M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Jehoshaphat King of Judah

17 Jehoshaphat, Asa’s son, became king of Judah in his place. Jehoshaphat made Judah strong so they could fight against Israel. ² He put troops in all the strong, walled cities of Judah, in the land of Judah, and in the towns of Ephraim that his father Asa had captured.

³ The Lord was with Jehoshaphat, because he lived as his ancestor David had lived when he first became king. Jehoshaphat did not ask for help from the Baal idols, ⁴ but from the God of his father. He obeyed God’s commands and did not live as the people of Israel lived. ⁵ The Lord made Jehoshaphat a strong king over Judah. All the people of Judah brought gifts to Jehoshaphat, so he had much wealth and honor. ⁶ He wanted very much to obey the Lord. He also removed the places for worshiping gods and the Asherah idols from Judah.

⁷ During the third year of his rule, Jehoshaphat sent his officers to teach in the towns of Judah. These officers were Ben-Hail, Obadiah, Zechariah, Nethanel, and Micaiah. ⁸ Jehoshaphat sent with them these Levites: Shemaiah, Nethaniah, Zebadiah, Asahel, Shemiramoth, Jehonathan, Adonijah, Tobijah, and Tob-Adonijah. He also sent the priests Elishama and Jehoram. ⁹ These leaders, Levites, and priests taught the people in Judah. They took the Book of the Teachings of the Lord and went through all the towns of Judah and taught the people.

¹⁰ The nations near Judah were afraid of the Lord, so they did not start a war against Jehoshaphat. ¹¹ Some of the Philistines brought gifts and silver to Jehoshaphat as he demanded. Some Arabs brought him flocks: seventy-seven hundred sheep and seventy-seven hundred goats.

¹² Jehoshaphat grew more and more powerful. He built strong, walled cities and towns for storing supplies in Judah. ¹³ He kept many supplies in the towns of Judah, and he kept trained soldiers in Jerusalem. ¹⁴ These soldiers were listed by families. From the families of Judah, these were the commanders of groups of a thousand men: Adnah was the commander of three hundred thousand soldiers; ¹⁵ Jehohanan was the commander of two hundred eighty thousand soldiers; ¹⁶ Amasiah was the commander of two hundred thousand soldiers. Amasiah son of Zicri had volunteered to serve the Lord.

¹⁷ These were the commanders from the families of Benjamin: Eliada, a brave soldier, had two hundred thousand soldiers who used bows and shields. ¹⁸ And Jehozabad had one hundred eighty thousand men armed for war.

¹⁹ All these soldiers served King Jehoshaphat. The king also put other men in the strong, walled cities through all of Judah.

6 Then I watched while the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, “Come!” ² I looked, and there before me was a white horse. The rider on the horse held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out, determined to win the victory.

³ When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” ⁴ Then another horse came out, a red one. Its rider was given power to take away peace from the earth and to make people kill each other, and he was given a big sword.

⁵ When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” I looked, and there before me was a black horse, and its rider held a pair of scales in his hand. ⁶ Then I heard something that sounded like a voice coming from the middle of the four living creatures. The voice said, “A quart of wheat for a day’s pay, and three quarts of barley for a day’s pay, and do not damage the olive oil and wine!”

⁷ When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, “Come!” ⁸ I looked, and there before me was a pale horse. Its rider was named death, and Hades^[a] was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill people by war, by starvation, by disease, and by the wild animals of the earth.

⁹ When the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been killed because they were faithful to the word of God and to the message they had received. ¹⁰ These souls shouted in a loud voice, “Holy and true Lord, how long until you judge the people of the earth and punish them for killing us?” ¹¹ Then each one of them was given a white robe and was told to wait a short time longer. There were still some of their fellow servants and brothers and sisters in the service of Christ who must be killed as they were. They had to wait until all of this was finished.

¹² Then I watched while the Lamb opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became black like rough black cloth, and the whole moon became red like blood. ¹³ And the stars in the sky fell to the earth like figs falling from a fig tree when the wind blows. ¹⁴ The sky disappeared as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place.

¹⁵ Then the kings of the earth, the rulers, the generals, the rich people, the powerful people, the slaves, and the free people hid themselves in caves and in the rocks on the mountains. ¹⁶ They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us. Hide us from the face of the One who sits on the throne and from the anger of the Lamb! ¹⁷ The great day for their anger has come, and who can stand against it?”

The Vision of the Measuring Line

2 Then I looked up and saw a man holding a line for measuring things. ² I asked him, “Where are you going?”

He said to me, “I am going to measure Jerusalem, to see how wide and how long it is.”

³ Then the angel who was talking with me left, and another angel came out to meet him. ⁴ The second angel said to him, “Run and tell that young man, ‘Jerusalem will become a city without walls, because there will be so many people and cattle in it. ⁵ I will be a wall of fire around it,’ says the Lord. ‘And I will be the glory within it.’

⁶ “Oh no! Oh no! Run away from Babylon, because I have scattered you like the four winds of heaven,” says the Lord.

⁷ “Oh no, Jerusalem! Escape, you who live right in Babylon.” ⁸ This is what the Lord All-Powerful says: “After he has honored me and sent me against the nations who took your possessions—because whoever touches you hurts what is precious to me— ⁹ I will shake my hand against them so that their slaves will rob them.”

