M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Death of Samuel
25 Now Samuel died. And all the children of Israel gathered together and mourned him, and they buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David arose and went down to the Wilderness of Paran.
David, Nabal, and Abigail
2 Now there was a man in Maon whose work was in Carmel. He was a rich man with three thousand sheep and a thousand goats, and he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. 3 The man’s name was Nabal and the name of his wife Abigail. She was a woman of good understanding and beautiful, but the man was harsh and evil in his actions and he was a Calebite.
4 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep. 5 So David sent out ten young men, and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal and greet him in my name. 6 And thus you will you say to him who lives in prosperity, ‘Peace be to you and peace to your house, and to all that you have, peace.
7 “ ‘I have heard that you have shearers. Now your shepherds were with us. We did not harm them nor did they miss anything all the days they were in Carmel. 8 Ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your eyes, for we have come on a good day. Please give whatever you find at hand to your servants, and to your son David.’ ”
9 When David’s young men came, they spoke to Nabal according to all these words in the name of David, then they waited.
10 And Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, “Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? Today many servants are breaking away each one from his master. 11 Should I then take my bread, and my water, and my meat, that which I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men whose origins are unknown?”
12 So David’s young men turned themselves around and went back. And they came and reported to him all these words. 13 David said to his men, “Each man strap on his sword.” And each man strapped on his sword. David also put on his sword, and four hundred men went up after David. But two hundred stayed with the baggage.
14 Now one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “Listen, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to bless our master; and he railed against them. 15 But the men were very good to us, and we were not harmed, nor did we miss anything, all the days we went about with them in the field. 16 They were a wall to us both by night and day, all the days we were with them keeping the flocks. 17 Now therefore know and consider what you will do, for evil is determined against our master and against all his household. He is such a worthless man that one cannot speak to him.”
18 Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves, two bottles of wine, five prepared sheep, five measures[a] of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and she loaded them on donkeys. 19 And she said to her servants, “Go on before me. See, I will be coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.
20 And as she was riding on the donkey and going down into the cover of the mountain, David and his men were coming down to meet her and she met them. 21 Now David had said, “Surely in vain have I guarded all that this man has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him. And he has returned me evil for good. 22 So may God do unto the enemies of David and more also, if by morning I leave even one male of all who belong to him.”
23 When Abigail saw David, she hurriedly got down from the donkey and fell before David upon her face. And she bowed herself to the ground. 24 So she fell at his feet and said, “Against me alone, my lord, is the guilt. Please let your handmaid speak in your ears, and hear the words of your handmaid. 25 Please do not let my lord set his heart against this worthless man, against Nabal. For as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name and folly is with him. But I, your handmaid, did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent. 26 Now my lord, as the Lord lives, and as your soul lives, because the Lord has restrained you from coming in bloodshed and from avenging yourself with your own hand, now let your enemies, and those seeking to do evil to my lord, be as Nabal. 27 Now let this blessing which your maidservant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord.
28 “Please forgive the transgression of your handmaid, for the Lord will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord fights the battles of the Lord, and evil will not be found in you all your days. 29 Even if a man rises to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord will be bound in the bundle of the living with the Lord your God. But the lives of your enemies He will sling out, as from the hollow of a sling. 30 It will be, when the Lord does for my lord according to all the good that He has spoken concerning you and has appointed you ruler over Israel, 31 that this will be no grief to you, nor an offense of heart to my lord, either that you have shed blood without cause, or that my lord has avenged himself. But when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your handmaid.”
32 David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the Lord, God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me. 33 And blessed is your discretion, and blessed are you who have kept me this day from coming to shed blood and from avenging myself with my own hand. 34 For as the Lord, the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from injuring you, if you had not hurried to come and meet me, surely there would not have been left even one male to Nabal by the morning light.”
35 So David received from her hand what she had brought him and said to her, “Go up in peace to your house. See, I have obeyed your voice, and have granted your request.”
36 Abigail came to Nabal, and he was feasting in his house, like the feast of a king. And Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk. Therefore she told him nothing until the morning light. 37 But in the morning when the wine was gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things. And his heart died within him, and he became as a stone. 38 And about ten days after that, the Lord struck Nabal and he died.
39 When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed is the Lord, who has defended the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and has kept His servant from evil. For the Lord has returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his own head.”
And David sent and spoke with Abigail, to take her as his wife. 40 When the servants of David came to Abigail at Carmel, they spoke to her, saying, “David has sent us to you to take you as his wife.”
41 She arose, and bowed herself on her face to the ground, and said, “Here is your handmaid, a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” 42 Abigail hurriedly arose and rode on a donkey with her five young women who attended her. And she went after the messengers of David and became his wife. 43 David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel. So both of them were his wives. 44 But Saul had given Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Paltiel the son of Laish who was from Gallim.
Going to Law Before Unbelievers
6 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to the law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? 2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3 Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more the things that pertain to this life? 4 If then you have judgments dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint as judges those who are least esteemed in the church? 5 I speak to your shame. Is it true that there is not even one wise man among you who shall be able to judge between his brothers? 6 But brother goes to the law against brother, and before unbelievers, at that.
7 Now therefore it is already an utter failure for you that you go to law against one another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? 8 But you yourselves do wrong and defraud, and do this to your brothers. 9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus by the Spirit of our God.
