M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Josiah King of Judah

34 Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he ruled thirty-one years in Jerusalem. ² He did what the Lord said was right. He lived as his ancestor David had lived, and he did not stop doing what was right.

³ In his eighth year as king while he was still young, Josiah began to obey the God of his ancestor David. In his twelfth year as king, Josiah began to remove from Judah and Jerusalem the gods, the places for worshiping gods, the Asherah idols, and the wooden and metal idols. ⁴ The people tore down the altars for the Baal gods as Josiah directed. Then Josiah cut down the incense altars that were above them. He broke up the Asherah idols and the wooden and metal idols and beat them into powder. Then he sprinkled the powder on the graves of the people who had offered sacrifices to these gods. ⁵ He burned the bones of their priests on their own altars. So Josiah removed idol worship from Judah and Jerusalem, ⁶ and from the towns in the areas of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon all the way to Naphtali, and in the ruins near these towns. ⁷ Josiah broke down the altars and Asherah idols and beat the idols into powder. He cut down all the incense altars in all of Israel. Then he went back to Jerusalem.

⁸ In Josiah’s eighteenth year as king, he made Judah and the Temple pure again. He sent Shaphan son of Azaliah, Maaseiah the city leader, and Joah son of Joahaz the recorder to repair the Temple of the Lord, the God of Josiah. ⁹ These men went to Hilkiah the high priest and gave him the money the Levite gatekeepers had gathered from the people of Manasseh, Ephraim, and all the Israelites who were left alive, and also from all the people of Judah, Benjamin, and Jerusalem. This is the money they had brought into the Temple of God. ¹⁰ Then the Levites gave it to the supervisors of the work on the Temple of the Lord, and they paid the workers who rebuilt and repaired the Temple. ¹¹ They gave money to carpenters and builders to buy cut stone and wood. The wood was used to rebuild the buildings and to make beams for them, because the kings of Judah had let the buildings fall into ruin. ¹² The men did their work well. Their supervisors were Jahath and Obadiah, who were Levites from the family of Merari, and Zechariah and Meshullam, who were from the family of Kohath. These Levites were all skilled musicians. ¹³ They were also in charge of the workers who carried loads and all the other workers. Some Levites worked as secretaries, officers, and gatekeepers.

The Book of the Teachings Is Found

¹⁴ The Levites brought out the money that was in the Temple of the Lord. As they were doing this, Hilkiah the priest found the Book of the Lord’s Teachings that had been given through Moses. ¹⁵ Hilkiah said to Shaphan the royal secretary, “I’ve found the Book of the Teachings in the Temple of the Lord!” Then he gave it to Shaphan.

¹⁶ Shaphan took the book to the king and reported to Josiah, “Your officers are doing everything you told them to do. ¹⁷ They have paid out the money that was in the Temple of the Lord and have given it to the supervisors and the workers.” ¹⁸ Then Shaphan the royal secretary told the king, “Hilkiah the priest has given me a book.” And Shaphan read from the book to the king.

¹⁹ When the king heard the words of the Teachings, he tore his clothes to show how upset he was. ²⁰ He gave orders to Hilkiah, Ahikam son of Shaphan, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the royal secretary, and Asaiah, the king’s servant. These were the orders: ²¹ “Go and ask the Lord about the words in the book that was found. Ask for me and for the people who are left alive in Israel and Judah. The Lord is very angry with us, because our ancestors did not obey the Lord’s word; they did not do everything this book says to do.”

²² So Hilkiah and those the king sent with him went to talk to Huldah the prophetess. She was the wife of Shallum son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, who took care of the king’s clothes. Huldah lived in Jerusalem, in the new area of the city.

²³ She said to them, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: Tell the man who sent you to me, ²⁴ ‘This is what the Lord says: I will bring trouble to this place and to the people living here. I will bring all the curses that are written in the book that was read to the king of Judah. ²⁵ The people of Judah have left me and have burned incense to other gods. They have made me angry by all the evil things they have made. So I will punish them in my anger, which will not be put out.’ ²⁶ Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to ask the Lord, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says about the words you heard: ²⁷ When you heard my words against this place and its people, you became sorry for what you had done and you humbled yourself before me. You tore your clothes to show how upset you were, and you cried in my presence. This is why I have heard you, says the Lord. ²⁸ So I will let you die and be buried in peace. You won’t see all the trouble I will bring to this place and the people living here.’”

So they took her message back to the king.

