M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Solomon Builds the Temple

6 So in the month of Ziv, the second month of the year, during Solomon’s fourth year as king, he began work on the Temple. This was 480 years after the Israelites left Egypt.^{[a] 2} The Temple was 60 cubits^[b] long, 20 cubits^[c] wide, and 30 cubits^[d] high. ³ The porch of the Temple was 20 cubits long and 10 cubits^[e] wide. The porch ran along the front of the main part of the Temple itself. Its length was equal to the width of the Temple. ⁴ There were narrow windows in the Temple. These windows were smaller on the inside of the wall than on the outside.^{[f] 5} Then Solomon built a row of rooms around the main part of the Temple. This row of rooms was three stories tall with the rooms built one above the other. ⁶ The rooms touched the Temple wall, but their beams were not built into that wall. The Temple wall became thinner at the top, so the rooms on the upper floors were larger than the ones below them. The rooms on the bottom floor were 5 cubits^[g] wide. The rooms on the middle floor were 6 cubits^[h] wide. The rooms above that were 7 cubits^[i] wide. ⁷ The stones were completely finished before they were brought into the Temple area, so there was no noise of hammers, axes, or any other iron tools in the Temple.

⁸ The entrance to these rooms was on bottom floor at the south side of the Temple. Inside there were stairs that went up to the second floor and from there to the third floor.

⁹ Solomon finished building the main part of the Temple and then covered it inside with cedar boards. ¹⁰ Then he finished building the rooms around the Temple. Each story was 5 cubits tall. The cedar beams in these rooms rested on a ledge of the Temple wall.

¹¹ The Lord said to Solomon, ¹² “If you obey all my laws and commands, I will do for you what I promised your father David. ¹³ I will live among the children of Israel in this Temple that you are building, and I will never leave the people of Israel.”

¹⁴ When Solomon finished the stonework on the Temple, ¹⁵ the stone walls inside the Temple were covered with cedar boards from floor to ceiling. Then the stone floor was covered with pine boards. ¹⁶ They built an inner room 20 cubits long in the back part of the Temple. This room was called the Most Holy Place. They covered the walls in this room with cedar boards, from floor to ceiling. ¹⁷ In front of the Most Holy Place was the main part of the Temple. This room was 40 cubits^[j] long. ¹⁸ They covered the walls in this room with cedar boards—none of the stones in the walls could be seen. They carved pictures of flowers and gourds into the cedar.

¹⁹ Solomon finished the inner room in the back part of the Temple. This room was for the Box of the Lord’s Agreement. ²⁰ This room was 20 cubits long, 20 cubits wide, and 20 cubits high. Solomon covered this room with pure gold. He also covered the cedar altar with gold. ²¹ He covered the inside of the Temple with pure gold and wrapped gold chains around it. ²² The inside of the Temple was covered with gold, and the altar in front of the Most Holy Place was covered with gold.

²³ The workers made two statues of Cherub angels with wings. They made the statues from olive wood and put them in the Most Holy Place. Each angel was 10 cubits tall. ^24-26 Both Cherub angels were the same size and built the same way. Each one had two wings. Each wing was 5 cubits long. From the end of one wing to the end of the other wing was 10 cubits. And each Cherub angel was 10 cubits tall. ²⁷ They put the Cherub angels beside one another in the Most Holy Place. Their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. The other two wings touched each side wall. ²⁸ The two Cherub angels were covered with gold.

²⁹ The walls around the main room and the inner room were carved with pictures of Cherub angels, palm trees, and flowers. ³⁰ The floor of both rooms was covered with gold.

³¹ The workers made two doors from olive wood. They put these doors at the entrance of the Most Holy Place. The frame around the doors was made with five sides.^{[k] 32} They made the two doors from olive wood. The workers carved pictures of Cherub angels, palm trees, and flowers on the doors. Then they covered the doors with gold.

³³ They also made doors for the entrance to the main room. They used olive wood to make a square doorframe. ³⁴ There were two doors made from pine. Each door had two parts that folded together. ³⁵ They carved pictures of Cherub angels, palm trees, and flowers on the doors. Then they covered them with gold.

