M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Solomon's Officials

4 Solomon was king of all Israel, ² and these were his high officials:

⁷ Solomon appointed twelve men as district governors in Israel. They were to provide food from their districts for the king and his household, each man being responsible for one month out of the year. ⁸ The following are the names of these twelve officers and the districts they were in charge of:

Besides these twelve, there was one governor over the whole land.

Solomon's Prosperous Reign

²⁰ The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the grains of sand on the seashore; they ate and drank, and were happy. ^21 (A)Solomon's kingdom included all the nations from the Euphrates River to Philistia and the Egyptian border. They paid him taxes and were subject to him all his life.

²² The supplies Solomon needed each day were 150 bushels of fine flour and 300 bushels of meal; ²³ 10 stall-fed cattle, 20 pasture-fed cattle, and 100 sheep, besides deer, gazelles, roebucks, and poultry.

²⁴ Solomon ruled over all the land west of the Euphrates River, from Tiphsah on the Euphrates as far west as the city of Gaza. All the kings west of the Euphrates were subject to him, and he was at peace with all the neighboring countries. ²⁵ As long as he lived, the people throughout Judah and Israel lived in safety, each family with its own grapevines and fig trees.

^26 (B)Solomon had forty thousand stalls for his chariot horses and twelve thousand cavalry horses. ²⁷ His twelve governors, each one in the month assigned to him, supplied the food King Solomon needed for himself and for all who ate in the palace; they always supplied everything needed. ²⁸ Each governor also supplied his share of barley and straw, where it was needed,^[a] for the chariot horses and the work animals.

²⁹ God gave Solomon unusual wisdom and insight, and knowledge too great to be measured. ³⁰ Solomon was wiser than the wise men of the East or the wise men of Egypt. ^31 (C)He was the wisest of all men: wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame spread throughout all the neighboring countries. ^32 (D)He composed three thousand proverbs and more than a thousand songs. ³³ He spoke of trees and plants, from the Lebanon cedars to the hyssop that grows on walls; he talked about animals, birds, reptiles, and fish. ³⁴ Kings all over the world heard of his wisdom and sent people to listen to him.

Solomon Prepares to Build the Temple^(E)

5 King Hiram of Tyre had always been a friend of David's, and when he heard that Solomon had succeeded his father David as king, he sent ambassadors to him. ² Solomon sent back this message to Hiram: ³ “You know that because of the constant wars my father David had to fight against the enemy countries all around him, he could not build a temple for the worship of the Lord his God until the Lord had given him victory over all his enemies. ⁴ But now the Lord my God has given me peace on all my borders. I have no enemies, and there is no danger of attack. ^5 (F)The Lord promised my father David, ‘Your son, whom I will make king after you, will build a temple for me.’ And I have now decided to build that temple for the worship of the Lord my God. ⁶ So send your men to Lebanon to cut down cedars for me. My men will work with them, and I will pay your men whatever you decide. As you well know, my men don't know how to cut down trees as well as yours do.”

⁷ Hiram was extremely pleased when he received Solomon's message, and he said, “Praise the Lord today for giving David such a wise son to succeed him as king of that great nation!” ⁸ Then Hiram sent Solomon the following message: “I have received your message, and I am ready to do what you ask. I will provide the cedars and the pine trees. ⁹ My men will bring the logs down from Lebanon to the sea and will tie them together in rafts to float them down the coast to the place you choose. There my men will untie them, and your men will take charge of them. On your part, I would like you to supply the food for my men.”

¹⁰ So Hiram supplied Solomon with all the cedar and pine logs that he wanted, ¹¹ and Solomon provided Hiram with 100,000 bushels of wheat and 110,000 gallons^[b] of pure olive oil every year to feed his men.

¹² The Lord kept his promise and gave Solomon wisdom. There was peace between Hiram and Solomon, and they made a treaty with each other.

¹³ King Solomon drafted 30,000 men as forced labor from all over Israel, ^14 (G)and put Adoniram in charge of them. He divided them into three groups of 10,000 men, and each group spent one month in Lebanon and two months back home. ¹⁵ Solomon also had 80,000 stone cutters in the hill country, with 70,000 men to carry the stones, ¹⁶ and he placed 3,300 foremen in charge of them to supervise their work. ¹⁷ At King Solomon's command they cut fine large stones for the foundation of the Temple. ¹⁸ Solomon's and Hiram's workers and men from the city of Byblos prepared the stones and the timber to build the Temple.

