M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

The Death of Jeroboam’s Son Abijah

14 At that time Jeroboam’s son Abijah became sick. ² And Jeroboam said to his wife, “Get ready and dress yourself so no one will know that you are the wife of Jeroboam. Then go to Shiloh. Ahijah the man who speaks for God is there. He is the one who said that I would be king over these people. ³ Take ten loaves, some sweet bread and a jar of honey with you, and go to him. He will tell you what will happen to the boy.” ⁴ Jeroboam’s wife did so. She got ready and went to Shiloh, and came to Ahijah’s house. Now Ahijah could not see. His eyes were weak because he was old. ⁵ The Lord had said to Ahijah, “The wife of Jeroboam is coming to ask you about her son, for he is sick. This is what you should say to her. When she comes she will pretend to be another woman.”

⁶ When Ahijah heard the sound of her feet coming to the door, he said, “Come in, wife of Jeroboam. Why do you pretend to be another woman? For I have been given news that will be hard for you. ⁷ Go and say to Jeroboam, ‘This is what the Lord God of Israel says. “I gave you honor from among the people. I made you the leader of My people Israel. ⁸ I tore the nation away from the family of David and gave it to you. But you have not been like My servant David. He kept My Laws and followed Me with all his heart. He did only what was right in My eyes. ⁹ But you have done more sinful things than all who were before you. You have gone and made for yourself other gods and objects to look like gods to make Me angry. You have put Me behind your back. ¹⁰ So I am bringing trouble upon the family of Jeroboam. I will kill every male from Jeroboam, both owned and free in Israel. I will clean away the family of Jeroboam, as one cleans away animal waste until it is all gone. ¹¹ The dogs will eat anyone belonging to Jeroboam who dies in the city. And the birds of the air will eat anyone who dies in the field. For the Lord has said it.” ‘ ¹² “Get up and go to your house. When your feet go into the city the child will die. ¹³ All Israel will have sorrow for him and bury him. For he alone of Jeroboam’s family will come to the grave. Because in him there is found something good to the Lord God of Israel, in the family of Jeroboam. ¹⁴ But the Lord will send a king over Israel who will destroy the family of Jeroboam this day and from now on. ¹⁵ For the Lord will punish Israel, as a piece of grass is shaken in the water. He will send Israel out from this good land He gave to their fathers. He will spread them out on the other side of the Euphrates River, because they have their false gods, and have made the Lord angry. ¹⁶ He will give up Israel because of the sins of Jeroboam, which he sinned and made Israel to sin.”

¹⁷ Then Jeroboam’s wife got up and left and came to Tirzah. As she came to the door of the house, the child died. ¹⁸ And all Israel buried him and had sorrow for him, as the Word of God was spoken through His servant Ahijah the man who spoke for God.

The Death of Jeroboam

¹⁹ Now the rest of the acts of Jeroboam, how he made war and how he ruled, are written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. ²⁰ Jeroboam ruled for twenty-two years. Then he died and his son Nadab ruled in his place.

Rehoboam Rules Judah

²¹ Now Solomon’s son Rehoboam ruled in Judah. Rehoboam was forty-one years old when he became king. And he ruled for seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city the Lord had chosen from all the families of Israel to put His name there. The name of Rehoboam’s mother was Naamah of Ammon. ²² Judah did what was sinful in the eyes of the Lord. They made Him jealous with their sins, more than all their fathers had done. ²³ For they built for themselves high places, holy objects and false gods on every high hill and under every green tree. ²⁴ In their religion there were men in the land who sold the use of their bodies. They did all the hated things of the nations which the Lord drove away before the people of Israel.

²⁵ In the fifth year of King Rehoboam, Shishak the king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem. ²⁶ He took away the riches of the Lord’s house and the riches of the king’s house. He took everything. He even took all the body coverings of gold which Solomon had made. ²⁷ So King Rehoboam made body coverings of brass in their place. He put them in the care of the captain of the soldiers who watched the door of the king’s house. ²⁸ Every time the king went into the house of the Lord, the soldiers would carry them and return them again to their room.

²⁹ Now the rest of the acts of Rehoboam and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah? ³⁰ There was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam always. ³¹ Rehoboam died and was buried with his fathers in the city of David. His mother’s name was Naamah of Ammon. And his son Abijam became king in his place.

Paul Gives Thanks for the Christians in Colossae

1 This letter is from Paul, a missionary for Jesus Christ. God wanted me to work for Him. This letter is from brother Timothy also. ² I am writing to you who belong to Christ in the city of Colossae. May all the Christian brothers there have loving-favor and peace from God our Father.