²⁹ Then the king gathered all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem together. ³⁰ He went up to the Temple of the Lord, and all the people from Judah and from Jerusalem went with him. The priests, the Levites, and all the people—from the most important to the least important—went with him. He read to them all the words in the Book of the Agreement that was found in the Temple of the Lord. ³¹ The king stood by his pillar and made an agreement in the presence of the Lord to follow the Lord and obey his commands, rules, and laws with his whole being and to obey the words of the agreement written in this book. ³² Then Josiah made all the people in Jerusalem and Benjamin promise to accept the agreement. So the people of Jerusalem obeyed the agreement of God, the God of their ancestors.

³³ And Josiah threw out the hateful idols from all the land that belonged to the Israelites. He led everyone in Israel to serve the Lord their God. While Josiah lived, the people obeyed the Lord, the God of their ancestors.

The Thousand Years

20 I saw an angel coming down from heaven. He had the key to the bottomless pit and a large chain in his hand. ² The angel grabbed the dragon, that old snake who is the devil and Satan, and tied him up for a thousand years. ³ Then he threw him into the bottomless pit, closed it, and locked it over him. The angel did this so he could not trick the people of the earth anymore until the thousand years were ended. After a thousand years he must be set free for a short time.

⁴ Then I saw some thrones and people sitting on them who had been given the power to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been killed because they were faithful to the message of Jesus and the message from God. They had not worshiped the beast or his idol, and they had not received the mark of the beast on their foreheads or on their hands. They came back to life and ruled with Christ for a thousand years. ⁵ (The others that were dead did not live again until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first raising of the dead. ⁶ Blessed and holy are those who share in this first raising of the dead. The second death has no power over them. They will be priests for God and for Christ and will rule with him for a thousand years.

⁷ When the thousand years are over, Satan will be set free from his prison. ⁸ Then he will go out to trick the nations in all the earth—Gog and Magog—to gather them for battle. There are so many people they will be like sand on the seashore. ⁹ And Satan’s army marched across the earth and gathered around the camp of God’s people and the city God loves. But fire came down from heaven and burned them up. ¹⁰ And Satan, who tricked them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur with the beast and the false prophet. There they will be punished day and night forever and ever.

People of the World Are Judged

¹¹ Then I saw a great white throne and the One who was sitting on it. Earth and sky ran away from him and disappeared. ¹² And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened, and the book of life was opened. The dead were judged by what they had done, which was written in the books. ¹³ The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades^[a] gave up the dead who were in them. Each person was judged by what he had done. ¹⁴ And Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. ¹⁵ And anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Rules for Priests

2 “Priests, this command is for you. ² Listen to me. Pay attention to what I say. Honor my name,” says the Lord All-Powerful. “If you don’t, I will send a curse on you and on your blessings. I have already cursed them, because you don’t pay attention to what I say.

³ “I will punish your descendants. I will smear your faces with the animal insides left from your feasts, and you will be thrown away with it. ⁴ Then you will know that I am giving you this command so my agreement with Levi will continue,” says the Lord All-Powerful. ⁵ “My agreement for priests was with the tribe of Levi. I promised them life and peace so they would honor me. And they did honor me and fear me. ⁶ They taught the true teachings and spoke no lies. With peace and honesty they did what I said they should do, and they kept many people from sinning.

⁷ “A priest should teach what he knows, and people should learn the teachings from him, because he is the messenger of the Lord All-Powerful. ⁸ But you priests have stopped obeying me. With your teachings you have caused many people to do wrong. You have broken the agreement with the tribe of Levi!” says the Lord All-Powerful. ⁹ “You have not been careful to do what I say, but instead you take sides in court cases. So I have caused you to be hated and disgraced in front of everybody.”

Judah Was Not Loyal to God

¹⁰ We all have the same father; the same God made us. So why do people break their promises to each other and show no respect for the agreement our ancestors made with God? ¹¹ The people of Judah have broken their promises. They have done something God hates in Israel and Jerusalem: The people of Judah did not respect the Temple that the Lord loves, and the men of Judah married women who worship foreign gods. ¹² Whoever does this might bring offerings to the Lord All-Powerful, but the Lord will still cut that person off from the community of Israel.

¹³ This is another thing you do. You cover the Lord’s altar with your tears. You cry and moan, because he does not accept your offerings and is not pleased with what you bring. ¹⁴ You ask, “Why?” It is because the Lord sees how you treated the wife you married when you were young. You broke your promise to her, even though she was your partner and you had an agreement with her. ¹⁵ God made husbands and wives to become one body and one spirit for his purpose—so they would have children who are true to God.

So be careful, and do not break your promise to the wife you married when you were young.

¹⁶ The Lord God of Israel says, “I hate divorce. And I hate people who do cruel things as easily as they put on clothes,” says the Lord All-Powerful.

So be careful. And do not break your trust.