Glorify God in Your Body
12 “All things are lawful to me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be brought under the power of anything. 13 “Food is for the belly, and the belly is for food,” but God will destroy both of them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. 14 God has raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His own power. 15 Do you not know that your bodies are the parts of Christ? Shall I then take the parts of Christ and make them the parts of a harlot? God forbid! 16 What? Do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.”[a] 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with Him.
18 Escape from sexual immorality. Every sin that a man commits is outside the body. But he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 What? Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God, and that you are not your own? 20 You were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
The Siege of Jerusalem Portrayed
4 You also, son of man, take a brick and lay it before you and inscribe a city on it, even Jerusalem. 2 Then lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and build a mound against it; set camps and place battering rams against it all around. 3 Moreover take for yourself an iron plate and set it up for a wall of iron between you and the city. And set your face against it so that it is besieged, and lay siege against it. This shall be a sign to the house of Israel.
4 As for you, lie down on your left side and lay the iniquity of the house of Israel upon it. According to the number of the days that you lie on it, you shall bear their iniquity. 5 For I have laid upon you the years of their iniquity according to the number of the days, three hundred and ninety days. So you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.
6 When you have accomplished them, lie again on your right side, and you shall bear the iniquity of the house of Judah forty days. I have appointed you each day for a year. 7 Therefore you shall set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, and your arm shall be uncovered, and you shall prophesy against it. 8 I will lay bands upon you, and you shall not turn yourself from one side to another until you have ended the days of your siege.
9 Also take for yourself wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and put them in one vessel and make bread. According to the number of the days that you lie on your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it. 10 Your food which you shall eat shall be by weight, twenty shekels[a] a day. From time to time you shall eat it. 11 You also shall drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin.[b] From time to time you shall drink it. 12 You shall eat it as barley cake, having baked it in their sight with dung that comes out of man. 13 Then the Lord said, “Even so the sons of Israel shall eat their defiled bread among the nations where I drive them.”
14 Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! My soul has not been defiled. For from my youth up even until now I have not eaten of that which dies of itself, or is torn in pieces, nor has abominable meat come into my mouth.”
15 Then He said to me, “I have given you cow dung instead of man’s dung over which you shall prepare your bread.”
16 Moreover He said to me, Son of man, I will cut off the supply of bread in Jerusalem. They shall eat bread by weight and with anxiety and drink water by measure and with horror, 17 because bread and water will be scarce, and they will be appalled with one another, and waste away for their iniquity.
Psalm 40(A)
For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.
1 I waited patiently for the Lord,
and He turned to me, and heard my cry.
2 He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
out of the miry clay,
and set my feet on a rock,
and established my steps.
3 He has put a new song in my mouth,
even praise to our God;
many will see it, and fear,
and will trust in the Lord.
4 Blessed is the man
who places trust in the Lord,
but does not turn toward the proud,
nor those falling away to falsehood.
5 O Lord my God,
You have done many wonderful works,
and Your thoughts toward us
cannot be compared;
if I would declare and speak of them,
they are more than can be numbered.
6 Sacrifice and offering You did not desire;
You have opened up my ears to listen.
Burnt offering and sin offering
You have not required.
7 Then I said, “Behold, I have come;
in the scroll of the book it is written of me,
8 I delight to do Your will, O my God;
Your law is within my inward parts.”
9 I have proclaimed righteousness in the great congregation;
I have not held back my lips,
O Lord, You know.
10 I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth
from the great congregation.
11 Do not withhold Your compassion from me, O Lord;
may Your lovingkindness and Your truth always guard me.
12 For innumerable evils have surrounded me;
my iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up;
they are more than the hairs of my head
so that my heart fails me.
13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me;
O Lord, make haste to help me.
14 May those seeking to snatch away my life
be ashamed and confounded together;
may those who desire my harm
be driven backward and dishonored.
15 May those who say to me “Aha, aha!”
be appalled on account of their shame.
16 May all those who seek You
rejoice and be glad in You;
may those who love Your salvation say continually,
“The Lord is magnified.”
17 But I am poor and needy;
yet the Lord thinks about me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
do not delay, O my God.
Psalm 41
For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.
1 Blessed are those who consider the poor;
the Lord will deliver them in the day of trouble.
2 The Lord will preserve them and keep them alive,
and they will be blessed on the earth,
and You will not deliver them to the will of their enemies.
3 The Lord will sustain them on the sickbed;
You will restore all his lying down in his illness.
4 I said, “Lord, be gracious to me;
heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.”
5 My enemies speak evil of me:
“When will he die, and his name perish?”
6 And if people come to see me, they speak insincerely;
their heart gathers iniquity to itself,
when they go outside, they tell it.
7 All who hate me whisper together against me;
they devise harm against me.
8 “An evil disease clings to him.
And now that he lies down, he will not rise up again.”
9 Yes, my own close friend,
in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread,
has lifted up the heel against me.
10 But You, O Lord, be gracious to me,
and raise me up, that I may repay them.
11 By this I know that You favor me,
because my enemy does not triumph over me.
12 As for me, You uphold me in my integrity,
and set me before You forever.
13 Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
from everlasting and to everlasting.
Amen and Amen.
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.