M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

14 Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the leaders of all the tribes of Israel decided what land to give to the people in the land of Canaan. ² The Lord had commanded Moses long ago how he wanted the people to choose their land. The people of the nine-and-a-half tribes threw lots to decide which land they would receive. ³ Moses had already given the two-and-a-half tribes their land east of the Jordan River. But the tribe of Levi was not given any land like the others. ⁴ The sons of Joseph had divided into two tribes—Manasseh and Ephraim. The tribe of Levi was not given any land. It was given only some towns in which to live and pastures for its animals. ⁵ The Lord had told Moses how to give the land to the tribes of Israel, and the Israelites divided the land.

Caleb’s Land

⁶ One day some men from the tribe of Judah went to Joshua at Gilgal. Among them was Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite. He said to Joshua, “You remember what the Lord said at Kadesh Barnea when he was speaking to the prophet Moses about you and me. ⁷ Moses, the Lord’s servant, sent me to look at the land where we were going. I was forty years old then. When I came back, I told Moses what I thought about the land. ⁸ The other men who went with me frightened the people, but I fully believed the Lord would allow us to take the land. ⁹ So that day Moses promised me, ‘The land where you went will become your land, and your children will own it forever. I will give you that land because you fully believed in the Lord, my God.’

¹⁰ “Now then, the Lord has kept his promise. He has kept me alive for forty-five years from the time he said this to Moses during the time we all wandered in the desert. Now here I am, eighty-five years old. ¹¹ I am still as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me out, and I am just as ready to fight now as I was then. ¹² So give me the mountain country the Lord promised me that day long ago. Back then you heard that the Anakite people lived there and the cities were large and well protected. But now with the Lord helping me, I will force them out, just as the Lord said.”

¹³ Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave him the city of Hebron as his own. ¹⁴ Hebron still belongs to the family of Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite because he had faith and obeyed the Lord, the God of Israel. ¹⁵ (In the past it was called Kiriath Arba, named for Arba, the greatest man among the Anakites.)

After this there was peace in the land.

Land for Judah

15 The land that was given to the tribe of Judah was divided among all the family groups. It went all the way to the Desert of Zin in the far south, at the border of Edom.

² The southern border of Judah’s land started at the south end of the Dead Sea ³ and went south of Scorpion Pass to Zin. From there it passed to the south of Kadesh Barnea and continued past Hezron to Addar. From Addar it turned and went to Karka. ⁴ It continued to Azmon, the brook of Egypt, and then to the Mediterranean Sea. This was the southern border.

⁵ The eastern border was the shore of the Dead Sea, as far as the mouth of the Jordan River.

The northern border started at the bay of the sea at the mouth of the Jordan River. ⁶ Then it went to Beth Hoglah and continued north of Beth Arabah to the stone of Bohan son of Reuben. ⁷ Then the northern border went through the Valley of Achor to Debir where it turned toward the north and went to Gilgal. Gilgal is across from the road that goes through Adummim Pass, on the south side of the ravine. The border continued to the waters of En Shemesh and stopped at En Rogel. ⁸ Then it went through the Valley of Ben Hinnom, next to the southern side of the Jebusite city (which is called Jerusalem). There the border went to the top of the hill on the west side of Hinnom Valley, at the northern end of the Valley of Giants. ⁹ From there it went to the spring of the waters of Nephtoah and then it went to the cities near Mount Ephron. There it turned and went toward Baalah, which is called Kiriath Jearim. ¹⁰ At Baalah the border turned west and went toward Mount Seir. It continued along the north side of Mount Jearim (also called Kesalon) and came to Beth Shemesh. From there it went past Timnah ¹¹ to the hill north of Ekron. Then it turned toward Shikkeron and went past Mount Baalah and continued on to Jabneel, ending at the sea.

¹² The Mediterranean Sea was the western border. Inside these borders lived the family groups of Judah.

¹³ The Lord had commanded Joshua to give Caleb son of Jephunneh part of the land in Judah, so he gave Caleb the town of Kiriath Arba, also called Hebron. (Arba was the father of Anak.) ¹⁴ Caleb forced out the three Anakite families living in Hebron: Sheshai, Ahiman, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak. ¹⁵ Then he left there and went to fight against the people living in Debir. (In the past Debir had been called Kiriath Sepher.) ¹⁶ Caleb said, “I will give Acsah, my daughter, as a wife to the man who attacks and captures the city of Kiriath Sepher.” ¹⁷ Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb’s brother, captured the city, so Caleb gave his daughter Acsah to Othniel to be his wife. ¹⁸ When Acsah came to Othniel, she told him to ask her father for a field.

So Acsah went to her father. When she got down from her donkey, Caleb asked her, “What do you want?”

¹⁹ Acsah answered, “Do me a special favor. Since you have given me land in southern Canaan, also give me springs of water.” So Caleb gave her the upper and lower springs.

²⁰ The tribe of Judah got the land God had promised them. Each family group got part of the land.

²¹ The tribe of Judah got all these towns in the southern part of Canaan near the border of Edom: Kabzeel, Eder, Jagur, ²² Kinah, Dimonah, Adadah, ²³ Kedesh, Hazor, Ithnan, ²⁴ Ziph, Telem, Bealoth, ²⁵ Hazor Hadattah, Kerioth Hezron (also called Hazor), ²⁶ Amam, Shema, Moladah, ²⁷ Hazar Gaddah, Heshmon, Beth Pelet, ²⁸ Hazar Shual, Beersheba, Biziothiah, ²⁹ Baalah, Iim, Ezem, ³⁰ Eltolad, Kesil, Hormah, ³¹ Ziklag, Madmannah, Sansannah, ³² Lebaoth, Shilhim, Ain, and Rimmon. There were twenty-nine towns and their villages.

³³ The tribe of Judah got these towns in the western hills: Eshtaol, Zorah, Ashnah, ³⁴ Zanoah, En Gannim, Tappuah, Enam, ³⁵ Jarmuth, Adullam, Socoh, Azekah, ³⁶ Shaaraim, Adithaim, and Gederah (also called Gederothaim). There were fourteen towns and their villages.

³⁷ Judah was also given these towns in the western hills: Zenan, Hadashah, Migdal Gad, ³⁸ Dilean, Mizpah, Joktheel, ³⁹ Lachish, Bozkath, Eglon, ⁴⁰ Cabbon, Lahmas, Kitlish, ⁴¹ Gederoth, Beth Dagon, Naamah, and Makkedah. There were sixteen towns and their villages.

⁴² Judah was also given these towns in the western hills: Libnah, Ether, Ashan, ⁴³ Iphtah, Ashnah, Nezib, ⁴⁴ Keilah, Aczib, and Mareshah. There were nine towns and their villages.

⁴⁵ The tribe of Judah was also given these towns: Ekron and all the small towns and villages near it; ⁴⁶ the area west of Ekron and all the villages and small towns near Ashdod; ⁴⁷ Ashdod and the small towns and villages around it; the villages and small towns around Gaza as far as the brook of Egypt and along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

⁴⁸ The tribe of Judah was also given these towns in the mountains: Shamir, Jattir, Socoh, ⁴⁹ Dannah, Kiriath Sannah (also called Debir), ⁵⁰ Anab, Eshtemoh, Anim, ⁵¹ Goshen, Holon, and Giloh. There were eleven towns and their villages.

⁵² They were also given these towns in the mountains: Arab, Dumah, Eshan, ⁵³ Janim, Beth Tappuah, Aphekah, ⁵⁴ Humtah, Kiriath Arba (also called Hebron), and Zior. There were nine towns and their villages.

⁵⁵ Judah was also given these towns in the mountains: Maon, Carmel, Ziph, Juttah, ⁵⁶ Jezreel, Jokdeam, Zanoah, ⁵⁷ Kain, Gibeah, and Timnah. There were ten towns and their villages.

⁵⁸ They were also given these towns in the mountains: Halhul, Beth Zur, Gedor, ⁵⁹ Maarath, Beth Anoth, and Eltekon. There were six towns and their villages.

⁶⁰ The people of Judah were also given the two towns of Rabbah and Kiriath Baal (also called Kiriath Jearim) and their villages.

⁶¹ Judah was given these towns in the desert: Beth Arabah, Middin, Secacah, ⁶² Nibshan, the City of Salt, and En Gedi. There were six towns and all their villages.

⁶³ The army of Judah was not able to force out the Jebusites living in Jerusalem, so the Jebusites still live among the people of Judah to this day.

Praise God Who Helps the Weak

Praise God Who Helps His People

Jeremiah’s Temple Message

7 This is the word that the Lord spoke to Jeremiah: ² “Stand at the gate of the Temple and preach this message there:

“‘Hear the word of the Lord, all you people of the nation of Judah! All you who come through these gates to worship the Lord, listen to this message! ³ This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Change your lives and do what is right! Then I will let you live in this place. ⁴ Don’t trust the lies of people who say, “This is the Temple of the Lord. This is the Temple of the Lord. This is the Temple of the Lord!” ⁵ You must change your lives and do what is right. Be fair to each other. ⁶ You must not be hard on strangers, orphans, and widows. Don’t kill innocent people in this place! Don’t follow other gods, or they will ruin your lives. ⁷ If you do these things, I will let you live in this land that I gave to your ancestors to keep forever.

