M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

King Abijah of Judah^(A)

15 In the eighteenth year of the reign of King Jeroboam of Israel, Abijah became king of Judah, ² and he ruled three years in Jerusalem. His mother was Maacah, the daughter of Absalom. ³ He committed the same sins as his father and was not completely loyal to the Lord his God, as his great-grandfather David had been. ^4 (B)But for David's sake the Lord his God gave Abijah a son to rule after him in Jerusalem and to keep Jerusalem secure. ^5 (C)The Lord did this because David had done what pleased him and had never disobeyed any of his commands, except in the case of Uriah the Hittite. ^6 (D)The war which had begun between Rehoboam and Jeroboam continued throughout Abijah's lifetime. ⁷ And everything else that Abijah did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah.

⁸ Abijah died and was buried in David's City, and his son Asa succeeded him as king.

King Asa of Judah^(E)

⁹ In the twentieth year of the reign of King Jeroboam of Israel, Asa became king of Judah, ¹⁰ and he ruled forty-one years in Jerusalem. His grandmother was Maacah, the daughter of Absalom. ¹¹ Asa did what pleased the Lord, as his ancestor David had done. ^12 (F)He expelled from the country all the male and female prostitutes serving at the pagan places of worship, and he removed all the idols his predecessors had made. ¹³ He removed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made an obscene idol of the fertility goddess Asherah. Asa cut down the idol and burned it in Kidron Valley. ¹⁴ Even though Asa did not destroy all the pagan places of worship, he remained faithful to the Lord all his life. ¹⁵ He placed in the Temple all the objects his father had dedicated to God, as well as the gold and silver objects that he himself dedicated.

¹⁶ King Asa of Judah and King Baasha of Israel were constantly at war with each other as long as they were in power. ¹⁷ Baasha invaded Judah and started to fortify Ramah in order to cut off all traffic in and out of Judah. ¹⁸ So King Asa took all the silver and gold that was left in the Temple and the palace, and sent it by some of his officials to Damascus, to King Benhadad of Syria, the son of Tabrimmon and grandson of Hezion, with this message: ¹⁹ “Let us be allies, as our fathers were. This silver and gold is a present for you. Now break your alliance with King Baasha of Israel, so that he will have to pull his troops out of my territory.”

²⁰ King Benhadad agreed to Asa's proposal and sent his commanding officers and their armies to attack the cities of Israel. They captured Ijon, Dan, Abel Beth Maacah, the area near Lake Galilee, and the whole territory of Naphtali. ²¹ When King Baasha heard what had happened, he stopped fortifying Ramah and went to Tirzah.

²² Then King Asa sent out an order throughout all of Judah requiring everyone, without exception, to help carry away from Ramah the stones and timber that Baasha had been using to fortify it. With this material Asa fortified Mizpah and Geba, a city in the territory of Benjamin.

²³ Everything else that King Asa did, his brave deeds and the towns he fortified, are all recorded in The History of the Kings of Judah. But in his old age he was crippled by a foot disease. ²⁴ Asa died and was buried in the royal tombs in David's City, and his son Jehoshaphat succeeded him as king.

King Nadab of Israel

²⁵ In the second year of the reign of King Asa of Judah, King Jeroboam's son Nadab became king of Israel, and he ruled for two years. ²⁶ Like his father before him, he sinned against the Lord and led Israel into sin.

²⁷ Baasha son of Ahijah, of the tribe of Issachar, plotted against Nadab and killed him as Nadab and his army were besieging the city of Gibbethon in Philistia. ²⁸ This happened during the third year of the reign of King Asa of Judah. And so Baasha succeeded Nadab as king of Israel. ^29 (G)At once he began killing all the members of Jeroboam's family. In accordance with what the Lord had said through his servant, the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh, all of Jeroboam's family were killed; not one survived. ³⁰ This happened because Jeroboam aroused the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, by the sins that he committed and that he caused Israel to commit.

³¹ Everything else that Nadab did is recorded in The History of the Kings of Israel. ³² King Asa of Judah and King Baasha of Israel were constantly at war with each other as long as they were in power.

King Baasha of Israel

³³ In the third year of the reign of King Asa of Judah, Baasha son of Ahijah became king of all Israel, and he ruled in Tirzah for twenty-four years. ³⁴ Like King Jeroboam before him, he sinned against the Lord and led Israel into sin.

2 Let me tell you how hard I have worked for you and for the people in Laodicea and for all others who do not know me personally. ² I do this in order that they may be filled with courage and may be drawn together in love, and so have the full wealth of assurance which true understanding brings. In this way they will know God's secret, which is Christ himself.^{[a] 3} He is the key that opens all the hidden treasures of God's wisdom and knowledge.

⁴ I tell you, then, do not let anyone deceive you with false arguments, no matter how good they seem to be. ⁵ For even though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, and I am glad as I see the resolute firmness with which you stand together in your faith in Christ.

Fullness of Life in Christ

⁶ Since you have accepted Christ Jesus as Lord, live in union with him. ⁷ Keep your roots deep in him, build your lives on him, and become stronger in your faith, as you were taught. And be filled with thanksgiving.

⁸ See to it, then, that no one enslaves you by means of the worthless deceit of human wisdom, which comes from the teachings handed down by human beings and from the ruling spirits of the universe, and not from Christ. ⁹ For the full content of divine nature lives in Christ, in his humanity, ¹⁰ and you have been given full life in union with him. He is supreme over every spiritual ruler and authority.

