my mattress and walk!”

¹² “Oh, really?” they said. “And who is this man, who told you to pick it up and walk?”

¹³ But the man who’d been healed didn’t know who it was. Jesus had gone away, and the place was crowded.

¹⁴ After this Jesus found the man in the Temple.

“Look!” he said. “You’re better again! Don’t sin anymore, or something worse might happen to you!”

¹⁵ The man went off and told the Judaeans that it was Jesus who had healed him. ¹⁶ That was why the Judaeans began to persecute Jesus, because he did these things on the sabbath.

¹⁷ This was Jesus’ response to them.

“My father,” he said, “is going on working, and so am I!”

¹⁸ So for this reason the Judaeans were all the more eager to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath, but spoke of God as his own father, making himself equal to God.

The coming judgment

¹⁹ So Jesus made this response to them.

“I’m telling you the solemn truth,” he said. “The son can do nothing by himself. He can only do what he sees the father doing. Whatever the father does, the son does too, and in the same way. ²⁰ The father loves the son, you see, and shows him all the things that he’s doing. Yes: he will show him even greater things than these, and that’ll amaze you! ²¹ For, just as the father raises the dead and gives them life, in the same way the son gives life to anyone he chooses.

²² “The father doesn’t judge anyone, you see; he has handed over all judgment to the son, ²³ so that everyone should honor the son just as they honor the father. Anyone who doesn’t honor the son doesn’t honor the father who sent him.

²⁴ “I’m telling you the solemn truth: anyone who hears my word, and believes in the one who sent me, has the life of God’s coming age. Such a person won’t come into judgment; they will have passed out of death into life. ²⁵ I’m telling you the solemn truth: the time is coming—in fact, it’s here already!—when the dead will hear the voice of God’s son, and those who hear it will live. ²⁶ You see, just as the father has life in himself, in the same way he has given the son the privilege of having life in himself. ²⁷ He has even given him authority to pass judgment, because he is the son of man.

²⁸ “Don’t be surprised at this. The time is coming, you see, when everyone in the tombs will hear his voice. ²⁹ They will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”

The evidence in support of Jesus

³⁰ “I can’t do anything on my own authority,” Jesus went on. “I judge on the basis of what I hear. And my judgment is just, because I’m not trying to carry out my own wishes, but the wishes of the one who sent me.

³¹ “If I give evidence about myself, my evidence isn’t true. ³² There is someone else who gives evidence about me, and I know that the evidence he brings about me is true. ³³ You sent messengers to John, and he gave evidence about the truth. ³⁴ Not that I need evidence from human beings; but I’m saying this so that you may be saved.

³⁵ “John was a burning, bright lamp, and you were happy to celebrate in his light for a while. ³⁶ But I have greater evidence on my side than that of John. The works which the father has given me to complete—these works, which I’m doing, will provide evidence about me, evidence that the father has sent me. ³⁷ And the father who sent me has given evidence about me. You’ve never heard his voice; you’ve never seen his form. ³⁸ What’s more, you haven’t got his word abiding in you, because you don’t believe in the one he sent.”

Jesus and Moses

³⁹ “You study the Bible,” Jesus continued, “because you suppose that you’ll discover the life of God’s coming age in it. In fact, it’s the Bible which gives evidence about me! ⁴⁰ But you won’t come to me so that you can have life.

⁴¹ “I’m not accepting glory from human beings; ⁴² but I know that you haven’t got the love of God within you. ⁴³ I have come in the name of my father, and you won’t receive me. If someone else comes in his own name, you will receive him! ⁴⁴ How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you’re not looking for the glory which comes from the one and only God?

⁴⁵ “Don’t think that I’m going to accuse you to the father. There is someone who accuses you, namely Moses, the one you look to in hope! ⁴⁶ You see, if you’d believed Moses, you would have believed me—because it was me he was writing about. ⁴⁷ But if you don’t believe his writings, how are you going to believe my words?”