⁸ “‘But look, you are trusting lies, which is useless. ⁹ Will you steal and murder and be guilty of adultery? Will you falsely accuse other people? Will you burn incense to the god Baal and follow other gods you have not known? ¹⁰ If you do that, do you think you can come before me and stand in this place where I have chosen to be worshiped? Do you think you can say, “We are safe!” when you do all these hateful things? ¹¹ This place where I have chosen to be worshiped is nothing more to you than a hideout for robbers. I have been watching you, says the Lord.

¹² “‘You people of Judah, go now to the town of Shiloh, where I first made a place to be worshiped. See what I did to it because of the evil things the people of Israel had done. ¹³ You people of Judah have done all these evil things too, says the Lord. I spoke to you again and again, but you did not listen to me. I called you, but you did not answer. ¹⁴ So I will destroy the place where I have chosen to be worshiped in Jerusalem. You trust in that place, which I gave to you and your ancestors, but I will destroy it just as I destroyed Shiloh. ¹⁵ I will push you away from me just as I pushed away your relatives, the people of Israel!’

¹⁶ “As for you, Jeremiah, don’t pray for these people. Don’t cry out for them or ask anything for them or beg me to help them, because I will not listen to you. ¹⁷ Don’t you see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁸ The children gather wood, and the fathers use the wood to make a fire. The women make the dough for cakes of bread, and they offer them to the Queen Goddess. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to make me angry. ¹⁹ But I am not the one the people of Judah are really hurting, says the Lord. They are only hurting themselves and bringing shame upon themselves.

²⁰ “‘So this is what the Lord God says: I will pour out my anger on this place, on people and animals, on the trees in the field and the crops in the ground. My anger will be like a hot fire that no one can put out.

Obedience Is More than Sacrifice

²¹ “‘This is what the Lord All-Powerful, the God of Israel, says: Offer burnt offerings along with your other sacrifices, and eat the meat yourselves! ²² When I brought your ancestors out of Egypt, I did not speak to them and give them commands only about burnt offerings and sacrifices. ²³ I also gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Do all that I command so that good things will happen to you. ²⁴ But your ancestors did not listen or pay attention to me. They were stubborn and did whatever their evil hearts wanted. They went backward, not forward. ²⁵ Since the day your ancestors left Egypt, I have sent my servants, the prophets, again and again to you. ²⁶ But your ancestors did not listen or pay attention to me. They were very stubborn and did more evil than their ancestors.’

²⁷ “Jeremiah, you will tell all these things to the people of Judah, but they will not listen to you. You will call to them, but they will not answer you. ²⁸ So say to them, ‘This is the nation that has not obeyed the Lord its God. These people do nothing when I correct them. They do not tell the truth; it has disappeared from their lips.

The Valley of Killing

²⁹ “‘Cut off your hair and throw it away. Go up to the bare hilltop and cry out, because the Lord has rejected these people. He has turned his back on them, and in his anger will punish them. ³⁰ The people of Judah have done what I said was evil, says the Lord. They have set up their hateful idols in the place where I have chosen to be worshiped and have made it unclean. ³¹ The people of Judah have built places of worship at Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom. There they burned their own sons and daughters as sacrifices, something I never commanded. It never even entered my mind. ³² So, I warn you. The days are coming, says the Lord, when people will not call this place Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom anymore. They will call it the Valley of Killing. They will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no room to bury anyone else. ³³ Then the bodies of the dead will become food for the birds of the sky and for the wild animals. There will be no one left alive to chase them away. ³⁴ I will end the happy sounds of the bride and bridegroom. There will be no happy sounds in the cities of Judah or in the streets of Jerusalem, because the land will become an empty desert!

Jesus Enters Jerusalem as a King

21 As Jesus and his followers were coming closer to Jerusalem, they stopped at Bethphage at the hill called the Mount of Olives. From there Jesus sent two of his followers ² and said to them, “Go to the town you can see there. When you enter it, you will quickly find a donkey tied there with its colt. Untie them and bring them to me. ³ If anyone asks you why you are taking the donkeys, say that the Master needs them, and he will send them at once.”

⁴ This was to bring about what the prophet had said:

⁶ The followers went and did what Jesus told them to do. ⁷ They brought the donkey and the colt to Jesus and laid their coats on them, and Jesus sat on them. ⁸ Many people spread their coats on the road. Others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹ The people were walking ahead of Jesus and behind him, shouting,

¹⁰ When Jesus entered Jerusalem, all the city was filled with excitement. The people asked, “Who is this man?”

