M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Solomon Builds the Temple

6 Four hundred and eighty years after the people of Israel left Egypt, during the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel, in the second month, the month of Ziv, Solomon began work on the Temple. ² Inside it was 90 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 45 feet high. ³ The entrance room was 15 feet deep and 30 feet wide, as wide as the sanctuary itself. ⁴ The walls of the Temple had openings in them, narrower on the outside than on the inside. ⁵ Against the outside walls, on the sides and the back of the Temple, a three-storied annex was built, each story 7½ feet high. ⁶ Each room in the lowest story was 7½ feet wide, in the middle story 9 feet wide, and in the top story 10½ feet wide. The Temple wall on each floor was thinner than on the floor below, so that the rooms could rest on the wall without having their beams built into it.

⁷ The stones with which the Temple was built had been prepared at the quarry, so that there was no noise made by hammers, axes, or any other iron tools as the Temple was being built.

⁸ The entrance to the lowest^[a] story of the annex was on the south side of the Temple, with stairs leading up to the second and third stories. ⁹ So King Solomon finished building the Temple. He put in a ceiling made of beams and boards of cedar. ¹⁰ The three-storied annex, each story^[b] 7½ feet high, was built against the outside walls of the Temple, and was joined to them by cedar beams.

¹¹ The Lord said to Solomon, ¹² “If you obey all my laws and commands, I will do for you what I promised your father David. ¹³ I will live among my people Israel in this Temple that you are building, and I will never abandon them.”

¹⁴ So Solomon finished building the Temple.

The Interior Furnishings of the Temple^(A)

¹⁵ The inside walls were covered with cedar panels from the floor to the ceiling, and the floor was made of pine. ^16 (B)An inner room, called the Most Holy Place, was built in the rear of the Temple. It was 30 feet long and was partitioned off by cedar boards reaching from the floor to the ceiling.^{[c] 17} The room in front of the Most Holy Place was 60 feet long. ¹⁸ The cedar panels were decorated with carvings of gourds and flowers; the whole interior was covered with cedar, so that the stones of the walls could not be seen.

¹⁹ In the rear of the Temple an inner room was built, where the Lord's Covenant Box was to be placed. ²⁰ This inner room was 30 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 30 feet high, all covered with pure gold. The altar was covered with cedar panels.^{[d] 21} The inside of the Temple was covered with gold, and gold chains were placed across the entrance of the inner room, which was also covered with gold. ^22 (C)The whole interior of the Temple was covered with gold, as well as the altar in the Most Holy Place.

^23 (D)Two winged creatures were made of olive wood and placed in the Most Holy Place, each one 15 feet tall. ^24-26 Both were of the same size and shape. Each had two wings, each wing 7½ feet long, so that the distance from one wing tip to the other was 15 feet. ²⁷ They were placed side by side in the Most Holy Place, so that two of their outstretched wings touched each other in the middle of the room, and the other two wings touched the walls. ²⁸ The two winged creatures were covered with gold.

²⁹ The walls of the main room and of the inner room were all decorated with carved figures of winged creatures, palm trees, and flowers. ³⁰ Even the floor was covered with gold.

³¹ A double door made of olive wood was set in place at the entrance of the Most Holy Place; the top of the doorway was a pointed arch. ³² The doors were decorated with carved figures of winged creatures, palm trees, and flowers. The doors, the winged creatures, and the palm trees were covered with gold. ³³ For the entrance to the main room a rectangular doorframe of olive wood was made. ³⁴ There were two folding doors made of pine ³⁵ and decorated with carved figures of winged creatures, palm trees, and flowers, which were evenly covered with gold.

³⁶ An inner court was built in front of the Temple, enclosed with walls which had one layer of cedar beams for every three layers of stone.

³⁷ The foundation of the Temple was laid in the second month, the month of Ziv, in the fourth year of Solomon's reign. ³⁸ In the eighth month, the month of Bul, in the eleventh year of Solomon's reign, the Temple was completely finished exactly as it had been planned. It had taken Solomon seven years to build it.

Paul's Work for the Gentiles

3 For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles, pray to God. ² Surely you have heard that God in his grace has given me this work to do for your good. ³ God revealed his secret plan and made it known to me. (I have written briefly about this, ^4 (A)and if you will read what I have written, you can learn about my understanding of the secret of Christ.) ⁵ In past times human beings were not told this secret, but God has revealed it now by the Spirit to his holy apostles and prophets. ⁶ The secret is that by means of the gospel the Gentiles have a part with the Jews in God's blessings; they are members of the same body and share in the promise that God made through Christ Jesus.

⁷ I was made a servant of the gospel by God's special gift, which he gave me through the working of his power. ⁸ I am less than the least of all God's people; yet God gave me this privilege of taking to the Gentiles the Good News about the infinite riches of Christ, ⁹ and of making all people see how God's secret plan is to be put into effect. God, who is the Creator of all things, kept his secret hidden through all the past ages, ¹⁰ in order that at the present time, by means of the church, the angelic rulers and powers in the heavenly world might learn of his wisdom in all its different forms. ¹¹ God did this according to his eternal purpose, which he achieved through Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹² In union with Christ and through our faith in him we have the boldness to go into God's presence with all confidence. ¹³ I beg you, then, not to be discouraged because I am suffering for you; it is all for your benefit.

