M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Saul chosen to lead Israel
9 There was a wealthy man from the tribe of Benjamin named Kish. He was the son of Abiel son of Zeror son of Becorath son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite. 2 He had a son named Saul, who was a handsome young man. No one in Israel was more handsome than Saul, and he stood head and shoulders above everyone else.
3 When the donkeys belonging to Saul’s father Kish were lost, Kish said to his son Saul, “Take one of the servant boys with you and go look for the donkeys.” 4 So he traveled through the highlands of Ephraim and the land of Shalishah, but they didn’t find anything. They traveled through the land of Shaalim, but still found nothing, so they crossed back into the land of Benjamin, but they still couldn’t find the donkeys. 5 When they came to the territory of Zuph, Saul said to the boy who was with him, “Let’s go back before my father stops worrying about the donkeys and starts worrying about us.”
6 But the boy said to him, “Listen, there’s a man of God in this town. He’s famous—everything he says actually happens! So let’s go there. Maybe he’ll be able to tell us which way we should go.”
7 Saul said to his young boy, “But if we go, what should we bring to the man? The food in our bags is all gone. We don’t have any gift to offer the man of God. Do we have anything?”
8 “Here,” the boy answered Saul, “I’ve got a quarter-shekel of silver. I’ll give that to the man of God so he tells us which way to go.” (9 Earlier in Israel, someone going to consult with God would say, “Let’s go to the seer,” because the people who are called prophets today were previously called seers.)
10 Saul said to the boy, “Great idea! Let’s go.” So they went into the town where the man of God lived. 11 They were going up the hill to the town when they met some young women coming out to draw water. “Is the seer here?” they asked them.
12 “He’s just ahead of you,” they answered. “Hurry up! He has just come to town because there is a sacrifice today for the people at the shrine. 13 You’ll find him as soon as you enter the town, before he goes up to the shrine to eat. The people won’t eat until he gets there, because he must bless the sacrifice. Only after that can the invited guests eat. Now get going because you’ll find him momentarily.”
14 So Saul and the boy went up to the town, and as they entered it, suddenly Samuel came toward them on his way up to the shrine. 15 Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed the following to Samuel: 16 “About this time tomorrow I will send you a man from the Benjaminite territory. You will anoint him as leader of my people Israel. He will save my people from the Philistines’ power because I have seen the suffering of[a] my people, and their cry for help has reached me.” 17 When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, “That’s the man I told you about. That’s the one who will rule[b] my people.”
18 Saul approached Samuel in the city gate and said, “Please tell me where the seer’s house is.”
19 “I’m the seer,” Samuel told Saul. “Go on ahead of me to the shrine. You can eat with me today. In the morning I’ll send you on your way, and I will tell you everything you want to know. 20 As for the donkeys you lost three days ago, don’t be worried about them because they’ve been found. Who owns all of Israel’s treasures, anyway? Isn’t it you and your whole family?”[c]
21 “I’m a Benjaminite,” Saul responded, “from the smallest Israelite tribe, and my family is the littlest of the families in the tribe of Benjamin. Why would you say something like that to me?”
22 Then Samuel took Saul and his young servant and brought them to the banquet room. He gave them an honored place among the invited guests. There were about thirty total. 23 Samuel said to the cook, “Serve the portion I gave you—the one I told you to set aside.” 24 So the cook took the thigh and what was on it,[d] and put it in front of Saul. Samuel said, “Look, what had been reserved is now in front of you. Eat up, because it was set apart for you for this specific occasion, ever since I invited the guests.”[e] So Saul ate with Samuel that day. 25 When they came back from the shrine to the town, a bed was made for Saul on the roof, and he slept.[f]
26 Near dawn, Samuel called to Saul on the roof, “Wake up! I will send you on your way.” So Saul got up, and the two of them, he and Samuel, went outside. 27 As they were nearing the edge of town Samuel said, “Tell the boy to go on ahead of us” (the servant did so) “but you stop for a bit so I can tell you God’s word.”
Freedom from the Law
7 Brothers and sisters, I’m talking to you as people who know the Law. Don’t you know that the Law has power over someone only as long as he or she lives? 2 A married woman is united with her husband under the Law while he is alive. But if her husband dies, she is released from the Law concerning her husband. 3 So then, if she lives with another man while her husband is alive, she’s committing adultery. But if her husband dies, she’s free from the Law, so she won’t be committing adultery if she marries someone else. 4 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you also died with respect to the Law through the body of Christ, so that you could be united with someone else. You are united with the one who was raised from the dead so that we can bear fruit for God. 5 When we were self-centered, the sinful passions aroused through the Law were at work in all the parts of our body, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now we have been released from the Law. We have died with respect to the thing that controlled us, so that we can be slaves in the new life under the Spirit, not in the old life under the written Law.