¹¹ The crowd said, “This man is Jesus, the prophet from the town of Nazareth in Galilee.”

Jesus Goes to the Temple

¹² Jesus went into the Temple and threw out all the people who were buying and selling there. He turned over the tables of those who were exchanging different kinds of money, and he upset the benches of those who were selling doves. ¹³ Jesus said to all the people there, “It is written in the Scriptures, ‘My Temple will be called a house for prayer.’^[b] But you are changing it into a ‘hideout for robbers.’”^[c]

¹⁴ The blind and crippled people came to Jesus in the Temple, and he healed them. ¹⁵ The leading priests and the teachers of the law saw that Jesus was doing wonderful things and that the children were praising him in the Temple, saying, “Praise^[d] to the Son of David.” All these things made the priests and the teachers of the law very angry.

¹⁶ They asked Jesus, “Do you hear the things these children are saying?”

Jesus answered, “Yes. Haven’t you read in the Scriptures, ‘You have taught children and babies to sing praises’?”^[e]

¹⁷ Then Jesus left and went out of the city to Bethany, where he spent the night.

The Power of Faith

¹⁸ Early the next morning, as Jesus was going back to the city, he became hungry. ¹⁹ Seeing a fig tree beside the road, Jesus went to it, but there were no figs on the tree, only leaves. So Jesus said to the tree, “You will never again have fruit.” The tree immediately dried up.

²⁰ When his followers saw this, they were amazed. They asked, “How did the fig tree dry up so quickly?”

²¹ Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will be able to do what I did to this tree and even more. You will be able to say to this mountain, ‘Go, fall into the sea.’ And if you have faith, it will happen. ²² If you believe, you will get anything you ask for in prayer.”

Leaders Doubt Jesus’ Authority

²³ Jesus went to the Temple, and while he was teaching there, the leading priests and the elders of the people came to him. They said, “What authority do you have to do these things? Who gave you this authority?”

²⁴ Jesus answered, “I also will ask you a question. If you answer me, then I will tell you what authority I have to do these things. ²⁵ Tell me: When John baptized people, did that come from God or just from other people?”

They argued about Jesus’ question, saying, “If we answer, ‘John’s baptism was from God,’ Jesus will say, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’ ²⁶ But if we say, ‘It was from people,’ we are afraid of what the crowd will do because they all believe that John was a prophet.”

²⁷ So they answered Jesus, “We don’t know.”

Jesus said to them, “Then I won’t tell you what authority I have to do these things.

A Story About Two Sons

²⁸ “Tell me what you think about this: A man had two sons. He went to the first son and said, ‘Son, go and work today in my vineyard.’ ²⁹ The son answered, ‘I will not go.’ But later the son changed his mind and went. ³⁰ Then the father went to the other son and said, ‘Son, go and work today in my vineyard.’ The son answered, ‘Yes, sir, I will go and work,’ but he did not go. ³¹ Which of the two sons obeyed his father?”

The priests and leaders answered, “The first son.”

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God before you do. ³² John came to show you the right way to live. You did not believe him, but the tax collectors and prostitutes believed him. Even after seeing this, you still refused to change your ways and believe him.

A Story About God’s Son

³³ “Listen to this story: There was a man who owned a vineyard. He put a wall around it and dug a hole for a winepress and built a tower. Then he leased the land to some farmers and left for a trip. ³⁴ When it was time for the grapes to be picked, he sent his servants to the farmers to get his share of the grapes. ³⁵ But the farmers grabbed the servants, beat one, killed another, and then killed a third servant with stones. ³⁶ So the man sent some other servants to the farmers, even more than he sent the first time. But the farmers did the same thing to the servants that they had done before. ³⁷ So the man decided to send his son to the farmers. He said, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸ But when the farmers saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This son will inherit the vineyard. If we kill him, it will be ours!’ ³⁹ Then the farmers grabbed the son, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰ So what will the owner of the vineyard do to these farmers when he comes?”

⁴¹ The priests and leaders said, “He will surely kill those evil men. Then he will lease the vineyard to some other farmers who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

⁴² Jesus said to them, “Surely you have read this in the Scriptures:

⁴³ “So I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to people who do the things God wants in his kingdom. ⁴⁴ The person who falls on this stone will be broken, and on whomever that stone falls, that person will be crushed.”^[f]

⁴⁵ When the leading priests and the Pharisees heard these stories, they knew Jesus was talking about them. ⁴⁶ They wanted to arrest him, but they were afraid of the people, because the people believed that Jesus was a prophet.