From Death to Life

2 ^(A)In the past you were spiritually dead because of your disobedience and sins. ² At that time you followed the world's evil way; you obeyed the ruler of the spiritual powers in space, the spirit who now controls the people who disobey God. ³ Actually all of us were like them and lived according to our natural desires, doing whatever suited the wishes of our own bodies and minds. In our natural condition we, like everyone else, were destined to suffer God's anger.

⁴ But God's mercy is so abundant, and his love for us is so great, ⁵ that while we were spiritually dead in our disobedience he brought us to life with Christ. It is by God's grace that you have been saved. ⁶ In our union with Christ Jesus he raised us up with him to rule with him in the heavenly world. ⁷ He did this to demonstrate for all time to come the extraordinary greatness of his grace in the love he showed us in Christ Jesus. ^8-9 For it is by God's grace that you have been saved through faith. It is not the result of your own efforts, but God's gift, so that no one can boast about it. ¹⁰ God has made us what we are, and in our union with Christ Jesus he has created us for a life of good deeds, which he has already prepared for us to do.

One in Christ

¹¹ You Gentiles by birth—called “the uncircumcised” by the Jews, who call themselves the circumcised (which refers to what men do to their bodies)—remember what you were in the past. ¹² At that time you were apart from Christ. You were foreigners and did not belong to God's chosen people. You had no part in the covenants, which were based on God's promises to his people, and you lived in this world without hope and without God. ¹³ But now, in union with Christ Jesus you, who used to be far away, have been brought near by the blood of Christ.^{[a] 14} For Christ himself has brought us peace by making Jews and Gentiles one people. With his own body he broke down the wall that separated them and kept them enemies. ^15 (B)He abolished the Jewish Law with its commandments and rules, in order to create out of the two races one new people in union with himself, in this way making peace. ^16 (C)By his death on the cross Christ destroyed their enmity; by means of the cross he united both races into one body and brought them back to God. ^17 (D)So Christ came and preached the Good News of peace to all—to you Gentiles, who were far away from God, and to the Jews, who were near to him. ¹⁸ It is through Christ that all of us, Jews and Gentiles, are able to come in the one Spirit into the presence of the Father.

¹⁹ So then, you Gentiles are not foreigners or strangers any longer; you are now citizens together with God's people and members of the family of God. ²⁰ You, too, are built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets,^[b] the cornerstone being Christ Jesus himself. ²¹ He is the one who holds the whole building together and makes it grow into a sacred temple dedicated to the Lord. ²² In union with him you too are being built together with all the others into a place where God lives through his Spirit.

God's Punishment of Edom

35 ^(A)The Lord spoke to me. ² “Mortal man,” he said, “denounce the country of Edom. ³ Tell the people what I, the Sovereign Lord, am saying:

⁵ “You were Israel's constant enemy and let her people be slaughtered in the time of her disaster, the time of final punishment for her sins. ⁶ So then—as surely as I, the Sovereign Lord, am the living God—death is your fate, and you cannot escape it. You are guilty of^[a] murder, and murder will follow you. ⁷ I will make the hill country of Edom a wasteland and kill everyone who travels through it. ⁸ I will cover the mountains with corpses, and the bodies of those who are killed in battle will cover the hills and valleys. ⁹ I will make you desolate forever, and no one will live in your cities again. Then you will know that I am the Lord.

¹⁰ “You said that the two nations, Judah and Israel, together with their lands, belonged to you and that you would possess them, even though I, the Lord, was their God. ¹¹ So then, as surely as I, the Sovereign Lord, am the living God, I will pay you back for your anger, your jealousy, and your hate toward my people. They will know that I am punishing you for what you did to them. ¹² Then you will know that I, the Lord, heard you say with contempt that the mountains of Israel were desolate and that they were yours to devour. ¹³ I have heard the wild, boastful way you have talked against me.”

¹⁴ The Sovereign Lord says, “I will make you so desolate that the whole world will rejoice at your downfall, ¹⁵ just as you rejoiced at the devastation of Israel, my own possession. The mountains of Seir, yes, all the land of Edom, will be desolate. Then everyone will know that I am the Lord.”

A Prayer for the Nation's Welfare^[a]