M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Samuel rejects Saul’s kingship

15 Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his people Israel. Listen now to the Lord’s words! ² This is what the Lord of heavenly forces says: I am going to punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel: how they attacked the Israelites as they came up from Egypt. ³ So go! Attack the Amalekites; put everything that belongs to them under the ban.^[a] Spare no one. Kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and donkeys.”

⁴ Saul called out the troops and counted them at Telaim: two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand more troops from Judah. ⁵ Then Saul advanced on the Amalekite city and laid an ambush in the valley. ⁶ Saul told the Kenites, “Get going! Leave the Amalekites immediately because you showed kindness to the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. Otherwise, I’ll destroy you right along with them.” So the Kenites left the Amalekites. ⁷ Then Saul attacked the Amalekites from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is near Egypt. ⁸ He captured Agag the Amalekite king alive, but Saul placed all the people under the ban, killing them with the sword. ⁹ Saul and the troops spared Agag along with the best sheep, cattle, fattened calves,^[b] lambs, and everything of value. They weren’t willing to put them under the ban; but anything that was despised or of no value^[c] they placed under the ban.

¹⁰ Then the Lord’s word came to Samuel: ¹¹ “I regret making Saul king because he has turned away from following me and hasn’t done what I said.” Samuel was upset at this, and he prayed to the Lord all night long.

¹² Samuel got up early in the morning to meet Saul, and was told, “Saul went to Carmel, where he is setting up a monument for himself. Then he left and went down to Gilgal.”

¹³ When Samuel reached Saul,^[d] Saul greeted him, “The Lord bless you! I have done what the Lord said.”

¹⁴ “Then what,” Samuel asked, “is this bleating of sheep in my ears and mooing of cattle I hear?”

¹⁵ “They were taken from the Amalekites,” Saul said, “because the troops spared the best sheep and cattle in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God. The rest was placed under the ban.”

¹⁶ Samuel then said to Saul, “Enough! Let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.”

“Tell me,” Saul replied.

¹⁷ Samuel said, “Even if you think you are insignificant, aren’t you the leader of Israel’s tribes? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. ¹⁸ The Lord sent you on a mission, instructing you, ‘Go, and put the sinful Amalekites under the ban. Fight against them until you’ve wiped them out.’ ¹⁹ Why didn’t you obey the Lord? You did evil in the Lord’s eyes when you tore into the plunder!”

²⁰ “But I did obey the Lord!” Saul protested to Samuel. “I went on the mission the Lord sent me on. I captured Agag the Amalekite king, and I put the Amalekites under the ban. ²¹ Yes, the troops took sheep and cattle from the plunder—the very best items placed under the ban—but in order to sacrifice them to the Lord your God at Gilgal.”

²² Then Samuel replied,

²⁴ Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned because I disobeyed the Lord’s command and your instructions. I was afraid of the troops and obeyed them. ²⁵ But now please forgive my sin! Come back with me, so I can worship the Lord.”

²⁶ But Samuel said to Saul, “I can’t^[f] return with you because you have rejected what the Lord said, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.”

²⁷ Samuel turned to leave, but Saul grabbed at the edge of his robe, and it ripped. ²⁸ Then Samuel told him, “The Lord has ripped the kingdom of Israel from you today. He will give it to a friend of yours, someone who is more worthy than you. ²⁹ What’s more, the enduring one of Israel doesn’t take back what he says and doesn’t change his mind. He is not a human being who would change his mind.”

³⁰ “I have sinned,” Saul said, “but please honor me in front of my people’s elders and before Israel, and come back with me so I can worship the Lord your God.” ³¹ So Samuel went back with Saul, and Saul worshipped the Lord.

³² “Bring me Agag the Amalekite king,” Samuel said.

Agag came to him in chains, asking, “Would death have been as bitter as this is?”^[g]

³³ Samuel said, “Just as your sword left women without their children, now your mother will be childless among women.” Then Samuel cut Agag to pieces in the Lord’s presence at Gilgal.

³⁴ Then Samuel went to Ramah, but Saul went up to his home in Gibeah. ³⁵ Samuel never saw Saul again before he died, but he grieved over Saul. However, the Lord regretted making Saul king over Israel.

13 Every person should place themselves under the authority of the government. There isn’t any authority unless it comes from God, and the authorities that are there have been put in place by God. ² So anyone who opposes the authority is standing against what God has established. People who take this kind of stand will get punished. ³ The authorities don’t frighten people who are doing the right thing. Rather, they frighten people who are doing wrong. Would you rather not be afraid of authority? Do what’s right, and you will receive its approval. ⁴ It is God’s servant given for your benefit. But if you do what’s wrong, be afraid because it doesn’t have weapons to enforce the law for nothing. It is God’s servant put in place to carry out his punishment on those who do what is wrong. ⁵ That is why it is necessary to place yourself under the government’s authority, not only to avoid God’s punishment but also for the sake of your conscience. ⁶ You should also pay taxes for the same reason, because the authorities are God’s assistants, concerned with this very thing. ⁷ So pay everyone what you owe them. Pay the taxes you owe, pay the duties you are charged, give respect to those you should respect, and honor those you should honor.