The function of the Law
7 So what are we going to say? That the Law is sin? Absolutely not! But I wouldn’t have known sin except through the Law. I wouldn’t have known the desire for what others have if the Law had not said, Don’t desire to take what others have.[a] 8 But sin seized the opportunity and used this commandment to produce all kinds of desires in me. Sin is dead without the Law. 9 I used to be alive without the Law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life, 10 and I died. So the commandment that was intended to give life brought death. 11 Sin seized the opportunity through the commandment, deceived me, and killed me. 12 So the Law itself is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good.
Living under the Law
13 So did something good bring death to me? Absolutely not! But sin caused my death through something good so that sin would be exposed as sin. That way sin would become even more thoroughly sinful through the commandment. 14 We know that the Law is spiritual, but I’m made of flesh and blood, and I’m sold as a slave to sin. 15 I don’t know what I’m doing, because I don’t do what I want to do. Instead, I do the thing that I hate. 16 But if I’m doing the thing that I don’t want to do, I’m agreeing that the Law is right. 17 But now I’m not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it’s sin that lives in me. 18 I know that good doesn’t live in me—that is, in my body. The desire to do good is inside of me, but I can’t do it. 19 I don’t do the good that I want to do, but I do the evil that I don’t want to do. 20 But if I do the very thing that I don’t want to do, then I’m not the one doing it anymore. Instead, it is sin that lives in me that is doing it.
21 So I find that, as a rule, when I want to do what is good, evil is right there with me. 22 I gladly agree with the Law on the inside, 23 but I see a different law at work in my body. It wages a war against the law of my mind and takes me prisoner with the law of sin that is in my body. 24 I’m a miserable human being. Who will deliver me from this dead corpse? 25 Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then I’m a slave to God’s Law in my mind, but I’m a slave to sin’s law in my body.
ORACLES CONCERNING THE NATIONS
46 This is what the Lord told the prophet Jeremiah concerning the nations.
Prophecy against Egypt
2 About Egypt! A message for the army of Pharaoh Neco, Egypt’s king, which was defeated by Babylon’s Nebuchadnezzar at Carchemish near the Euphrates River in the fourth year of Judah’s King Jehoiakim, Josiah’s son:
3 Grab your shields
and prepare for war!
4 Saddle the horses;
mount the stallions!
Take your positions
with helmets on!
Polish your spears;
put on your armor!
5 Why do I see them terrified,
retreating in haste?
Their soldiers are crushed,
running for cover,
and they don’t turn back.
Panic lurks at every turn,
declares the Lord.
6 The swift can’t flee;
the mighty can’t escape.
Up north by the Euphrates River,
they stagger and fall.
7 Who is this that rises like the Nile,
whose banks overflow?[a]
8 It’s Egypt that rises like the Nile,
whose banks overflow,[b]
who declares, “I will arise
and cover the earth
and destroy cities and inhabitants.”
9 Charge, you horses;
advance, you chariots!
Attack, you soldiers
with your shield in hand,
you people of Cush and Put[c]
with your bow drawn,
you archers from Lud.
10 But that day belongs to the
Lord God of heavenly forces;
it’s a day of reckoning,
settling scores with enemies.
The sword will devour
until it has had its fill of blood.
The Lord God of heavenly forces
is preparing a sacrifice in the north
by the Euphrates River.
11 Go up to Gilead and seek balm,
virgin Daughter Egypt.
You search out remedies in vain,
for your disease is incurable.
12 Nations hear of your shame;
the earth is filled with your sobs.
Soldier stumbles over soldier;
together they go down.
13 This is the word that the Lord spoke to the prophet Jeremiah about the military offensive of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar against the land of Egypt:
14 Tell Egypt, warn Migdol,
alert Memphis and Tahpanhes!
Say: “Brace yourselves for what’s coming.
War is breaking out from every side!”
15 Why have your mighty fallen?
Why haven’t they stood their ground?
Because the Lord has struck them down.
16 He’s tripped them up;
they fall over each other and say,
“Let’s get out of here
and go home to our people,
where we were born,
far away from the oppressor’s sword.”[d]
17 There they call Pharaoh, Egypt’s king,
Loudmouth—Nothing But Hot Air!