³⁶ Then they built a wall around the inner yard. Each wall was made from three rows of cut stones and one row of cedar timbers.

³⁷ They started working on the Lord’s Temple in the month of Ziv, the second month of the year. This was during Solomon’s fourth year as king of Israel. ³⁸ The Temple was finished in the month of Bul, the eighth month of the year, in Solomon’s eleventh year as king. It took seven years to build the Temple. It was built exactly as planned.

Paul’s Work for the Non-Jewish People

3 So I, Paul, am a prisoner because I serve Christ Jesus for you who are not Jews. ² Surely you know that God gave me this work through his grace to help you. ³ God let me know his secret plan by showing it to me. I have already written a little about this. ⁴ And if you read what I wrote, you can see that I understand the secret truth about Christ. ⁵ People who lived in other times were not told that secret truth. But now, through the Spirit, God has made it known to his holy apostles and prophets. ⁶ And this is the secret truth: that by hearing the Good News, those who are not Jews will share with the Jews in the blessings God has for his people. They are part of the same body, and they share in the promise God made through Christ Jesus.

⁷ By God’s special gift of grace, I became a servant to tell that Good News. He gave me that grace by using his power. ⁸ I am the least important of all God’s people. But he gave me this gift—to tell the non-Jewish people the Good News about the riches Christ has. These riches are too great to understand fully. ⁹ And God gave me the work of telling all people about the plan for his secret truth. That secret truth has been hidden in him since the beginning of time. He is the one who created everything. ¹⁰ His purpose was that all the rulers and powers in the heavenly places will now know the many different ways he shows his wisdom. They will know this because of the church. ¹¹ This agrees with the plan God had since the beginning of time. He did what he planned, and he did it through Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹² In Christ we come before God with freedom and without fear. We can do this because of our faith in Christ. ¹³ So I ask you not to be discouraged because of what is happening to me. My sufferings are for your benefit—for your honor and glory.

The Love of Christ

¹⁴ So I bow in prayer before the Father. ¹⁵ Every family in heaven and on earth gets its true name from him. ¹⁶ I ask the Father with his great glory to give you the power to be strong in your spirits. He will give you that strength through his Spirit. ¹⁷ I pray that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. I pray that your life will be strong in love and be built on love. ¹⁸ And I pray that you and all God’s holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ’s love—how wide, how long, how high, and how deep that love is. ¹⁹ Christ’s love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with everything God has for you.

²⁰ With God’s power working in us, he can do much, much more than anything we can ask or think of. ²¹ To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever. Amen.

The Land of Israel Will Be Rebuilt

36 “Son of man,^[a] speak to the mountains of Israel for me. Tell them to listen to the word of the Lord! ² Tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘The enemy said bad things against you. They said, Hurray! Now the ancient mountains^[b] will be ours!’

³ “So speak to the mountains of Israel for me. Tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘The enemy destroyed your cities and attacked you from every direction. They did this so that you would belong to the other nations. Then people talked and whispered about you.’”

⁴ So, mountains of Israel, listen to the word of the Lord God! This is what the Lord God says to the mountains, hills, streams, valleys, empty ruins, and abandoned cities that have been looted and laughed at by the other nations around them. ⁵ The Lord God says, “I swear, I will let my strong feelings speak for me! I will let Edom and the other nations feel my anger. They took my land for themselves. They really had a good time when they showed how much they hated this land. They took the land for themselves, just so they could destroy it.”

⁶ “So say these things about the land of Israel. Speak to the mountains and to the hills, to the streams, and to the valleys. Tell them that this is what the Lord God says: ‘I will let my strong feelings and anger speak for me, because you had to suffer the insults from those nations.’”

⁷ So this is what the Lord God says: “I am the one making this promise! I swear that the nations around you will have to suffer for those insults.