⁸ Don’t be in debt to anyone, except for the obligation to love each other. Whoever loves another person has fulfilled the Law. ⁹ The commandments, Don’t commit adultery, don’t murder, don’t steal, don’t desire what others have,^[a] and any other commandments, are all summed up in one word: You must love your neighbor as yourself.^{[b] 10} Love doesn’t do anything wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is what fulfills the Law.

The day is near

¹¹ As you do all this, you know what time it is. The hour has already come for you to wake up from your sleep. Now our salvation is nearer than when we first had faith. ¹² The night is almost over, and the day is near. So let’s get rid of the actions that belong to the darkness and put on the weapons of light. ¹³ Let’s behave appropriately as people who live in the day, not in partying and getting drunk, not in sleeping around and obscene behavior, not in fighting and obsession. ¹⁴ Instead, dress yourself with the Lord Jesus Christ, and don’t plan to indulge your selfish desires.

Rule of Zedekiah and the fall of Jerusalem

52 Zedekiah was 21 years old when he became king, and he ruled for eleven years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Hamutal; she was a daughter of Jeremiah from Libnah. ² He did evil in the Lord’s eyes just as Jehoiachin had done. ³ It was because the Lord was angry against Jerusalem and Judah that he thrust them out of his presence. Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

⁴ In the ninth year, the tenth month, and the tenth day of the month, Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem with all of his army. He camped beside the city and built a siege wall around it. ⁵ The city was under siege until the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. ⁶ On the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city reached a point that no food remained for the people. ⁷ The enemy entered the city, and all the soldiers fled by night along the gate between the two walls by the royal gardens. So the Babylonians surrounded the city while the soldiers fled toward the desert plain. ⁸ However, the Babylonian army chased down Zedekiah and caught him in the plains of Jericho. (His entire army had fled from him.) ⁹ They arrested the king and brought him before the king of Babylon at Riblah in the land of Hamath. And he pronounced sentence on him. ¹⁰ The king of Babylon slaughtered Zedekiah’s children before his very own eyes, and he slaughtered all Judah’s officers at Riblah. ¹¹ Then he gouged out Zedekiah’s eyes and bound him in chains. The king of Babylon dragged him off to Babylon and put him in prison, where he remained until he died.

¹² In the tenth day of the fifth month, which was the nineteenth year of Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuzaradan commander of the guard came to Jerusalem on behalf of his king. ¹³ He burned down the Lord’s temple, the royal palace, all the houses of Jerusalem, and all the important buildings. ¹⁴ The entire Babylonian army and the commander of the guard destroyed the walls surrounding Jerusalem. ¹⁵ Nebuzaradan commander of the guard deported some of the poorest people, the rest of the people left in the city, a few skilled workers, and those who had joined the king of Babylon. ¹⁶ But Nebuzaradan commander of the guard left some of the poor to tend the vineyards and till the land.

¹⁷ The Babylonians broke apart the bronze columns, the stands, and the bronze Sea in the Lord’s temple. They carried the bronze to Babylon. ¹⁸ They took the pots, the shovels, the wick trimmers, the sprinkling bowls, the incense dishes, and all the bronze equipment used for the temple services. ¹⁹ The commander of the guard took whatever gold or silver he could find as well: the small bowls, the fire pans, the sprinkling bowls, the pots, the lampstands, the basins, and the offering bowls. ²⁰ There was too much bronze to be weighed: two columns, the bronze Sea and the twelve bronze bulls that held it up, and the stands, all of which Solomon had made for the Lord’s temple. ²¹ Each column was about twenty-seven feet high and eighteen feet around. They were hollow, but the bronze was about three inches thick. ²² Each had a capital of bronze above it that towered seven and a half feet high, and each had an ornate design of bronze pomegranates around it. The second column was the same, also with pomegranates. ²³ There were ninety-six pomegranates on the sides, a total of one hundred pomegranates around the ornate design.

²⁴ The commander of the guard also took Seraiah the high priest, Zephaniah the deputy priest, and the three doorkeepers. ²⁵ From the city, he took a eunuch who was appointed over the army and the seven royal advisors who remained in the city. He also took the scribe of the commander of the army in charge of military conscription and sixty military personnel^[a] who were found in the city. ²⁶ Nebuzaradan the commander of the guard took them and brought them to the king of Babylon at Riblah. ²⁷ The king of Babylon struck them and put them to death at Riblah in the land of Hamath. And Judah went away from its land into exile.

²⁸ This is the number of people whom Nebuchadnezzar deported: In the seventh year, 3,023 Judeans. ²⁹ In the eighteenth year of Nebuchadnezzar, he took 832 people from Jerusalem. ³⁰ In the twenty-third year of Nebuchadnezzar, he dispatched Nebuzaradan commander of the guard, who deported 745 Judeans. Altogether, 4,600 were taken captive.

³¹ Judah’s King Jehoiachin had been in exile for thirty-seven years when Awil-merodach^[b] became king in Babylon. He took note of Jehoiachin’s plight and released him from prison on the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth month^[c] of that very year. ³² Awil-merodach treated Jehoiachin kindly and gave him a throne higher than those of the other kings with him in Babylon. ³³ So Jehoiachin discarded his prison clothes and ate his meals at the king’s table for the rest of his life. ³⁴ The Babylonian king provided him daily provisions for the rest of his life, right up until he died.

Psalm 31

For the music leader. A psalm of David.