18 As I live, declares the king,
whose name is the Lord of heavenly forces,
one is coming
just as surely as Tabor is in the mountains
and Carmel is by the sea.[e]
19 Get what you need for deportation,
you inhabitants of Egypt.[f]
Memphis will be reduced to a wasteland,
a ruin with no one left.
20 Egypt is a beautiful, yes, beautiful heifer,
but a horsefly from the north
is coming to bite her.[g]
21 Even her mercenaries
are like well-fed calves;
they too will retreat and run for cover;
they won’t survive.
The day of disaster has come to haunt them,
the time of their punishment.
22 Like the sound of a snake hissing
as it slithers away
is Egypt[h] as armies approach in force;
they come against her with axes,
like woodcutters.
23 They destroy her dense forest,
though it is vast,
because they outnumber locusts
and can’t be counted,
declares the Lord.
24 Daughter Egypt will be humiliated,
handed over to people from the north.
25 This is what the Lord of heavenly forces, the God of Israel, proclaims: I’m going to punish Amon of Thebes, Egypt and its gods and kings, as well as Pharaoh and all who rely on him. 26 I will hand them over to those who seek to kill them, namely Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar and his servants. But afterward Egypt will dwell like it did a long time ago, declares the Lord.
27 But don’t be afraid, my servant Judah;
don’t lose heart, Israel.
I will deliver you from a faraway place
and your children from the land of their exile.
My people Jacob will again be safe and sound,
with no one harassing them.
28 So don’t be afraid, my servant Jacob,
declares the Lord.
I’m with you;
I will put an end to all the nations
where I have scattered you.
But I won’t put an end to you.
I won’t let you avoid punishment;
I will discipline you as you deserve.
Psalm 22
For the music leader. According to the “Doe of Dawn.” A psalm of David.
22 My God! My God,
why have you left me all alone?
Why are you so far from saving me—
so far from my anguished groans?
2 My God, I cry out during the day,
but you don’t answer;
even at nighttime I don’t stop.
3 You are the holy one, enthroned.
You are Israel’s praise.
4 Our ancestors trusted you—
they trusted you and you rescued them;
5 they cried out to you and they were saved;
they trusted you and they weren’t ashamed.
6 But I’m just a worm, less than human;
insulted by one person, despised by another.
7 All who see me make fun of me—
they gape, shaking their heads:
8 “He committed himself to the Lord,
so let God rescue him;
let God deliver him
because God likes him so much.”
9 But you are the one who pulled me from the womb,
placing me safely at my mother’s breasts.
10 I was thrown on you from birth;
you’ve been my God
since I was in my mother’s womb.
11 Please don’t be far from me,
because trouble is near
and there’s no one to help.
12 Many bulls surround me;
mighty bulls from Bashan encircle me.
13 They open their mouths at me
like a lion ripping and roaring!
14 I’m poured out like water.
All my bones have fallen apart.
My heart is like wax;
it melts inside me.
15 My strength is dried up
like a piece of broken pottery.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
you’ve set me down in the dirt of death.
16 Dogs surround me;
a pack of evil people circle me like a lion—
oh, my poor hands and feet!
17 I can count all my bones!
Meanwhile, they just stare at me, watching me.
18 They divvy up my garments among themselves;
they cast lots for my clothes.
19 But you, Lord! Don’t be far away!
You are my strength!
Come quick and help me!
20 Deliver me[a] from the sword.
Deliver my life from the power of the dog.
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion.
From the horns of the wild oxen
you have answered me!
22 I will declare your name to my brothers and sisters;
I will praise you in the very center of the congregation!
23 All of you who revere the Lord—praise him!
All of you who are Jacob’s descendants—honor him!
All of you who are all Israel’s offspring—
stand in awe of him!
24 Because he didn’t despise or detest
the suffering of the one who suffered—
he didn’t hide his face from me.
No, he listened when I cried out to him for help.
25 I offer praise in the great congregation
because of you;
I will fulfill my promises
in the presence of those who honor God.
26 Let all those who are suffering eat and be full!
Let all who seek the Lord praise him!
I pray your hearts live forever!
27 Every part of the earth
will remember and come back to the Lord;
every family among all the nations will worship you.
28 Because the right to rule belongs to the Lord,
he rules all nations.
29 Indeed, all the earth’s powerful
will worship him;[b]
all who are descending to the dust
will kneel before him;
my being also lives for him.[c]
30 Future descendants will serve him;
generations to come will be told about my Lord.
31 They will proclaim God’s righteousness
to those not yet born,
telling them what God has done.
Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible