M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Blessings for Obeying the Lord

The Lord said:

26 ^(A) I am the Lord your God! So don't make or worship idols or images. ² Respect the Sabbath and honor the place where I am worshiped, because I am the Lord.

^3 (B) Faithfully obey my laws, ⁴ and I will send rain to make your crops grow and your trees produce fruit. ⁵ Your harvest of grain and grapes will be so abundant, that you won't know what to do with it all. You will eat and be satisfied, and you will live in safety. ⁶ I will bless your country with peace, and you will rest without fear. I will wipe out the dangerous animals and protect you from enemy attacks. ⁷ You will chase and destroy your enemies, ⁸ even if there are only 5 of you and 100 of them, or only 100 of you and 10,000 of them. ⁹ I will treat you with such kindness that your nation will grow strong, and I will also keep my promises to you. ¹⁰ Your barns will overflow with grain each year. ¹¹ I will live among you and never again look on you with disgust. ^12 (C) I will walk with you—I will be your God, and you will be my people. ¹³ I am the Lord your God, and I rescued you from Egypt, so that you would never again be slaves. I have set you free; now walk with your heads held high.

Punishment for Disobeying the Lord

The Lord said:

^14-15 (D) If you disobey me and my laws, and if you break our agreement, ¹⁶ I will punish you terribly, and you will be ruined. You will be struck with incurable diseases and with fever that leads to blindness and depression. Your enemies will eat the crops you plant, ¹⁷ and I will turn from you and let you be destroyed by your attackers. You will even run at the very rumor of attack. ¹⁸ Then, if you still refuse to obey me, I will punish you seven times for each of your sins, ¹⁹ until your pride is completely crushed. I will hold back the rain, so the sky above you will be like iron, and the ground beneath your feet will be like copper. ²⁰ All of your hard work will be for nothing—and there will be no harvest of grain or fruit.

²¹ If you keep rebelling against me, I'll punish you seven times worse, just as your sins deserve! ²² I'll send wild animals to attack you, and they will gobble up your children and livestock. So few of you will be left that your roads will be deserted.

²³ If you remain my enemies after this, ²⁴ I'll remain your enemy and punish you even worse. ²⁵ War will break out because you broke our agreement, and if you escape to your walled cities, I'll punish you with horrible diseases, and you will be captured by your enemies. ²⁶ You will have such a shortage of bread, that ten women will be able to bake their bread in the same oven. Each of you will get only a few crumbs, and you will go hungry.

²⁷ Then if you don't stop rebelling, ²⁸ I'll really get furious and punish you terribly for your sins! ²⁹ In fact, you will be so desperate for food that you will eat your own children. ³⁰ I'll destroy your shrines and tear down your incense altars, leaving your dead bodies piled on top of your idols. And you will be disgusting to me. ³¹ I'll wipe out your towns and your places of worship and will no longer be pleased with the smell of your sacrifices. ³² Your land will become so desolate that even your enemies who settle there will be shocked when they see it. ³³ After I destroy your towns and ruin your land with war, I'll scatter you among the nations.

^34-35 While you are prisoners in foreign lands, your own land will enjoy years of rest and refreshment, as it should have done each seventh year when you lived there. ^36-37 In the land of your enemies, you will tremble at the rustle of a leaf, as though it were a sword. And you will become so weak that you will stumble and fall over each other, even when no one is chasing you. ³⁸ Many of you will die in foreign lands, ³⁹ and others of you will waste away in sorrow as the result of your sins and the sins of your ancestors.

^40-41 Then suppose you realize that I turned against you and brought you to the land of your enemies because both you and your ancestors had stubbornly sinned against me. If you humbly confess what you have done and start living right, ^42 (E) I'll keep the promise I made to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will bless your land ⁴³ and let it rest during the time that you are in a foreign country, paying for your rebellion against me and my laws.

^44 (F) No matter what you have done, I am still the Lord your God, and I will never completely reject you or become absolutely disgusted with you there in the land of your enemies. ⁴⁵ While nations watched, I rescued your ancestors from Egypt so that I would be their God. Yes, I am your Lord, and I will never forget our agreement.

⁴⁶ Moses was on Mount Sinai when the Lord gave him these laws and teachings for the people of Israel.

Sing Praises to the Lord

One Day at a Time

9 I thought about these things. Then I understood that God has power over everyone, even those who are wise and live right. Anything can happen to any one of us, and so we never know if life will be good or bad.^{[a] 2} But exactly^[b] the same thing will finally happen to all of us, whether we live right and respect God or sin and don't respect God. Yes, the same thing will happen if we offer sacrifices to God or if we don't, if we keep our promises or are afraid to make them.

³ It's terribly unfair for the same thing to happen to each of us. We are mean and foolish while we live, and then we die. ⁴ As long as we are alive, we still have hope, just as a live dog is better off than a dead lion. ⁵ We know we will die, but the dead don't know a thing. Nothing good will happen to them—they are gone and forgotten. ⁶ Their loves, their hates, and their jealous feelings have all disappeared with them. They will never again take part in anything that happens on this earth.

⁷ So be happy and enjoy eating and drinking! God decided long ago that this is what you should do. ⁸ Dress up, comb your hair, and look your best. ⁹ Life is short, and you love your wife, so enjoy being with her. This is what you are supposed to do as you struggle through life on this earth. ¹⁰ Work hard at whatever you do. You will soon go to the world of the dead, where no one works or thinks or reasons or even knows anything.

¹¹ Here is something else I have learned:

¹² None of us know when we might fall victim to a sudden disaster and find ourselves like fish in a net or birds in a trap.

Better To Be Wise than Foolish

¹³ Once I saw what people really think of wisdom, and it made an impression on me. ¹⁴ It happened when a powerful ruler surrounded and attacked a small city where only a few people lived. The enemy army was getting ready to break through the city walls. ¹⁵ But the city was saved by the wisdom of a poor person who was soon forgotten. ¹⁶ So I decided that wisdom is better than strength. Yet if you are poor, no one pays any attention to you, no matter how smart you are.

1 From Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ.

I encourage God's own people to have more faith and to understand the truth about religion. ² Then they will have the hope of eternal life God promised long ago. And God never tells a lie! ³ So, at the proper time, God our Savior gave this message and told me to announce what he had said.

^4 (A) Titus, because of our faith, you are like a son to me. I pray that God our Father and Christ Jesus our Savior will be kind to you and will bless you with peace!

What Titus Was To Do in Crete

⁵ I left you in Crete to do what had been left undone and to appoint leaders^[a] for the churches in each town. As I told you, ^6 (B) they must have a good reputation and be faithful in marriage.^[b] Their children must be followers of the Lord and not have a reputation for being wild and disobedient.

⁷ Church officials^[c] are in charge of God's work, and so they must also have a good reputation. They must not be bossy, quick-tempered, heavy drinkers, bullies, or dishonest in business. ⁸ Instead, they must be friendly to strangers and enjoy doing good things. They must also be sensible, fair, pure, and self-controlled. ⁹ They must stick to the true message they were taught, so their good teaching can help others and correct everyone who opposes it.

¹⁰ There are many who don't respect authority, and they fool others by talking nonsense. This is especially true of some Jewish followers. ¹¹ But you must make them be quiet. They are after money, and they upset whole families by teaching what they should not. ¹² It is like one of their own prophets once said,

¹³ This surely is a true saying. And you should be hard on such people, so you can help them grow stronger in their faith. ¹⁴ Don't pay any attention to any of those senseless Jewish stories and human commands. These are made up by people who won't obey the truth.

¹⁵ Everything is pure for someone whose heart is pure. But nothing is pure for an unbeliever with a dirty mind. That person's mind and conscience are destroyed. ¹⁶ Such people claim to know God, but their actions prove they really don't. They are disgusting. They won't obey God, and they are too worthless to do anything good.