M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

A Levite and His Servant

19 At that time Israel did not have a king.

There was a Levite who lived in the faraway mountains of Ephraim. He had taken a slave woman from the city of Bethlehem in the land of Judah to live with him, ² but she was unfaithful to him. She left him and went back to her father’s house in Bethlehem in Judah and stayed there for four months. ³ Then her husband went to ask her to come back to him, taking with him his servant and two donkeys. When the Levite came to her father’s house, she invited him to come in, and her father was happy to see him. ⁴ The father-in-law, the young woman’s father, asked him to stay. So he stayed for three days and ate, drank, and slept there.

⁵ On the fourth day they got up early in the morning. The Levite was getting ready to leave, but the woman’s father said to his son-in-law, “Refresh yourself by eating something. Then go.” ⁶ So the two men sat down to eat and drink together. After that, the father said to him, “Please stay tonight. Relax and enjoy yourself.” ⁷ When the man got up to go, his father-in-law asked him to stay. So he stayed again that night. ⁸ On the fifth day the man got up early in the morning to leave. The woman’s father said, “Refresh yourself. Wait until this afternoon.” So the two men ate together.

⁹ When the Levite, his slave woman, and his servant got up to leave, the father-in-law, the young woman’s father, said, “It’s almost night. The day is almost gone. Spend the night here and enjoy yourself. Tomorrow morning you can get up early and go home.” ¹⁰ But the Levite did not want to stay another night. So he took his two saddled donkeys and his slave woman and traveled toward the city of Jebus (also called Jerusalem).

¹¹ As the day was almost over, they came near Jebus. So the servant said to his master, “Let’s stop at this city of the Jebusites, and spend the night here.”

¹² But his master said, “No. We won’t go inside a foreign city. Those people are not Israelites. We will go on to the city of Gibeah.” ¹³ He said, “Come on. Let’s try to make it to Gibeah or Ramah so we can spend the night in one of those cities.” ¹⁴ So they went on. The sun went down as they came near Gibeah, which belongs to the tribe of Benjamin. ¹⁵ They stopped there to spend the night. They came to the public square of the city and sat down, but no one invited them home to spend the night.

¹⁶ Finally, in the evening an old man came in from his work in the fields. His home was in the mountains of Ephraim, but now he was living in Gibeah. (The people of Gibeah were from the tribe of Benjamin.) ¹⁷ He saw the traveler in the public square and asked, “Where are you going? Where did you come from?”

¹⁸ The Levite answered, “We are traveling from Bethlehem in Judah to my home in the mountains of Ephraim. I have been to Bethlehem in Judah, but now I am going to the Holy Tent of the Lord. No one has invited me to stay in his house. ¹⁹ We already have straw and food for our donkeys and bread and wine for me, the young woman, and my servant. We don’t need anything.”

²⁰ The old man said, “You are welcome to stay at my house. Let me give you anything you need, but don’t spend the night in the public square.” ²¹ So the old man took the Levite into his house, and he fed their donkeys. They washed their feet and had something to eat and drink.

²² While they were enjoying themselves, some wicked men of the city surrounded the house and beat on the door. They shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house. We want to have sexual relations with him.”

²³ The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends. Don’t be so evil. This man is a guest in my house. Don’t do this terrible thing! ²⁴ Look, here are my daughter, who has never had sexual relations before, and the man’s slave woman. I will bring them out to you now. Do anything you want with them, but don’t do such a terrible thing to this man.”

²⁵ But the men would not listen to him. So the Levite took his slave woman and sent her outside to them. They forced her to have sexual relations with them, and they abused her all night long. Then, at dawn, they let her go. ²⁶ She came back to the house where her master was staying and fell down at the door and lay there until daylight.

²⁷ In the morning when the Levite got up, he opened the door of the house and went outside to go on his way. But his slave woman was lying at the doorway of the house, with her hands on the doorsill. ²⁸ The Levite said to her, “Get up; let’s go.” But she did not answer. So he put her on his donkey and went home.

²⁹ When the Levite got home, he took a knife and cut his slave woman into twelve parts, limb by limb. Then he sent a part to each area of Israel. ³⁰ Everyone who saw this said, “Nothing like this has ever happened before, not since the people of Israel came out of Egypt. Think about it. Tell us what to do.”

23 Paul looked at the council and said, “Brothers, I have lived my life without guilt feelings before God up to this day.” ² Ananias,^[a] the high priest, heard this and told the men who were standing near Paul to hit him on the mouth. ³ Paul said to Ananias, “God will hit you, too! You are like a wall that has been painted white. You sit there and judge me, using the law of Moses, but you are telling them to hit me, and that is against the law.”

⁴ The men standing near Paul said to him, “You cannot insult God’s high priest like that!”

⁵ Paul said, “Brothers, I did not know this man was the high priest. It is written in the Scriptures, ‘You must not curse a leader of your people.’”^[b]

⁶ Some of the men in the meeting were Sadducees, and others were Pharisees. Knowing this, Paul shouted to them, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, and my father was a Pharisee. I am on trial here because I believe that people will rise from the dead.”

⁷ When Paul said this, there was an argument between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the group was divided. ⁸ (The Sadducees do not believe in angels or spirits or that people will rise from the dead. But the Pharisees believe in them all.) ⁹ So there was a great uproar. Some of the teachers of the law, who were Pharisees, stood up and argued, “We find nothing wrong with this man. Maybe an angel or a spirit did speak to him.”

¹⁰ The argument was beginning to turn into such a fight that the commander was afraid some evil people would tear Paul to pieces. So he told the soldiers to go down and take Paul away and put him in the army building.

¹¹ The next night the Lord came and stood by Paul. He said, “Be brave! You have told people in Jerusalem about me. You must do the same in Rome.”

¹² In the morning some evil people made a plan to kill Paul, and they took an oath not to eat or drink anything until they had killed him. ¹³ There were more than forty men who made this plan. ¹⁴ They went to the leading priests and the elders and said, “We have taken an oath not to eat or drink until we have killed Paul. ¹⁵ So this is what we want you to do: Send a message to the commander to bring Paul out to you as though you want to ask him more questions. We will be waiting to kill him while he is on the way here.”

¹⁶ But Paul’s nephew heard about this plan and went to the army building and told Paul. ¹⁷ Then Paul called one of the officers and said, “Take this young man to the commander. He has a message for him.”

¹⁸ So the officer brought Paul’s nephew to the commander and said, “The prisoner, Paul, asked me to bring this young man to you. He wants to tell you something.”

¹⁹ The commander took the young man’s hand and led him to a place where they could be alone. He asked, “What do you want to tell me?”

²⁰ The young man said, “The Jews have decided to ask you to bring Paul down to their council meeting tomorrow. They want you to think they are going to ask him more questions. ²¹ But don’t believe them! More than forty men are hiding and waiting to kill Paul. They have all taken an oath not to eat or drink until they have killed him. Now they are waiting for you to agree.”

²² The commander sent the young man away, ordering him, “Don’t tell anyone that you have told me about their plan.”

Paul Is Sent to Caesarea

²³ Then the commander called two officers and said, “I need some men to go to Caesarea. Get two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen, and two hundred men with spears ready to leave at nine o’clock tonight. ²⁴ Get some horses for Paul to ride so he can be taken to Governor Felix safely.” ²⁵ And he wrote a letter that said:

³¹ So the soldiers did what they were told and took Paul and brought him to the city of Antipatris that night. ³² The next day the horsemen went with Paul to Caesarea, but the other soldiers went back to the army building in Jerusalem. ³³ When the horsemen came to Caesarea and gave the letter to the governor, they turned Paul over to him. ³⁴ The governor read the letter and asked Paul, “What area are you from?” When he learned that Paul was from Cilicia, ³⁵ he said, “I will hear your case when those who are against you come here, too.” Then the governor gave orders for Paul to be kept under guard in Herod’s palace.

The Promise of the Lord

33 While Jeremiah was still locked up in the courtyard of the guards, the Lord spoke his word to him a second time: ² “These are the words of the Lord, who made the earth, shaped it, and gave it order, whose name is the Lord: ³ ‘Judah, pray to me, and I will answer you. I will tell you important secrets you have never heard before.’ ⁴ This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the houses in Jerusalem and the royal palaces of Judah that have been torn down to be used in defense of the attack by the Babylonian army: ⁵ ‘Some people will come to fight against the Babylonians. They will fill these houses with the bodies of people I killed in my hot anger. I have turned away from this city because of all the evil its people have done.

⁶ “‘But then I will bring health and healing to the people there. I will heal them and let them enjoy great peace and safety. ⁷ I will bring Judah and Israel back from captivity and make them strong countries as in the past. ⁸ They sinned against me, but I will wash away that sin. They did evil and turned away from me, but I will forgive them. ⁹ Then “Jerusalem” will be to me a name that brings joy! And people from all nations of the earth will praise it when they hear about the good things I am doing there. They will be surprised and shocked at all the good things and the peace I will bring to Jerusalem.’

¹⁰ “You are saying, ‘Our country is an empty desert, without people or animals.’ But this is what the Lord says: It is now quiet in the streets of Jerusalem and in the towns of Judah, without people or animals, but it will be noisy there soon! ¹¹ There will be sounds of joy and gladness and the happy sounds of brides and bridegrooms. There will be the sounds of people bringing to the Temple of the Lord their offerings of thanks to the Lord. They will say,

They will say this because I will again do good things for Judah, as I did in the beginning,” says the Lord.

¹² This is what the Lord All-Powerful says: “This place is empty now, without people or animals. But there will be shepherds in all the towns of Judah and pastures where they let their flocks rest. ¹³ Shepherds will again count their sheep as the sheep walk in front of them. They will count them in the mountains and in the western hills, in southern Judah and the land of Benjamin, and around Jerusalem and the other towns of Judah!” says the Lord.

The Good Branch

¹⁴ The Lord says, “The time is coming when I will do the good thing I promised to the people of Israel and Judah.

¹⁷ This is what the Lord says: “Someone from David’s family will always sit on the throne of the family of Israel. ¹⁸ And there will always be priests from the family of Levi. They will always stand before me to offer burnt offerings and grain offerings and sacrifices to me.”

¹⁹ The Lord spoke his word to Jeremiah, saying: ²⁰ “This is what the Lord says: I have an agreement with day and night that they will always come at the right times. If you could change that agreement, ²¹ only then could you change my agreement with David and Levi. Only then would my servant David not have a descendant ruling as king on David’s throne. And only then would the family of Levi not be priests serving me in the Temple. ²² But I will give many descendants to my servant David and to the family group of Levi who serve me in the Temple. They will be as many as the stars in the sky that no one can count. They will be as many as the grains of sand on the seashore that no one can measure.”

²³ The Lord spoke his word to Jeremiah, saying: ²⁴ “Jeremiah, have you heard what the people are saying? They say: ‘The Lord turned away from the two families of Israel and Judah that he chose.’ Now they don’t think of my people as a nation anymore!”

²⁵ This is what the Lord says: “If I had not made my agreement with day and night, and if I had not made the laws for the sky and earth, ²⁶ only then would I turn away from Jacob’s descendants. And only then would I not let the descendants of David my servant rule over the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But I will be kind to them and cause good things to happen to them again.”

A Morning Prayer

David sang this when he ran away from his son Absalom.

An Evening Prayer

For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A psalm of David.