³ We always pray and give thanks to God for you. He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁴ We give thanks to God for you because we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus. We thank God for your love for all those who belong to Christ. ⁵ We thank God for the hope that is being kept for you in heaven. You first heard about this hope through the Good News which is the Word of Truth. ⁶ The Good News came to you the same as it is now going out to all the world. Lives are being changed, just as your life was changed the day you heard the Good News. You understood the truth about God’s loving-kindness. ⁷ You heard the Good News through our much-loved brother Epaphras who is taking my place. He is a faithful servant of Christ. ⁸ He told us that the Holy Spirit had given you much love.

⁹ This is why I have never stopped praying for you since I heard about you. I ask God that you may know what He wants you to do. I ask God to fill you with the wisdom and understanding the Holy Spirit gives. ¹⁰ Then your lives will please the Lord. You will do every kind of good work, and you will know more about God. ¹¹ I pray that God’s great power will make you strong, and that you will have joy as you wait and do not give up. ¹² I pray that you will be giving thanks to the Father. He has made it so you could share the good things given to those who belong to Christ who are in the light. ¹³ God took us out of a life of darkness. He has put us in the holy nation of His much-loved Son. ¹⁴ We have been bought by His blood and made free. Our sins are forgiven through Him.

¹⁵ Christ is as God is. God cannot be seen. Christ lived before anything was made. ¹⁶ Christ made everything in the heavens and on the earth. He made everything that is seen and things that are not seen. He made all the powers of heaven. Everything was made by Him and for Him. ¹⁷ Christ was before all things. All things are held together by Him. ¹⁸ Christ is the head of the church which is His body. He is the beginning of all things. He is the first to be raised from the dead. He is to have first place in everything. ¹⁹ God the Father was pleased to have everything made perfect by Christ, His Son. ²⁰ Everything in heaven and on earth can come to God because of Christ’s death on the cross. Christ’s blood has made peace. ²¹ At one time you were strangers to God and your minds were at war with Him. Your thoughts and actions were wrong. ²² But Christ has brought you back to God by His death on the cross. In this way, Christ can bring you to God, holy and pure and without blame. ²³ This is for you if you keep the faith. You must not change from what you believe now. You must not leave the hope of the Good News you received. The Good News was preached to you and to all the world. And I, Paul, am one of Christ’s missionaries.

Paul Is Sent by God to Preach

²⁴ Now I am full of joy to be suffering for you. In my own body I am doing my share of what has to be done to make Christ’s sufferings complete. This is for His body which is the Church. ²⁵ I became a preacher in His church for your good. In the plan of God I am to preach the Good News. ²⁶ This great secret was hidden to the people of times past, but it is now made known to those who belong to Christ. ²⁷ God wants these great riches of the hidden truth to be made known to the people who are not Jews. The secret is this: Christ in you brings hope of all the great things to come. ²⁸ We preach Christ. We tell every man how he must live. We use wisdom in teaching every man. We do this so every man will be complete in Christ. ²⁹ This is the reason I am working. God’s great power is working in me.

The Use of the East Gate

44 Then he brought me back to the outer gate of the holy place, toward the east, and it was shut. ² The Lord said to me, “This gate must stay shut. It must not be opened. No one may come in through it, for the Lord God of Israel has come in through it. So it must stay shut. ³ Only the ruler may sit at the gate to eat bread before the Lord. He must come in through the porch of the gate, and go out the same way.”

Those Who Could Go In to the House of God

⁴ Then he brought me by way of the north gate to the front of the house. There I saw the shining-greatness of the Lord filling the Lord’s house, and I fell with my face to the ground. ⁵ The Lord said to me, “Son of man, be careful to see with your eyes and to hear with your ears everything that I say to you about all the rules and laws of the Lord’s house. Be careful to learn which persons are allowed to go in and out of the Lord’s house, and which persons are not allowed. ⁶ Tell the sinful people of Israel, ‘The Lord God says, “Enough of your hated sins, O people of Israel! ⁷ You have brought in strangers, who had not gone through the religious act of becoming a Jew, and who were sinful in their heart. You brought them into My holy place to make it unclean, when you brought My food of the fat and the blood. You have broken My agreement by all your hated sins. ⁸ And you have not taken care of My holy things yourselves. You have let strangers take care of My holy place.” ⁹ ‘So the Lord God says, “No stranger among the people of Israel who has not gone through the religious act of becoming a Jew, and is sinful in his heart, may come into My holy place.

