M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
4 1-6 Here is a list of King Solomon’s cabinet members:
Azariah (son of Zadok) was the High Priest;
Elihoreph and Ahijah (sons of Shisha) were secretaries;
Jehoshaphat (son of Ahilud) was the official historian and in charge of the archives;
Benaiah (son of Jehoiada) was commander-in-chief of the army;
Zadok and Abiathar were priests;
Azariah (son of Nathan) was secretary of state;
Zabud (son of Nathan) was the king’s personal priest and special friend;
Ahishar was manager of palace affairs;
Adoniram (son of Abda) was superintendent of public works.
7 There were also twelve officials of Solomon’s court—one man from each tribe—responsible for requisitioning food from the people for the king’s household. Each of them arranged provisions for one month of the year.
8-19 The names of these twelve officers were:
Ben-hur, whose area for this taxation was the hill country of Ephraim;
Ben-deker, whose area was Makaz, Shaalbim, Beth-shemesh, and Elon-beth-hanan;
Ben-hesed, whose area was Arubboth, including Socoh and all the land of Hepher;
Ben-abinadab (who married Solomon’s daughter, the princess Taphath), whose area was the highlands of Dor;
Baana (son of Ahilud), whose area was Taanach and Megiddo, all of Beth-shean near Zarethan below Jezreel, and all the territory from Beth-shean to Abel-meholah and over to Jokmeam;
Ben-geber, whose area was Ramoth-gilead, including the villages of Jair (the son of Manasseh) in Gilead; and the region of Argob in Bashan, including sixty walled cities with bronze gates;
Ahinadab (the son of Iddo), whose area was Mahanaim;
Ahimaaz (who married Princess Basemath, another of Solomon’s daughters), whose area was Naphtali;
Baana (son of Hushai), whose areas were Asher and Bealoth;
Jehoshaphat (son of Paruah), whose area was Issachar;
Shimei (son of Ela), whose area was Benjamin;
Geber (son of Uri), whose area was Gilead, including the territories of King Sihon of the Amorites and King Og of Bashan.
A general manager supervised these officials and their work.
20 Israel and Judah were a wealthy, populous, contented nation at this time. 21 King Solomon ruled the whole area from the Euphrates River to the land of the Philistines and down to the borders of Egypt. The conquered peoples of those lands sent taxes to Solomon and continued to serve him throughout his lifetime.
22 The daily food requirements for the palace were 195 bushels of fine flour, 390 bushels of meal, 23 10 oxen from the fattening pens, 20 pasture-fed cattle, 100 sheep, and, from time to time, deer, gazelles, roebucks, and plump fowl.
24 His dominion extended over all the kingdoms west of the Euphrates River, from Tiphsah to Gaza. And there was peace throughout the land.
25 Throughout the lifetime of Solomon, all of Judah and Israel lived in peace and safety; and each family had its own home and garden.
26 Solomon owned forty thousand chariot horses and employed twelve thousand charioteers. 27 Each month the tax officials provided food for King Solomon and his court, 28 also the barley and straw for the royal horses in the stables.
29 God gave Solomon great wisdom and understanding, and a mind with broad interests. 30 In fact, his wisdom excelled that of any of the wise men of the East, including those in Egypt. 31 He was wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and he was famous among all the surrounding nations. 32 He was the author of 3,000 proverbs and wrote 1,005 songs. 33 He was a great naturalist, with interest in animals, birds, snakes, fish, and trees—from the great cedars of Lebanon down to the tiny hyssop which grows in cracks in the wall. 34 And kings from many lands sent their ambassadors to him for his advice.
5 King Hiram of Tyre had always been a great admirer of David, so when he learned that David’s son Solomon was the new king of Israel, he sent ambassadors to extend congratulations and good wishes. 2-3 Solomon replied with a proposal about the Temple of the Lord he wanted to build. His father David, Solomon pointed out to Hiram, had not been able to build it because of the numerous wars going on, and he had been waiting for the Lord to give him peace.
4 “But now,” Solomon said to Hiram, “the Lord my God has given Israel peace on every side; I have no foreign enemies or internal rebellions. 5 So I am planning to build a Temple for the Lord my God, just as he instructed my father that I should do. For the Lord told him, ‘Your son, whom I will place upon your throne, shall build me a Temple.’ 6 Now please assist me with this project. Send your woodsmen to the mountains of Lebanon to cut cedar timber for me, and I will send my men to work beside them, and I will pay your men whatever wages you ask; for as you know, no one in Israel can cut timber like you Sidonians!”
7 Hiram was very pleased with the message from Solomon. “Praise God for giving David a wise son to be king of the great nation of Israel,” he said. 8 Then he sent this reply to Solomon: “I have received your message and I will do as you have asked concerning the timber. I can supply both cedar and cypress. 9 My men will bring the logs from the Lebanon mountains to the Mediterranean Sea and build them into rafts. We will float them along the coast to wherever you need them; then we will break the rafts apart and deliver the timber to you. You can pay me with food for my household.”
10 So Hiram produced for Solomon as much cedar and cypress timber as he desired, 11 and in return Solomon sent him an annual payment of 125,000 bushels of wheat for his household and 96 gallons of pure olive oil. 12 So the Lord gave great wisdom to Solomon just as he had promised. And Hiram and Solomon made a formal alliance of peace.
13 Then Solomon drafted thirty thousand laborers from all over Israel, 14 and rotated them to Lebanon, ten thousand a month, so that each man was a month in Lebanon and two months at home. Adoniram was the general superintendent of this labor camp. 15 Solomon also had seventy thousand additional laborers, eighty thousand stonecutters in the hill country, 16 and thirty-three hundred foremen. 17 The stonecutters quarried and shaped huge blocks of stone—a very expensive job—for the foundation of the Temple. 18 Men from Gebal helped Solomon’s and Hiram’s builders in cutting the timber and making the boards, and in preparing the stone for the Temple.