¹¹ In union with Christ you were circumcised, not with the circumcision that is made by human beings, but with the circumcision made by Christ, which consists of being freed from the power of this sinful self. ^12 (A)For when you were baptized, you were buried with Christ, and in baptism you were also raised with Christ through your faith in the active power of God, who raised him from death. ^13 (B)You were at one time spiritually dead because of your sins and because you were Gentiles without the Law. But God has now brought you to life with Christ. God forgave us all our sins; ^14 (C)he canceled the unfavorable record of our debts with its binding rules and did away with it completely by nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ And on that cross Christ freed himself from the power of the spiritual rulers and authorities;^[b] he made a public spectacle of them by leading them as captives in his victory procession.

^16 (D)So let no one make rules about what you eat or drink or about holy days or the New Moon Festival or the Sabbath. ¹⁷ All such things are only a shadow of things in the future; the reality is Christ. ¹⁸ Do not allow yourselves to be condemned by anyone who claims to be superior because of special visions and who insists on false humility and the worship of angels. For no reason at all, such people are all puffed up by their human way of thinking ^19 (E)and have stopped holding on to Christ, who is the head of the body. Under Christ's control the whole body is nourished and held together by its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God wants it to grow.

Dying and Living with Christ

²⁰ You have died with Christ and are set free from the ruling spirits of the universe. Why, then, do you live as though you belonged to this world? Why do you obey such rules as ²¹ “Don't handle this,” “Don't taste that,” “Don't touch the other”? ²² All these refer to things which become useless once they are used; they are only human rules and teachings. ²³ Of course such rules appear to be based on wisdom in their forced worship of angels, and false humility, and severe treatment of the body; but they have no real value in controlling physical passions.

The Lord's Portion of the Country

45 When the land is divided to give each tribe a share, one part is to be dedicated to the Lord. It is to be 10 miles long by 8 miles^[a] wide. The entire area will be holy. ² In this area there is to be a square plot of land for the Temple, 840 feet on each side, entirely surrounded by an open space 84 feet wide. ³ Half of this area, a section 10 miles by 4 miles, is to be measured off; it will contain the Temple, the holiest place of all. ⁴ It will be a holy part of the country, set aside for the priests who serve the Lord in his Temple. It will contain their houses and the section of land for the Temple. ⁵ The other half of the area is to be set aside as the possession of the Levites, who do the work in the Temple. There will be towns there for them to live in.^[b]

⁶ Next to the holy area, another section, 10 miles long and 2 miles wide, is to be set aside for a city where any of the people of Israel may live.

Land for the Prince

⁷ Land is also to be set aside for the ruling prince. From the west boundary of the holy area it will extend west to the Mediterranean Sea; and from the east boundary it will extend to the eastern border of the country, so that its length will be the same as the length of one of the areas allotted to the tribes of Israel. ⁸ This area will be the share the ruling prince will have in the land of Israel, so that he will no longer oppress the people, but will let the rest of the country belong to the tribes of Israel.

Rules for the Prince

⁹ The Sovereign Lord said, “You have sinned too long, you rulers of Israel! Stop your violence and oppression. Do what is right and just. You must never again drive my people off their land. I, the Sovereign Lord, am telling you this.

^10 (A)“Everyone must use honest weights and measures:

¹¹ “The ephah for dry measure is to be equal to the bath for liquid measure. The standard is the homer.^[c] The resulting measures are as follows:

¹² “Your weights are to be as follows:

^13-15 “This is the basis on which you are to make your offerings:

“You are to bring grain offerings, animals to be burned whole, and animals for fellowship offerings, so that your sins will be forgiven. I, the Sovereign Lord, command it.

¹⁶ “All the people of the land must take^[e] these offerings to the ruling prince of Israel. ¹⁷ It will be his duty to provide the animals to be burned whole, the grain offerings, and the wine offerings for the whole nation of Israel at the New Moon Festivals, the Sabbaths, and the other festivals. He is to provide the sin offerings, the grain offerings, the offerings to be burned whole, and the fellowship offerings, to take away the sins of the people of Israel.”

The Festivals^(B)

¹⁸ The Sovereign Lord said, “On the first day of the first month you are to sacrifice a bull without any defects and purify the Temple. ¹⁹ The priest will take some of the blood of this sin offering and put it on the doorposts of the Temple, on the four corners of the altar, and on the posts of the gateways to the inner courtyard. ²⁰ On the seventh day of the month you are to do the same thing on behalf of anyone who sins unintentionally or through ignorance. In this way you will keep the Temple holy.

^21 (C)“On the fourteenth day of the first month you will begin the celebration of the Passover Festival. For seven days everyone will eat bread made without yeast. ²² On the first day of the festival the ruling prince must offer a bull as a sacrifice for his sins and for those of all the people. ²³ On each of the seven days of the festival he is to sacrifice to the Lord seven bulls and seven rams without any defects and burn them whole. He is also to sacrifice a male goat each day as a sin offering. ²⁴ For each bull and each ram that is sacrificed, there is to be an offering of half a bushel of grain and three quarts of olive oil.

^25 (D)“For the Festival of Shelters, which begins on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, the prince will offer on each of the seven days the same sacrifice for sin, the same offerings to be burned whole, and the same offerings of grain and olive oil.”

God the Supreme King

A Hymn of Praise^[c]

A King's Promise^[d]