Then you will know that the Lord All-Powerful sent me.

¹⁰ “Shout and be glad, Jerusalem. I am coming, and I will live among you,” says the Lord. ¹¹ “At that time people from many nations will join with the Lord and will become my people. Then I will live among you, and you will know that the Lord All-Powerful has sent me to you. ¹² The Lord will take Judah as his own part of the holy land, and Jerusalem will be his chosen city again. ¹³ Be silent, everyone, in the presence of the Lord. He is coming out of the holy place where he lives.”

Jesus Heals a Man at a Pool

5 Later Jesus went to Jerusalem for a special feast. ² In Jerusalem there is a pool with five covered porches, which is called Bethesda^[a] in the Hebrew language.^[b] This pool is near the Sheep Gate. ³ Many sick people were lying on the porches beside the pool. Some were blind, some were crippled, and some were paralyzed [, and they waited for the water to move. ⁴ Sometimes an angel of the Lord came down to the pool and stirred up the water. After the angel did this, the first person to go into the pool was healed from any sickness he had].^{[c] 5} A man was lying there who had been sick for thirty-eight years. ⁶ When Jesus saw the man and knew that he had been sick for such a long time, Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be well?”

⁷ The sick man answered, “Sir, there is no one to help me get into the pool when the water starts moving. While I am coming to the water, someone else always gets in before me.”

⁸ Then Jesus said, “Stand up. Pick up your mat and walk.” ⁹ And immediately the man was well; he picked up his mat and began to walk.

The day this happened was a Sabbath day. ¹⁰ So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “Today is the Sabbath. It is against our law for you to carry your mat on the Sabbath day.”

¹¹ But he answered, “The man who made me well told me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

¹² Then they asked him, “Who is the man who told you to pick up your mat and walk?”

¹³ But the man who had been healed did not know who it was, because there were many people in that place, and Jesus had left.

¹⁴ Later, Jesus found the man at the Temple and said to him, “See, you are well now. Stop sinning so that something worse does not happen to you.”

¹⁵ Then the man left and told his people that Jesus was the one who had made him well.

¹⁶ Because Jesus was doing this on the Sabbath day, some evil people began to persecute him. ¹⁷ But Jesus said to them, “My Father never stops working, and so I keep working, too.”

¹⁸ This made them try still harder to kill him. They said, “First Jesus was breaking the law about the Sabbath day. Now he says that God is his own Father, making himself equal with God!”

Jesus Has God’s Authority

¹⁹ But Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing alone. The Son does only what he sees the Father doing, because the Son does whatever the Father does. ²⁰ The Father loves the Son and shows the Son all the things he himself does. But the Father will show the Son even greater things than this so that you can all be amazed. ²¹ Just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to those he wants to. ²² In fact, the Father judges no one, but he has given the Son power to do all the judging ²³ so that all people will honor the Son as much as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

²⁴ “I tell you the truth, whoever hears what I say and believes in the One who sent me has eternal life. That person will not be judged guilty but has already left death and entered life. ²⁵ I tell you the truth, the time is coming and is already here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will have life. ²⁶ Life comes from the Father himself, and he has allowed the Son to have life in himself as well. ²⁷ And the Father has given the Son the approval to judge, because he is the Son of Man. ²⁸ Don’t be surprised at this: A time is coming when all who are dead and in their graves will hear his voice. ²⁹ Then they will come out of their graves. Those who did good will rise and have life forever, but those who did evil will rise to be judged guilty.

Jesus Is God’s Son

³⁰ “I can do nothing alone. I judge only the way I am told, so my judgment is fair. I don’t try to please myself, but I try to please the One who sent me.

³¹ “If only I tell people about myself, what I say is not true. ³² But there is another who tells about me, and I know that the things he says about me are true.

³³ “You have sent people to John, and he has told you the truth. ³⁴ It is not that I need what humans say; I tell you this so you can be saved. ³⁵ John was like a burning and shining lamp, and you were happy to enjoy his light for a while.

³⁶ “But I have a proof about myself that is greater than that of John. The things I do, which are the things my Father gave me to do, prove that the Father sent me. ³⁷ And the Father himself who sent me has given proof about me. You have never heard his voice or seen what he looks like. ³⁸ His teaching does not live in you, because you don’t believe in the One the Father sent. ³⁹ You carefully study the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. They do in fact tell about me, ⁴⁰ but you refuse to come to me to have that life.

⁴¹ “I don’t need praise from people. ⁴² But I know you—I know that you don’t have God’s love in you. ⁴³ I have come from my Father and speak for him, but you don’t accept me. But when another person comes, speaking only for himself, you will accept him. ⁴⁴ You try to get praise from each other, but you do not try to get the praise that comes from the only God. So how can you believe? ⁴⁵ Don’t think that I will stand before the Father and say you are wrong. The one who says you are wrong is Moses, the one you hoped would save you. ⁴⁶ If you really believed Moses, you would believe me, because Moses wrote about me. ⁴⁷ But if you don’t believe what Moses wrote, how can you believe what I say?”