Levites Cannot Be Religious Leaders

¹⁰ “The Levites who went far from Me when Israel left Me to follow their false gods, will be punished for their sin. ¹¹ They may do the work in My holy place. They may watch over the gates of the house and do the work in the house. They may kill the burnt gifts and the gifts brought by the people. And they may stand in front of the people to serve them. ¹² But because they served them in front of their false gods and caused the people of Israel to sin, I have promised,” says the Lord God, “that they will be punished for their sin. ¹³ They must not come near Me to serve Me as a religious leader. They must not come near any of My holy things and the things that are most holy. But they must suffer their shame because of the hated sins they have done. ¹⁴ Yet I will have them take care of the house and do all the work that is needed to be done in it.

Zadok’s Sons to Serve in the House of God

¹⁵ “But the Levite religious leaders of the sons of Zadok took care of My holy place when the people of Israel left Me. So they will come near Me to serve Me. They will stand before Me to give Me the fat and the blood,” says the Lord God. ¹⁶ “They will come into My holy place and come near My table, to serve Me and to do My work. ¹⁷ When they come through the gates of the inner open space, they will be dressed in linen clothing. They must not wear any wool while they are serving inside the gates of the inner open space or in the house. ¹⁸ They will wear linen head-coverings and linen underclothes. They must not dress in anything that makes their bodies wet with heat. ¹⁹ When they go out to the people in the outer open space, they must take off the clothes they wear while they serve Me, and lay them in the holy rooms. Then they will put on other clothes, so that they do not make the people holy because of their clothing. ²⁰ And they must not cut all the hair from their heads, yet they must not let their hair grow long. They must only cut their hair shorter. ²¹ None of the religious leaders may drink wine when they come into the inner open space. ²² They must not marry a woman whose husband has died, or who has been divorced. But they may marry women of Israel who have never had a man, or a woman whose husband was a religious leader before he died. ²³ They will teach My people the difference between what is holy and what is not. And they will teach them to know what is unclean and what is clean. ²⁴ In an argument, the religious leaders will serve as judges, and will judge by My Laws. They will also keep My Laws in all My special suppers. And they will keep My Day of Rest holy. ²⁵ They must not make themselves unclean by going near a dead person. But they may make themselves unclean if the dead person is their father or mother, son or daughter, brother, or sister who was not married. ²⁶ After a religious leader has become clean again, he must wait seven days. ²⁷ And on the day he goes into the holy place, into the inner open space to serve in the holy place, he must bring his sin gift,” says the Lord God.

²⁸ “I am to be the only part that the religious leaders have. You must not give them any land in Israel for their own. I am their part. ²⁹ They will eat the grain gift, the sin gift, and the guilt gift. Everything in Israel that is set apart to Me will be theirs. ³⁰ The first of all the first fruits of every kind, and every kind of gift you bring, will be for the religious leaders. And you must give them the first of your grain, so that good will come to your house. ³¹ The religious leaders must not eat any bird or animal that has died of itself or has been torn to pieces.

God’s Power over the Earth

97 The Lord rules. Let the earth be full of joy. Let the many islands be glad. ² Clouds and darkness are all around Him. His throne is built upon what is right and fair. ³ Fire goes before Him and burns up those who hate Him on every side. ⁴ His lightning lights up the world. The earth sees, and shakes. ⁵ The mountains melt like a candle before the Lord, before the Lord of the whole earth. ⁶ The heavens tell about how right and good He is. And all the people see His shining-greatness.

⁷ Let all those who serve false gods be ashamed, those who talk about how great their gods are. Worship Him, all you gods! ⁸ Zion heard this and was glad. The people of Judah have been full of joy because of what You decide, O Lord. ⁹ For You are the Lord Most High over all the earth. You are honored above all gods.

¹⁰ Let those who love the Lord hate what is bad. For He keeps safe the souls of His faithful ones. He takes them away from the hand of the sinful. ¹¹ Light is spread like seed for those who are right and good, and joy for the pure in heart. ¹² Be glad in the Lord, you who are right and good. Give thanks to His holy name.

A Call to Praise the Lord

98 Sing a new song to the Lord. For He has done great things. His right hand and His holy arm have won the fight for Him. ² The Lord has made His saving power known. He has shown to the nations how right and good He is. ³ He has shown His loving-kindness and how beautiful He is to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the saving power of our God.

⁴ Call out for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Sing out loud songs of joy and sing praises. ⁵ Sing praises to the Lord with harps, with harps and the voice of singing. ⁶ Call out for joy with the sound of horns before the King, the Lord.

⁷ Let the sea and all that is in it make a loud noise, and the world and all who live in it. ⁸ Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the mountains sing together for joy ⁹ before the Lord. For He is coming to say who is guilty or not on the earth. He will be right in what He decides about the world. And He will be fair to the people.