⁸ “But mountains of Israel, you will grow new trees and produce fruit for my people Israel. My people will soon come back. ⁹ I am with you, and I will help you. People will till your soil and plant seeds in you. ¹⁰ There will be many people living on you. The whole family of Israel—all of them—will live there. The cities will have people living in them. The destroyed places will be rebuilt. ¹¹ I will give you many people and animals, and they will grow and have many children. I will bring people to live on you as in the past. I will make it better for you than before. Then you will know that I am the Lord. ¹² Yes, I will lead many people—my people, Israel—to your land. You will be their property, and you will not take away their children again.”

¹³ This is what the Lord God says: “Land of Israel, people say bad things to you. They say you destroyed your people. They say you took the children away from your people. ¹⁴ But you will not destroy people anymore or take away their children again.” This is what the Lord God said. ¹⁵ “I will not let those other nations insult you anymore. You will not be hurt by them anymore. You will not take the children away from your people again.” This is what the Lord God said.

The Lord Will Protect His Name

¹⁶ Then the word of the Lord came to me. He said, ¹⁷ “Son of man, the family of Israel lived in their own country, but they made that land filthy by the bad things they did. To me, they were like a woman who becomes unclean because of her monthly time of bleeding. ¹⁸ They spilled blood on the ground when they murdered people in the land. They made the land filthy with their idols, so I showed them how angry I was. ¹⁹ I scattered them among the nations and spread them through all the lands. I gave them the punishment they deserved for the bad things they did. ²⁰ But even in those other nations, they ruined my good name. How? Those nations said, ‘These are the Lord’s people, but they left his land.’

²¹ “The people of Israel ruined my holy name wherever they went, and I felt sorry for my name. ²² So tell the family of Israel that this is what the Lord God says: ‘Family of Israel, you ruined my holy name in the places where you went. I am going to do something to stop this. I will not do it for your sake, Israel. I will do it for my holy name. ²³ I will show the nations how holy my great name really is. You ruined my good name in those nations! But I will show you that I am holy. I will make you respect my name, and then those nations will know that I am the Lord.’” This is what the Lord God said.

²⁴ “I will take you out of those nations, gather you together, and bring you back to your own land. ²⁵ Then I will sprinkle pure water on you and make you pure. I will wash away all your filth, the filth from those nasty idols, and I will make you pure. ²⁶ I will also put a new spirit in you to change your way of thinking. I will take out the heart of stone from your body and give you a tender, human heart. ²⁷ I will put my Spirit inside you^[c] and change you so that you will obey my laws. You will carefully obey my commands. ²⁸ Then you will live in the land that I gave to your ancestors. You will be my people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ Also, I will save you and keep you from becoming unclean. I will command the grain to grow. I will not bring a famine against you. ³⁰ I will give you large crops of fruit from your trees and the harvest from your fields so that you will never again feel the shame of being hungry in a foreign country. ³¹ You will remember the bad things you did. You will remember that those things were not good. Then you will hate yourselves because of your sins and the terrible things you did.”

³² The Lord God says, “I want you to remember this: I am not doing these things for your good! I am doing them for my good name. Family of Israel, you should be ashamed and embarrassed about the way you lived!”

³³ This is what the Lord God says: “On the day that I wash away your sins, I will bring people back to your cities. The ruined cities will be rebuilt. ³⁴ People will begin again to work the land so when other people pass by they will not see ruins anymore. ³⁵ They will say, ‘In the past, this land was ruined, but now it is like the Garden of Eden. The cities were destroyed. They were ruined and empty, but now they are protected, and there are people living in them.’

³⁶ “Then the nations that are still around you will know I am the Lord and that I rebuilt those places. I planted things in this land that was empty. I am the Lord. I said this, and I will make them happen!”

³⁷ This is what the Lord God says: “I will also let the family of Israel come to me and ask me to do these things for them. I will make them grow and become many people. They will be like flocks of sheep. ³⁸ During the special festivals, Jerusalem was filled with flocks of sheep and goats that had been made holy. In the same way the cities and ruined places will be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

A prayer of David.