The Special Day of Judging

¹⁷ You have tired the Lord with your words.

You ask, “How have we tired him?”

You did it by saying, “The Lord thinks anyone who does evil is good, and he is pleased with them.” Or you asked, “Where is the God who is fair?”

19 Then Pilate ordered that Jesus be taken away and whipped. ² The soldiers made a crown from some thorny branches and put it on Jesus’ head and put a purple robe around him. ³ Then they came to him many times and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and hit him in the face.

⁴ Again Pilate came out and said to them, “Look, I am bringing Jesus out to you. I want you to know that I find nothing against him.” ⁵ So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”

⁶ When the leading priests and the guards saw Jesus, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

But Pilate answered, “Crucify him yourselves, because I find nothing against him.”

⁷ The leaders answered, “We have a law that says he should die, because he said he is the Son of God.”

⁸ When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid. ⁹ He went back inside the palace and asked Jesus, “Where do you come from?” But Jesus did not answer him. ¹⁰ Pilate said, “You refuse to speak to me? Don’t you know I have power to set you free and power to have you crucified?”

¹¹ Jesus answered, “The only power you have over me is the power given to you by God. The man who turned me in to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

¹² After this, Pilate tried to let Jesus go. But some in the crowd cried out, “Anyone who makes himself king is against Caesar. If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar.”

¹³ When Pilate heard what they were saying, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at the place called The Stone Pavement. (In the Hebrew language^[a] the name is Gabbatha.) ¹⁴ It was about noon on Preparation Day of Passover week. Pilate said to the crowd, “Here is your king!”

¹⁵ They shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”

Pilate asked them, “Do you want me to crucify your king?”

The leading priests answered, “The only king we have is Caesar.”

¹⁶ So Pilate handed Jesus over to them to be crucified.

Jesus Is Crucified

The soldiers took charge of Jesus. ¹⁷ Carrying his own cross, Jesus went out to a place called The Place of the Skull, which in the Hebrew language^[b] is called Golgotha. ¹⁸ There they crucified Jesus. They also crucified two other men, one on each side, with Jesus in the middle. ¹⁹ Pilate wrote a sign and put it on the cross. It read: jesus of nazareth, the king of the jews. ²⁰ The sign was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek. Many of the people read the sign, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city. ²¹ The leading priests said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews.’ But write, ‘This man said, “I am the King of the Jews.”’”

²² Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

²³ After the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, with each soldier getting one part. They also took his long shirt, which was all one piece of cloth, woven from top to bottom. ²⁴ So the soldiers said to each other, “We should not tear this into parts. Let’s throw lots to see who will get it.” This happened so that this Scripture would come true:

So the soldiers did this.

²⁵ Standing near his cross were Jesus’ mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother and the follower he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son.” ²⁷ Then he said to the follower, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, the follower took her to live in his home.

Jesus Dies

²⁸ After this, Jesus knew that everything had been done. So that the Scripture would come true, he said, “I am thirsty.”^{[c] 29} There was a jar full of vinegar there, so the soldiers soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a branch of a hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ mouth. ³⁰ When Jesus tasted the vinegar, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and died.

³¹ This day was Preparation Day, and the next day was a special Sabbath day. Since the religious leaders did not want the bodies to stay on the cross on the Sabbath day, they asked Pilate to order that the legs of the men be broken^[d] and the bodies be taken away. ³² So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man on the cross beside Jesus. Then they broke the legs of the man on the other cross beside Jesus. ³³ But when the soldiers came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. ³⁴ But one of the soldiers stuck his spear into Jesus’ side, and at once blood and water came out. ³⁵ (The one who saw this happen is the one who told us this, and whatever he says is true. And he knows that he tells the truth, and he tells it so that you might believe.) ³⁶ These things happened to make the Scripture come true: “Not one of his bones will be broken.”^{[e] 37} And another Scripture says, “They will look at the one they stabbed.”^[f]

Jesus Is Buried

³⁸ Later, Joseph from Arimathea asked Pilate if he could take the body of Jesus. (Joseph was a secret follower of Jesus, because he was afraid of some of the leaders.) Pilate gave his permission, so Joseph came and took Jesus’ body away. ³⁹ Nicodemus, who earlier had come to Jesus at night, went with Joseph. He brought about seventy-five pounds of myrrh and aloes. ⁴⁰ These two men took Jesus’ body and wrapped it with the spices in pieces of linen cloth, which is how they bury the dead. ⁴¹ In the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden. In the garden was a new tomb that had never been used before. ⁴² The men laid Jesus in that tomb because it was nearby, and they were preparing to start their Sabbath day.