M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Miracle of Multiplying Oil

4 Now a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha saying, “Your servant my husband is dead—you know that your servant feared Adonai. Now the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.”

² “What should I do for you?” Elisha asked her. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?”

She replied, “Your handmaid has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”

³ Then he said, “Go borrow for yourself vessels from all your neighbors—empty jars—not just a few. ⁴ Then go inside and shut the door behind you and behind your sons, and pour into all those vessels, setting aside what is full.”

⁵ So she left him and shut the door behind her and behind her sons. They kept bringing the vessels to her and she kept pouring. ⁶ When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.”

But he said to her, “There isn’t another vessel.” So the oil stopped.

⁷ Then she came and told the man of God. So he said, “Go sell the oil and pay your debt, then you and your sons can live on the rest.”

Shunammite Hospitality

⁸ One day when Elisha passed through Shunem, where there was a prominent woman who persuaded him to eat some food. And so it was, whenever he passed through, he would stop for a meal. ⁹ Then she said to her husband, “Behold now, I realize that this man who often passes through is a holy man of God. ¹⁰ Please, let’s make a little walled room on the roof, and let’s put there a bed, a table, a chair, and a lampstand for him. Then whenever he comes to us, he can stay there.”

¹¹ One day he came there, and retired to the upper chamber and lay down there. ¹² Then he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call this Shunammite woman.” When he had called her, she stood before him. ¹³ He said to him, “Tell her: Behold, you have gone to all this trouble for us. What can be done for you? Can something be communicated to the king or to the commander of the army for you?”

She answered, “I am living among my own people.”

¹⁴ So he asked, “Then what should be done for her?”

Then Gehazi answered, “In fact, she has no son, and her husband is old.”

¹⁵ “Call her,” he said. And when he had called her, she stood in the doorway. ¹⁶ Then he said, “At this season next year, you will be embracing a son.”

But she said, “No, my lord, do not lie to your handmaid, man of God.”

¹⁷ Nevertheless, the woman conceived and bore a son during that season the following year, just as Elisha had told her.

¹⁸ Now when the child was grown, one day he went out to his father among the reapers. ¹⁹ Then he said to his father, “My head, my head!” So he said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” ²⁰ So he picked him up and brought him to his mother. The child sat on her lap until noon, and then died. ²¹ She then went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God, shut the door on him and went out. ²² Then she called to her husband, and said, “Please send me one of the servants and one of the donkeys that I may run to the man of God and come back.”

²³ But he said, “Why are you going to him today? It is neither New Moon nor Shabbat.”

But she said, “It will be well.”

²⁴ Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Move on! Don’t slow down riding unless I tell you.”

²⁵ So she set out and came near the man of God at Mount Carmel. Upon seeing her from a distance, the man of God said to his servant Gehazi, “Look! There’s the Shunammite. ²⁶ Please, run now to meet her and ask her: ‘Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the boy?’”

She answered, “It is well.” ²⁷ But when she arrived at the mountain, up to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet.

Then Gehazi stepped forward to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is bitter within her, yet Adonai has hid it from me and has not told me.”

²⁸ “Did I ask my lord for a son?” she said. “Didn’t I say, ‘Don’t deceive me’?”

²⁹ Then he said to Gehazi, “Gird up your loins and take my staff in your hand and go. If you meet anyone, don’t greet him. Or if anyone greets you, don’t answer him; and lay my staff on the face of the child.”

³⁰ But the mother of the child said, “As Adonai lives and as you live, I won’t leave you.” So he arose and followed her. ³¹ Gehazi passed on ahead of them and laid the staff on the face of the child, but there was no sound or response. So he returned to meet him and told him, saying, “The boy has not awakened.”

³² When Elisha entered the house, there was the child, dead and laying on his bed. ³³ So he entered and shut the door behind the two of them and prayed to Adonai. ³⁴ Then he got up and lay on the child, and put his mouth on his mouth and his eyes on his eyes and his hands on his hands, and he stretched himself upon him. So the flesh of the child became warm. ³⁵ Then he stepped down and walked in the house to and fro, and then he got up on the bed and stretched himself on him. The child sneezed seven times, then the child opened his eyes. ³⁶ He then called Gehazi and said, “Call the Shunammite.”

So he called her. When she came in to him, he said, “Pick up your son.” ³⁷ She came, fell at his feet and bowed down to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.

Elisha Purifies Deadly Stew

³⁸ Afterward Elisha returned to Gilgal. Now there was famine in the land. As the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Put on the large pot and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.”

³⁹ Then one of them went out into the field to gather herbs, found a wild vine and picked from it a lapful of wild gourds. Then he came back and sliced them into the stew pot, for they didn’t know what they were. ⁴⁰ Then they served it for the men to eat. But it came to pass as they were still eating the stew, they cried out and said, “O man of God, there is death in the pot.” So they could not eat it.

⁴¹ But he said, “Bring some flour,” and he threw it into the pot and said, “Serve it to the people and let them eat.” So there was nothing bad in the pot.

⁴² Now a man came from Baal-shalishah, and brought the man of God bread of the firstfruits—20 loaves of barley bread and fresh ears of corn in his sack. Then he said, “Give them to the people that they may eat.”

⁴³ But his attendant said, “What? Will I set this before a hundred men?” But he said, “Give them to the people that they may eat, for thus says Adonai, ‘They will eat and will have left over.’” ⁴⁴ So he set it before them, and they ate and had some left over, according to the word of Adonai.

Greeting

1 Paul, an emissary of Messiah Yeshua by the command of God our Savior and Messiah Yeshua, our hope.

² To Timothy, a true child in faith:

Grace, mercy, shalom from God the Father and Messiah Yeshua, our Lord!

