M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Laws about Agreements

30 Then Moses said to the heads of the families of the sons of Israel, “This is what the Lord has said. ² If a man makes a promise to the Lord, or swears that he will keep his promise, he must not break his word. He must do all that he said he would do. ³ If a woman makes a promise to the Lord, and swears to keep her promise in her father’s house when she is young, ⁴ and if her father hears her promise and how she has sworn to keep it, and says nothing to her, then all her promises must be kept. She must keep every promise she has sworn to keep. ⁵ But if her father does not allow her to keep her promise on the day he hears of it, then she does not need to keep any of the promises she has sworn to keep. The Lord will forgive her because her father would not allow it.

⁶ “If she gets married and has promises to keep because of what she swore without thinking, ⁷ and if her husband hears of it and says nothing to her on the day he hears, then she must keep the promises she has sworn to keep. ⁸ But if on the day he hears of it, her husband does not allow her to keep her promise, then she will not have to keep the promise that she had sworn to keep when she was not thinking. The Lord will forgive her.

⁹ “A woman whose husband has died or left her must keep the promises she has sworn to keep. ¹⁰ But if she has made a promise in her husband’s house, and she has sworn to keep a promise there ¹¹ and if her husband hears of it, and does not go against her or say anything to her, then she must keep all the promises she had sworn to keep. ¹² But if her husband does not allow her to keep her promises on the day he hears of them, then she does not have to keep the promises she had sworn to keep. If her husband will not let her keep them, the Lord will forgive her.

¹³ “Her husband has the right to have her keep, or not keep, any promise she has sworn to keep. ¹⁴ But if her husband says nothing to her from day to day, then she must keep all her promises. He made her promises so they could not be changed, because he said nothing to her on the day he heard of them. ¹⁵ But if he will not allow her to keep her promises after he has heard of them, then her guilt will be on him.”

¹⁶ These are the Laws which the Lord told Moses, between a man and his wife, and between a father and his daughter, while she is young and in her father’s house.

A Prayer for the Nation

74 O God, why have You turned away from us forever? Why does Your anger burn against the sheep in Your fields? ² Remember Your people that You bought a long time ago. You made them free to be the family of Your promise, and Mount Zion, where You have lived. ³ Turn Your steps toward this place that has been destroyed forever. Those who hate You have destroyed all that is in the holy place. ⁴ Those who hate You have called out in the center of Your meeting place. They have set up their flags to show that they have won. ⁵ They acted like men taking up axes against a group of trees. ⁶ All of its fine work has been broken with axes and sticks. ⁷ They have burned Your holy place to the dust. They have made dirty the house of Your name. ⁸ They said in their hearts, “Let us destroy all of these places!” They have burned all the meeting places where God was worshiped in the land. ⁹ We do not see any special things happening. There is no longer anyone who speaks for God. And none of us knows how long this will be. ¹⁰ O God, how long will those who hate You laugh at the truth? Will they speak against Your name forever? ¹¹ Why do You take Your hand away, even Your right hand? Put it out and destroy them!

¹² God is still my King from long ago. He does saving works upon the earth. ¹³ You divided the sea by Your power. You broke the heads of the large dragons in the waters. ¹⁴ You crushed the heads of the Leviathan. And You fed him to the animals of the desert. ¹⁵ It was You Who opened up the earth for water to flow out. And You dried up rivers that flow forever. ¹⁶ The day is Yours. And the night is Yours. You have set the light and the sun in their places. ¹⁷ You have divided all the lands and seas and nations of the earth. You have made summer and winter.

¹⁸ Remember how those who hate You have laughed at the truth, O Lord. Foolish people have spoken against Your name. ¹⁹ Do not give the life of Your dove over to the wild animal. Do not forget the lives of Your troubled people forever. ²⁰ Think about Your agreement. For the dark places of the land are full of fighting. ²¹ Do not let those who suffer under a bad power return without honor. Let those who suffer and those who are in need praise Your name.

²² Rise up, O God. Stand up for Your rights. Remember how the foolish man speaks against You all day long. ²³ Do not forget the voice of those who hate You, the noise that comes without stopping from those who rise against You.

Word about Jerusalem

22 The special word about the Valley of Visions: What is wrong, that you have all gone up to the house tops, ² you who were full of noise, you loud town, you joy-filled city? Your dead were not killed with the sword. They did not die in battle. ³ All your rulers have run away together, and were taken without using the bow. All of you who were found were taken away together, even though you had run far away. ⁴ So I said, “Turn your eyes away from me. Let me cry with much sorrow. Do not try to comfort me about my people being destroyed.” ⁵ For the Lord God of All has a day of fear, crushing down, and trouble in the Valley of Vision. There is a breaking down of walls and a crying out to the mountain. ⁶ Elam took up the arrows with the war-wagons, soldiers and horsemen. And Kir let the battle-covering be seen. ⁷ Your best valleys were full of war-wagons, and the horsemen took their places at the gate. ⁸ Then God took away the safe-covering of Judah. In that day you trusted in the objects you had to fight with that were stored in the house among the trees. ⁹ You saw that there were many broken places in the wall of the city of David. You stored water in the lower pool. ¹⁰ Then you numbered the houses of Jerusalem, and tore down houses to make the wall stronger. ¹¹ You made a place to store water between the two walls for the waters of the old pool. But you did not trust in God Who made it. You did not think about Him Who planned it long ago.

¹² So in that day the Lord God of All called you to cry in sorrow, to cut off the hair from your head, and to wear cloth made from hair. ¹³ But instead, there is joy and happiness, killing of cattle and sheep, eating of meat, and drinking of wine. You say, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” ¹⁴ But the Lord of All has made Himself known to me. The Lord God of All says, “For sure you will not be forgiven for this sin until you die.”

Word about Shebna

¹⁵ The Lord God of All says, “Come, go to this person in Shebna who is taking care of the king’s house. Say to him, ¹⁶ ‘What right do you have here? Who told you that you could cut out a grave for yourself here? You cut out a grave on a high place! You cut a resting place for yourself in the rock! ¹⁷ See, the Lord will throw you away without pity, O you strong man. He will take a strong hold of you ¹⁸ and roll you up like a ball to be thrown into a wide land. There you will die, and there your great war-wagons will be. You are a shame to your king’s house.’ ¹⁹ I will throw you out of your place of power. I will take you down from your place. ²⁰ In that day I will call My servant Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah. ²¹ I will clothe him with your coat, and tie your belt around him. I will give him the power you had. He will become a father to the people of Jerusalem and to the family of Judah. ²² Then I will put on his shoulder the rule of the family of David. What he opens, no one will shut. What he shuts, no one will open. ²³ I will drive him like a nail in a hard place. He will become a throne of honor to his father’s house. ²⁴ So they will put on him all the honor of his father’s house, and of his children, and every little dish, from the cups to all the jars. ²⁵ “In that day,” says the Lord of All, “the nail driven in a hard place will give way. It will break off and fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut off. For the Lord has spoken.”

The World Will Be Destroyed

3 Dear friends, this is the second letter I have written to you. In both of them I have tried to get you to remember some things. ² You should remember the words that were spoken before by the holy early preachers. Do not forget the teaching of the Lord, the One Who saves. This was given to you by your missionaries.

³ First of all, I want you to know that in the last days men will laugh at the truth. They will follow their own sinful desires. ⁴ They will say, “He promised to come again. Where is He? Since our early fathers died, everything is the same from the beginning of the world.” ⁵ But they want to forget that God spoke and the heavens were made long ago. The earth was made out of water and water was all around it. ⁶ Long ago the earth was covered with water and it was destroyed. ⁷ But the heaven we see now and the earth we live on now have been kept by His word. They will be kept until they are to be destroyed by fire. They will be kept until the day men stand before God and sinners will be destroyed.

⁸ Dear friends, remember this one thing, with the Lord one day is as 1,000 years, and 1,000 years are as one day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow about keeping His promise as some people think. He is waiting for you. The Lord does not want any person to be punished forever. He wants all people to be sorry for their sins and turn from them. ¹⁰ The day of the Lord will come as a robber comes. The heavens will pass away with a loud noise. The sun and moon and stars will burn up. The earth and all that is in it will be burned up.

¹¹ Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, you should think about the kind of life you are living. It should be holy and God-like. ¹² You should look for the day of God to come. You should do what you can to make it come soon. At that time the heavens will be destroyed by fire. And the sun and moon and stars will melt away with much heat. ¹³ We are looking for what God has promised, which are new heavens and a new earth. Only what is right and good will be there.

¹⁴ Dear friends, since you are waiting for these things to happen, do all you can to be found by Him in peace. Be clean and free from sin. ¹⁵ You can be sure the long waiting of our Lord is part of His plan to save men from the punishment of sin. God gave our dear brother Paul the wisdom to write about this also. ¹⁶ He wrote about these things in all of his writings. Some of these things are hard to understand. People who do not have much understanding and some who are not strong in the faith change the meaning of his letters. They do this to the other parts of the Holy Writings also. They are destroying themselves as they do this.

¹⁷ And so, dear friends, now that you know this, watch so you will not be led away by the mistakes of these sinful people. Do not be moved by them. ¹⁸ Grow in the loving-favor that Christ gives you. Learn to know our Lord Jesus Christ better. He is the One Who saves. May He have all the shining-greatness now and forever. Let it be so.