2 Once you were under God’s curse, doomed forever for your sins. 2 You went along with the crowd and were just like all the others, full of sin, obeying Satan, the mighty prince of the power of the air, who is at work right now in the hearts of those who are against the Lord. 3 All of us used to be just as they are, our lives expressing the evil within us, doing every wicked thing that our passions or our evil thoughts might lead us into. We started out bad, being born with evil natures, and were under God’s anger just like everyone else.
4 But God is so rich in mercy; he loved us so much 5 that even though we were spiritually dead and doomed by our sins, he gave us back our lives again[a] when he raised Christ from the dead—only by his undeserved favor have we ever been saved— 6 and lifted us up from the grave into glory along with Christ, where we sit with him in the heavenly realms—all because of what Christ Jesus did. 7 And now God can always point to us as examples of how very, very rich his kindness is, as shown in all he has done for us through Jesus Christ.
8 Because of his kindness, you have been saved through trusting Christ. And even trusting is not of yourselves;[b] it too is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good we have done, so none of us can take any credit for it. 10 It is God himself who has made us what we are and given us new lives from Christ Jesus; and long ages ago he planned that we should spend these lives in helping others.
11 Never forget that once you were heathen and that you were called godless and “unclean” by the Jews. (But their hearts, too, were still unclean, even though they were going through the ceremonies and rituals of the godly, for they circumcised themselves as a sign of godliness.) 12 Remember that in those days you were living utterly apart from Christ; you were enemies of God’s children, and he had promised you no help. You were lost, without God, without hope.
13 But now you belong to Christ Jesus, and though you once were far away from God, now you have been brought very near to him because of what Jesus Christ has done for you with his blood.
14 For Christ himself is our way of peace. He has made peace between us Jews and you Gentiles by making us all one family,[c] breaking down the wall of contempt that used to separate us. 15 By his death he ended the angry resentment between us, caused by the Jewish laws that favored the Jews and excluded the Gentiles, for he died to annul that whole system of Jewish laws. Then he took the two groups that had been opposed to each other and made them parts of himself; thus he fused us together to become one new person, and at last there was peace. 16 As parts of the same body, our anger against each other has disappeared, for both of us have been reconciled to God. And so the feud ended at last at the cross. 17 And he has brought this Good News of peace to you Gentiles who were very far away from him, and to us Jews who were near. 18 Now all of us, whether Jews or Gentiles, may come to God the Father with the Holy Spirit’s help because of what Christ has done for us.
19 Now you are no longer strangers to God and foreigners to heaven, but you are members of God’s very own family, citizens of God’s country, and you belong in God’s household with every other Christian.
20 What a foundation you stand on now: the apostles and the prophets; and the cornerstone of the building is Jesus Christ himself! 21 We who believe are carefully joined together with Christ as parts of a beautiful, constantly growing temple for God. 22 And you also are joined with him and with each other by the Spirit and are part of this dwelling place of God.
35 Again a message came from the Lord. He said:
2 “Son of dust, face toward Mount Seir and prophesy against the people saying, 3 ‘The Lord God says: I am against you, and I will smash you with my fist and utterly destroy you. 4-5 Because you hate my people Israel, I will demolish your cities and make you desolate, and then you shall know I am the Lord. You butchered my people when they were helpless, when I had punished them for all their sins. 6 As I live, the Lord God says, since you enjoy blood so much, I will give you a blood bath—your turn has come! 7 I will utterly wipe out the people of Mount Seir, killing off all those who try to escape and all those who return. 8 I will fill your mountains with the dead—your hills, your valleys, and your rivers will be filled with those the sword has killed. 9 Never again will you revive. You will be abandoned forever; your cities will never be rebuilt. Then you shall know I am the Lord.
10 “‘For you said, “Both Israel and Judah shall be mine. We will take possession of them. What do we care that God is there!” 11 Therefore as I live, the Lord God says, I will pay back your angry deeds with mine—I will punish you for all your acts of envy and of hate. And I will honor my name in Israel by what I do to you. 12 And you shall know that I have heard each evil word you spoke against the Lord, saying, “His people are helpless; they are food for us to eat!” 13 Saying that, you boasted great words against the Lord. And I have heard them all!
14 “‘The whole world will rejoice when I make you desolate. 15 You rejoiced at Israel’s fearful fate. Now I will rejoice at yours! You will be wiped out, O people of Mount Seir and all who live in Edom! And then you will know I am the Lord!’
85 Lord, you have poured out amazing blessings on this land! You have restored the fortunes of Israel,[a] 2 and forgiven the sins of your people—yes, covered over each one, 3 so that all your wrath, your blazing anger, is now ended.
4 Now bring us back to loving you,[b] O Lord, so that your anger will never need rise against us again. 5 (Or will you be always angry—on and on to distant generations?) 6 Oh, revive us! Then your people can rejoice in you again. 7 Pour out your love and kindness on us, Lord, and grant us your salvation.
8 I am listening carefully to all the Lord is saying—for he speaks peace to his people, his saints, if they will only stop their sinning. 9 Surely his salvation is near to those who reverence him; our land will be filled with his glory.
10 Mercy and truth have met together. Grim justice[c] and peace have kissed! 11 Truth rises from the earth, and righteousness smiles down from heaven.
12 Yes, the Lord pours down his blessings on the land, and it yields its bountiful crops. 13 Justice goes before him to make a pathway for his steps.[d]
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.