M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

The Northern Tribes Revolt^(A)

12 Rehoboam went to Shechem, where all the people of northern Israel had gathered to make him king. ² When Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had gone to Egypt to escape from King Solomon, heard this news, he returned from^[a] Egypt. ³ The people of the northern tribes sent for him, and then they all went together to Rehoboam and said to him, ⁴ “Your father Solomon treated us harshly and placed heavy burdens on us. If you make these burdens lighter and make life easier for us, we will be your loyal subjects.”

⁵ “Come back in three days and I will give you my answer,” he replied. So they left.

⁶ King Rehoboam consulted the older men who had served as his father Solomon's advisers. “What answer do you advise me to give these people?” he asked.

⁷ They replied, “If you want to serve this people well, give a favorable answer to their request, and they will always serve you loyally.”

⁸ But he ignored the advice of the older men and went instead to the young men who had grown up with him and who were now his advisers. ⁹ “What do you advise me to do?” he asked. “What shall I say to the people who are asking me to make their burdens lighter?”

¹⁰ They replied, “This is what you should tell them: ‘My little finger is thicker than my father's waist!’ ¹¹ Tell them, ‘My father placed heavy burdens on you; I will make them even heavier. He beat you with whips; I'll flog you with bullwhips!’”

¹² Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to King Rehoboam, as he had instructed them. ¹³ The king ignored the advice of the older men and spoke harshly to the people, ¹⁴ as the younger men had advised. He said, “My father placed heavy burdens on you; I will make them even heavier. He beat you with whips; I'll flog you with bullwhips!” ¹⁵ It was the will of the Lord to bring about what he had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh. This is why the king did not pay any attention to the people.

^16 (B)When the people saw that the king would not listen to them, they shouted, “Down with David and his family! What have they ever done for us? People of Israel, let's go home! Let Rehoboam look out for himself!”

So the people of Israel rebelled, ¹⁷ leaving Rehoboam as king only of the people who lived in the territory of Judah.

¹⁸ Then King Rehoboam sent Adoniram, who was in charge of the forced labor, to go to the Israelites, but they stoned him to death. At this, Rehoboam hurriedly got in his chariot and escaped to Jerusalem. ¹⁹ Ever since that time the people of the northern kingdom of Israel have been in rebellion against the dynasty of David.

²⁰ When the people of Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned from Egypt, they invited him to a meeting of the people and made him king of Israel. Only the tribe of Judah remained loyal to David's descendants.

Shemaiah's Prophecy^(C)

²¹ When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he called together 180,000 of the best soldiers from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin. He intended to go to war and restore his control over the northern tribes of Israel. ²² But God told the prophet Shemaiah ²³ to give this message to Rehoboam and to all the people of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin: ²⁴ “Do not attack your own relatives, the people of Israel. Go home, all of you. What has happened is my will.” They all obeyed the Lord's command and went back home.

Jeroboam Turns Away from God

²⁵ King Jeroboam of Israel fortified the town of Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim and lived there for a while. Then he left and fortified the town of Penuel. ^26-27 He said to himself, “As things are now, if my people go to Jerusalem and offer sacrifices to the Lord in the Temple there, they will transfer their allegiance to King Rehoboam of Judah and will kill me.”

^28 (D)After thinking it over, he made two bull-calves of gold and said to his people, “You have been going long enough to Jerusalem to worship. People of Israel, here are your gods who brought you out of Egypt!” ²⁹ He placed one of the gold bull-calves in Bethel and the other in Dan. ³⁰ And so the people sinned, going to worship in Bethel and in Dan.^{[b] 31} Jeroboam also built places of worship on hilltops, and he chose priests from families who were not of the tribe of Levi.

Worship at Bethel Is Condemned

^32 (E)Jeroboam also instituted a religious festival on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, like the festival in Judah. On the altar in Bethel he offered sacrifices to the gold bull-calves he had made, and he placed there in Bethel the priests serving at the places of worship he had built. ³³ And on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the day that he himself had set, he went to Bethel and offered a sacrifice on the altar in celebration of the festival he had instituted for the people of Israel.