The Love of Christ

¹⁴ For this reason I fall on my knees before the Father, ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth receives its true name. ¹⁶ I ask God from the wealth of his glory to give you power through his Spirit to be strong in your inner selves, ¹⁷ and I pray that Christ will make his home in your hearts through faith. I pray that you may have your roots and foundation in love, ^18 (B)so that you, together with all God's people, may have the power to understand how broad and long, how high and deep, is Christ's love. ¹⁹ Yes, may you come to know his love—although it can never be fully known—and so be completely filled with the very nature of God.

²⁰ To him who by means of his power working in us is able to do so much more than we can ever ask for, or even think of: ²¹ to God be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever! Amen.

God's Blessing on Israel

36 The Lord said, “Mortal man, speak to the mountains of Israel and tell them to listen to the message which I, ² the Sovereign Lord, have for them: Israel's enemies gloated and said, ‘Now those ancient hills are ours!’

³ “Prophesy, then, and announce what I, the Sovereign Lord, am saying. When the neighboring nations captured and plundered the mountains of Israel, everyone made fun of Israel. ⁴ So now listen to what I, the Sovereign Lord, say to you mountains and hills, to you brooks and valleys, to you places that were left in ruins, and to you deserted cities which were plundered and mocked by all the surrounding nations.

⁵ “I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken out in the heat of my anger against the surrounding nations, and especially against Edom. With glee and contempt they captured my land and took possession of its pastures.

⁶ “So prophesy to the land of Israel; tell the mountains, hills, brooks, and valleys what I, the Sovereign Lord, am saying in jealous anger because of the way the nations have insulted and humiliated them. ⁷ I, the Sovereign Lord, solemnly promise that the surrounding nations will be humiliated. ⁸ But on the mountains of Israel the trees will again grow leaves and bear fruit for you, my people Israel. You are going to come home soon. ⁹ I am on your side, and I will make sure that your land is plowed again and crops are planted on it. ¹⁰ I will make your population grow. You will live in the cities and rebuild everything that was left in ruins. ¹¹ I will make people and cattle increase in number. There will be more of you than ever before, and you will have many children. I will let you live there as you used to live, and I will make you more prosperous than ever. Then you will know that I am the Lord. ¹² I will bring you, my people Israel, back to live again in the land. It will be your own land, and it will never again let your children starve.

¹³ “I, the Sovereign Lord, say: It is true that people say that the land eats people and that it robs the nation of its children. ¹⁴ But from now on it will no longer eat people and rob you of your children. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. ¹⁵ The land will no longer have to listen to the nations making fun of it or see the peoples sneer at it. The land will no longer rob the nation of its children. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.”

Israel's New Life

¹⁶ The Lord spoke to me. ¹⁷ “Mortal man,” he said, “when the Israelites were living in their land, they defiled it by the way they lived and acted. I regarded their behavior as being as ritually unclean as a woman is during her monthly period.^{[a] 18} I let them feel the force of my anger because of the murders they had committed in the land and because of the idols by which they had defiled it. ¹⁹ I condemned them for the way they lived and acted, and I scattered them through foreign countries. ²⁰ Wherever they went, they brought disgrace on my holy name, because people would say, ‘These are the people of the Lord, but they had to leave his land.’ ²¹ That made me concerned for my holy name, since the Israelites brought disgrace on it everywhere they went.

²² “Now then, give the Israelites the message that I, the Sovereign Lord, have for them: What I am going to do is not for the sake of you Israelites, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have disgraced in every country where you have gone. ²³ When I demonstrate to the nations the holiness of my great name—the name you disgraced among them—then they will know that I am the Lord. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken. I will use you to show the nations that I am holy. ²⁴ I will take you from every nation and country and bring you back to your own land. ²⁵ I will sprinkle clean water on you and make you clean from all your idols and everything else that has defiled you. ^26 (A)I will give you a new heart and a new mind. I will take away your stubborn heart of stone and give you an obedient heart. ²⁷ I will put my spirit in you and will see to it that you follow my laws and keep all the commands I have given you. ²⁸ Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors. You will be my people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ I will save you from everything that defiles you. I will command the grain to be plentiful, so that you will not have any more famines. ³⁰ I will increase the yield of your fruit trees and your fields, so that there will be no more famines to disgrace you among the nations. ³¹ You will remember your evil conduct and the wrongs that you committed, and you will be disgusted with yourselves because of your sins and your iniquities. ³² Israel, I want you to know that I am not doing all this for your sake. I want you to feel the shame and disgrace of what you are doing. I, the Sovereign Lord, have spoken.”

³³ The Sovereign Lord says, “When I make you clean from all your sins, I will let you live in your cities again and let you rebuild the ruins. ³⁴ Everyone who used to walk by your fields saw how overgrown and wild they were, but I will let you farm them again. ³⁵ Everyone will talk about how this land, which was once a wilderness, has become like the Garden of Eden, and how the cities which were torn down, looted, and left in ruins, are now inhabited and fortified. ³⁶ Then the neighboring nations that have survived will know that I, the Lord, rebuild ruined cities and replant waste fields. I, the Lord, have promised that I would do this—and I will.”

³⁷ The Sovereign Lord says, “I will once again let the Israelites ask me for help, and I will let them increase in numbers like a flock of sheep. ³⁸ The cities that are now in ruins will then be as full of people as Jerusalem was once full of the sheep which were offered as sacrifices at a festival. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

A Prayer for Help^[a]