Beware of False Teachers

³ As I urged you, when I was leaving for Macedonia, stay in Ephesus to direct certain people not to pass on different instruction, ⁴ or to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies. These give rise to useless speculations rather than God’s training which is in faithfulness. ⁵ Now the goal of this command is love from of a pure heart and a clear conscience and a genuine faith. ⁶ Some, having missed the mark, have turned away to fruitless discussion— ⁷ wanting to be teachers of Torah, even though they do not understand what they keep saying or what they so dogmatically assert.

⁸ But we know that the Torah is good if one uses it legitimately, ⁹ knowing that the Torah is not given for a tzaddik but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and worldly, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, ¹⁰ the sexually immoral, homosexuals, slave-traders, liars, perjurers, and for anything else that opposes sound teaching— ¹¹ in keeping with what was entrusted to me, the glorious Good News of the blessed God.

Mercy to the Worst of Sinners

¹² I thank Messiah Yeshua our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, appointing me to service— ¹³ even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man. Yet I was shown mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, ¹⁴ and the grace of our Lord overflowed with the faith and love that are in Messiah Yeshua. ¹⁵ Trustworthy is the saying and deserving of complete acceptance: “Messiah Yeshua came into the world to save sinners”—of whom I am foremost. ¹⁶ Yet for this reason I was shown mercy—so that in me as the foremost, Messiah Yeshua might demonstrate His complete patience, as an example for those about to put their trust in Him for eternal life. ¹⁷ Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God,^[a] be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Fight the Good Fight

¹⁸ This charge I entrust to you, Timothy my son, in keeping with the prophecies once spoken about you, so that by them you fight the good fight, ¹⁹ holding onto faith and a good conscience. By rejecting these, some have suffered shipwreck regarding their faith. ²⁰ Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander—whom I have handed over to satan to be disciplined not to blaspheme.

Daniel’s Vision of a Ram and Goat

8 “In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar, a vision appeared to me, Daniel, after the one that had appeared to me earlier. ² In the vision I saw myself in the citadel^[a] of Shushan^[b], which is in the province of Elam. In the vision I saw that I was beside the Ulai Canal. ³ I lifted up my eyes and looked up, behold, a ram with two horns was standing in front of the canal. The two horns were long but one was longer than the other, but the longer one grew up last. ⁴ I saw the ram charging toward the west and north and south. No animal could stand against him—none could deliver from his hand. So he did as he pleased and magnified himself.

⁵ “While I was contemplating this, behold, a male goat came from the west crossing the face of the whole earth without touching the ground! Now the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. ⁶ He came up to the two-horn ram that I had seen standing beside the canal, and charged it with raging strength. ⁷ I saw him attacking the ram furiously, striking the ram and shattering his two horns. Now the ram was not strong enough to stand against him, so he knocked the ram to the ground and trampled him. No one could rescue the ram from his power.

⁸ “The male goat became exceedingly great, but as soon as he became mighty, the large horn was broken, and in its place four prominent horns grew up toward the four winds of heaven.

⁹ “Out of one of them came forth a small horn, which grew extremely large to the south and the east, and toward the beautiful land. ¹⁰ It grew as high as the host of heaven and hurled some of the host and the stars down to the earth and trampled them. ¹¹ It set itself up to be as great as the Prince of the host. It took away from him the daily offering and the place of his sanctuary was thrown down. ¹² The host was given over along with the daily sacrifice, in the course of its rebellion. It will hurl truth to the ground and prosper in what it does.

¹³ “Then I heard a holy one speaking and another holy one said to the one who was speaking, ‘How long will the vision last, the daily sacrifice be forsaken because of rebellion, the sanctuary be surrendered and the host be trampled?’ ¹⁴ Then he said to me: ‘For 2,300 evenings and mornings; then the sanctuary will be vindicated.’

Interpretation of Vision: Persian Ram and Greek Goat

¹⁵ “Now it happened that while I, Daniel, was watching the vision and trying to understand it, behold, standing before me was one with the appearance of a man. ¹⁶ Then I heard a human voice coming from between the banks of the Ulai, calling out saying, ‘Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.’

¹⁷ “He came near to where I was standing, and as he approached I was terrified and fell on my face. But he said to me, ‘Son of man, understand that the vision pertains to the time of the end.’

¹⁸ “While he was speaking to me, I fell into a deep sleep with my face to the ground. But he touched me and stood me up, ¹⁹ and said: ‘Behold, I am going to inform you about what will happen later in the time of wrath, for the vision pertains to the appointed time of the end. ²⁰ The ram that you saw with the two horns stands for the kings of Media and Persia. ²¹ The buck, the male goat, is the king of Greece; and the large horn between his eyes is the first king. ^{[c] 22} The four horns that replaced the one that was broken represent four kingdoms that will arise from this nation, though not with its power.

²³ “‘Now toward the end of their reign, when the measure of transgressions is completed, a stern-faced king, a master of intrigue, will arise. ²⁴ His power will be mighty, but it will not be by his strength alone. He will cause extraordinary devastation, and succeed in whatever he does. He will destroy both the powerful and the holy people. ²⁵ By his cunning he will cause deceit to prosper under his hand and he will consider himself superior. He will destroy many, taking them unaware. He will even stand up against the Prince of princes, yet he will be broken, but not by human

hands.

²⁶ “‘Now the vision of the evenings and mornings that has been told to you is true, but seal up the vision for it concerns many days from now.’

²⁷ “Then I, Daniel, was stricken and languished for days. Then I got up and went about the king’s business, but I was astounded at the vision and no one could explain it.

Lift Up the Cup of Salvation

Psalm 116