The True Righteousness

3 In conclusion, my friends, be joyful in your union with the Lord. I don't mind repeating what I have written before, and you will be safer if I do so. ² Watch out for those who do evil things, those dogs, those who insist on cutting the body. ³ It is we, not they, who have received the true circumcision, for we worship God by means of his Spirit and rejoice in our life in union with Christ Jesus. We do not put any trust in external ceremonies. ⁴ I could, of course, put my trust in such things. If any of you think you can trust in external ceremonies, I have even more reason to feel that way. ^5 (A)I was circumcised when I was a week old. I am an Israelite by birth, of the tribe of Benjamin, a pure-blooded Hebrew. As far as keeping the Jewish Law is concerned, I was a Pharisee, ^6 (B)and I was so zealous that I persecuted the church. As far as a person can be righteous by obeying the commands of the Law, I was without fault. ⁷ But all those things that I might count as profit I now reckon as loss for Christ's sake. ⁸ Not only those things; I reckon everything as complete loss for the sake of what is so much more valuable, the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have thrown everything away; I consider it all as mere garbage, so that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be completely united with him. I no longer have a righteousness of my own, the kind that is gained by obeying the Law. I now have the righteousness that is given through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is based on faith. ¹⁰ All I want is to know Christ and to experience the power of his resurrection, to share in his sufferings and become like him in his death, ¹¹ in the hope that I myself will be raised from death to life.

Running toward the Goal

¹² I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself. ¹³ Of course, my friends, I really do not^[a] think that I have already won it; the one thing I do, however, is to forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what is ahead. ¹⁴ So I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God's call through Christ Jesus to the life above.

¹⁵ All of us who are spiritually mature should have this same attitude. But if some of you have a different attitude, God will make this clear to you. ¹⁶ However that may be, let us go forward according to the same rules we have followed until now.

^17 (C)Keep on imitating me, my friends. Pay attention to those who follow the right example that we have set for you. ¹⁸ I have told you this many times before, and now I repeat it with tears: there are many whose lives make them enemies of Christ's death on the cross. ¹⁹ They are going to end up in hell, because their god is their bodily desires. They are proud of what they should be ashamed of, and they think only of things that belong to this world. ²⁰ We, however, are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from heaven. ²¹ He will change our weak mortal bodies and make them like his own glorious body, using that power by which he is able to bring all things under his rule.

Two Buildings Near the Temple

42 Then the man took me into the outer courtyard and led me to a building on the north side of the Temple, not far from the building at the west end of the Temple. ² This building was 168 feet long and 84 feet wide. ³ On one side it faced the space 34 feet wide which was alongside the Temple, and on the other side it faced the pavement of the outer courtyard. It was built on three levels, each one set further back than the one below it. ⁴ Along the north side of this building was a passageway 16 feet wide and 168 feet long,^[a] with entrances on that side. ⁵ The rooms at the upper level of the building were narrower than those at the middle and lower levels because they were set further back. ⁶ The rooms at all three levels were on terraces and were not supported by columns like the other buildings in the courtyard. ^7-8 At the lower level the outer wall of the building was solid for 84 feet, half its length; and there were rooms in the remaining 84 feet. At the top level there were rooms in the entire length of the building. ^9-10 Below these rooms at the east end of the building, where the wall of the courtyard began,^[b] there was an entrance into the outer courtyard.

At the south^[c] side of the Temple there was an identical building not far from the building at the west end of the Temple. ¹¹ In front of the rooms there was a passageway just like the one on the north side. It had the same measurements, the same design, and the same kind of entrances. ¹² There was a door under the rooms on the south side of the building, at the east end where the wall began.

¹³ The man said to me, “Both these buildings are holy. In them the priests who enter the Lord's presence eat the holiest offerings. Because the rooms are holy, the priests will place the holiest offerings there: the offerings of grain and the sacrifices offered for sin or as repayment offerings. ¹⁴ When priests have been in the Temple and want to go to the outer courtyard, they must leave in these rooms the holy clothing they wore while serving the Lord. They must put on other clothes before going out to the area where the people gather.”

The Measurements of the Temple Area

¹⁵ When the man had finished measuring inside the Temple area, he took me out through the east gate and then measured the outside of the area. ¹⁶ He took the measuring rod and measured the east side, and it was 840 feet. ^17-19 Then he measured the north side, the south side, and the west side; each side had the same length, 840 feet,^{[d] 20} so that the wall enclosed a square 840 feet on each side. The wall served to separate what was holy from what was not.

God the Judge of All