M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
David and the Census of the People
24 Again Yahweh was angry with Israel, and he[a] incited David against them, saying, “Go count Israel and Judah.” 2 The king said to Joab, the commander of the army who was with him: “Please go about through all the tribes of Israel from Dan to Beersheba, and count the people that I may know the number of the people.” 3 Then Joab said to the king, “May Yahweh your God increase the people a hundred times what they are[b] as the eyes of my lord the king are seeing. But my lord the king, why does he desire this thing?” 4 But the word of the king prevailed over Joab and over the commanders of the army, so Joab and the commanders of the army went out from before the king to count the people of Israel. 5 They crossed over the Jordan and camped at Aroer to the south of the city, which was in the middle of the wadi of Gad, and up to Jazer. 6 Then they went to Gilead and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi. They came to Dan Jaan and around to Sidon 7 and came to the fortress of Tyre and all the cities of the Hivites and the Canaanites. Then they went out to the Negev of Judah at Beersheba. 8 They went about through all the land, and they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days.
9 Then Joab gave the number of the counting of the people to the king. Israel was eight hundred thousand valiant warriors[c] wielding the sword, and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand. 10 The heart of David struck him after he had counted the people, and David said to Yahweh, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done! So then, O Yahweh, please forgive the guilt of your servant because I have acted very foolishly.” 11 When David got up in the morning, the word of Yahweh came to Gad the prophet, the seer of David, saying, 12 “Go and speak to David, ‘Thus says Yahweh, three things I am laying on you; choose for yourself one of them and I will do it to you.’” 13 Then Gad came to David, and he told him and said to him, “Shall seven years of famine in the land come to you? Or three months of your fleeing from your enemies while he is pursuing you? Or should there be three days of pestilence in your land? Now consider and decide what I must return to the one who sent me a word.” 14 Then David said to Gad, “I am greatly distressed. Please let us fall into the hand of Yahweh, because he is great in his compassion; but into the hand of man don’t let me fall.” 15 Then Yahweh sent a plague into Israel from the morning until the agreed time,[d] and from the people from Dan to Beersheba, seventy thousand men died.
16 When the angel stretched out his hand to destroy Jerusalem, Yahweh regretted about the evil, and he said to the angel who brought destruction among the people, “Enough, now relax your hand.” Now the angel of Yahweh was at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. 17 David spoke to Yahweh when he saw the angel destroying among the people, and he said, “Look, I have sinned and I have done wrong, but these sheep, what did they do? Please let your hand be against me and against the house of my father.” 18 Then Gad came to David on that same day and said to him, “Go up and erect an altar to Yahweh at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.” 19 So David went up according to the word of Gad, as Yahweh had commanded. 20 Araunah looked down and saw the king and his servants coming over to him, so Araunah went out and bowed down before the king with his face to the ground. 21 Then Araunah said, “Why has my lord the king come to his servant?” David said, “To buy from you the threshing floor, to build an altar to Yahweh who brought a halt to the plague on the people.” 22 Araunah said to David, “Let my lord the king take and offer what is good in his eyes. Look, here are the cattle for the burnt offering and the threshing sledge and the yokes of the oxen for the firewood. 23 All of this Araunah hereby gives to the king.” Then Araunah said to the king, “May Yahweh your God respond favorably for you.” 24 Then the king said to Araunah, “No, but I will certainly buy[e] it from you for a price; I don’t want to offer to Yahweh my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” So David bought the threshing floor and the cattle for fifty shekels of silver. 25 David built an altar to Yahweh there, and he offered burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Then Yahweh responded to his prayer for the land and brought the plague to a halt from upon Israel.
No Longer Slaves But Sons and Heirs
4 Now I say, for as long a time as the heir is a child, he is no different from a slave, although he[a] is master of everything, 2 but he is under guardians and managers until the time set by his father. 3 So also we, when we were children, we were enslaved under the elemental spirits of the world. 4 But when the fullness of time came, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 in order that he might redeem those under the law, in order that we might receive the adoption. 6 And because you are sons, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba![b] (Father!),” 7 so that you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, also an heir through God.
Do Not Be Enslaved Again
8 But at that time when you[c] did not know God, you were enslaved to the things which by nature are not gods. 9 But now, because you have come to know God, or rather have come to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and miserable elemental spirits? Do you want to be enslaved to them[d] all over again? 10 You carefully observe days and months and seasons and years. 11 I am afraid for you, lest perhaps I have labored for you in vain! 12 I ask you, brothers, become like me, because I also have become like you. You have done me no wrong!
Paul’s Personal Appeal
13 But you know that because of an illness of the flesh I proclaimed the gospel to you the first time. 14 And you did not despise or disdain what was a trial for you in my flesh, but you welcomed me like an angel of God, like Christ Jesus. 15 So where is your blessing? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me! 16 So then, have I become your enemy by[e] being truthful to you? 17 They zealously seek you, not commendably, but they want to exclude you, in order that you may seek them zealously. 18 But it is good to be sought zealously in good at all times, and not only when I am present with you. 19 My children, for whom I am having birth pains again, until Christ is formed in you! 20 But I could wish to be present with you now, and to change my tone because I am perplexed about you.
Hagar and Sarah Represent Two Covenants
21 Tell me, you who are wanting to be under the law, do you not understand[f] the law? 22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the female slave and one by the free woman. 23 But the one by the female slave was born according to human descent, and the one by the free woman through the promise, 24 which things are spoken allegorically, for these women are two covenants, one from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery, who is Hagar. 25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is a slave with her children. 26 But the Jerusalem above is free, which is our mother. 27 For it is written,
“Rejoice, O barren woman, who does not give birth to children;
burst out and shout, you who do not have birth pains,
because many are the children of the desolate woman,
even more than those of the one who has a husband.”[g]
28 But you, brothers, are children of the promise, just as Isaac. 29 But just as at that time the child born according to human descent persecuted the child born according to the Spirit, so also now. 30 But what does the scripture say? “Drive out the female slave and her son, for the son of the female slave will never inherit with the son”[h] of the free woman. 31 Therefore, brothers, we are not children of the female slave but of the free woman.
Pharaoh Is Warned Through Assyria’s Destruction
31 And then[a] in the eleventh[b] year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of Yahweh came[c] to me, saying,[d] 2 “Son of man,[e] say to Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and to his crowd,[f]
‘To whom are you like in your greatness?
3 Look! Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon,
with beautiful branches[g] and a forest giving shade,
and very high,[h]
and its treetop was between the clouds.
4 Waters made it great,
the deep made it grow high;
its rivers were going all around its planting area,[i]
and its channels it sent out
to all of the trees of the field.
5 Therefore it became tall,
with its height more than all of the trees of the field,
and its branches became numerous,
and its branches became long
from its sending its shoots from abundant water.[j]
6 In its branches all the birds[k] of the heaven[l] made their nest,
and under its branches all the animals[m] of the field gave birth,
and in its shadow all the many nations lived.
7 And it was beautiful in its greatness,
in the length of its branches,
for its root was toward much water.
8 Cedars in the garden of God
could not be equal to it;
fir trees[n] could not resemble its branches,
and plane trees were not even like its branches;
any tree even in the garden of God
could not resemble it in its beauty.
9 I made it beautiful with the abundance of its branches,
and all of the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied it.’”
10 Therefore thus says the Lord Yahweh: “Because[o] it was tall in height and it set its treetop between[p] thick clouds, and he took pride in his tallness,[q] 11 then[r] I gave it into the hand of the leader of nations; he dealt thoroughly[s] with it according to its wickedness. I drove it out. 12 And strangers cut it off, the most ruthless of nations, and they abandoned it. On the mountains and in all of the valleys its branches fell, and its branches were broken in all the river channels of the land, and all the peoples of the world went out from its shadow, and they abandoned it. 13 On its fallen trunk all the birds[t] of the heaven[u] now dwell, and all the animals of the field were on its branches. 14 This occurred so that all of the trees with abundant water will not become tall, and they will not set their treetop between[v] their thick foliage,[w] and so thatall of the trees that are abundantly watered[x] will not stand up to them[y] in their tallness, for all of them, they have been given over to death, to the world below in the midst of mortals,[z] to the people going down to the grave.”[aa]
15 Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “On the day of its going down to Sheol, I caused mourning; I covered over it with the deep, and I withheld its rivers, and many waters were restrained, and I brought gloom over it; Lebanon and all of the trees of the field, they had fainted because of it. 16 From the sound of its downfall I caused nations to shake when I made it go down to Sheol, with the people going down to the grave,[ab] and so in the world below all of the trees of Eden, the choice and the best of Lebanon, all the well-watered trees[ac] were comforted! 17 They also went down with it to Sheol to those who died by the sword,[ad] and its army who had lived in its shadow in the midst of nations.
18 To whom could you be compared, whether in glory or in majesty[ae] among the trees of Eden? And yet you will be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below; in the midst of the uncircumcised you will lie with those who died by the sword.[af] That is Pharaoh and his entire[ag] crowd!”[ah] declares[ai] the Lord Yahweh.
A Lament for Jerusalem after Its Destruction
A psalm of Asaph.[a]
79 O God, the nations have entered your inheritance;
they have defiled your holy temple;
they have reduced Jerusalem to ruins.
2 They have given the bodies of your servants
as food for the birds of the heavens,
the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth.
3 They have poured out their blood like water
all around Jerusalem,
and there was none to bury them.
4 We have become a taunt to our neighbors,
a derision and a scorn to those around us.
5 How long, O Yahweh? Will you be angry forever?
Will your jealousy burn like fire?
6 Pour out your anger on the nations
that do not know you,
and on the kingdoms
that do not call on your name,
7 because they[b] have devoured Jacob
and have laid waste his habitation.
8 Do not remember against us former iniquities;
let your mercies meet us quickly
because we are brought very low.
9 Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of your name;
and deliver us and forgive[c] our sins
for the sake of your name.
10 Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
Let it[d] be known among the nations before our eyes,
by the avenging of the blood of your servants
that was poured out.
11 Let the groaning of the prisoner come before you.
According to the greatness of your power,[e]
spare[f] the children appointed to death.
12 And return to our neighbors sevenfold upon them[g]
their taunts with which they taunted you, O Lord.
13 Then we, your people and the flock of your pasture,
we will give thanks to you forever.
Generation after generation[h]
we will tell of your praise.
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