M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Asa’s Last Years

16 In Asa’s 36th year as king,^[a] Baasha attacked Judah and then built up the city of Ramah to keep Asa from leaving Judah on any kind of military campaign. ² So Asa took gold and silver from the treasuries of the Lord’s Temple and the king’s palace. He gave it to his officials and sent them to King Ben-Hadad of Aram. Ben-Hadad was the son of Tabrimmon. Tabrimmon was the son of Hezion. Damascus was Ben-Hadad’s capital city. ³ Asa sent this message: “My father and your father had a peace agreement. Now I want to make a peace agreement with you. I am sending you this gift of gold and silver. Please break your treaty with King Baasha of Israel and make him leave us alone.”

⁴ King Ben-Hadad made that agreement with King Asa and sent his army to fight against the Israelite towns of Ijon, Dan, Abel Maim, and the storage cities in the area of Naphtali. ⁵ When Baasha heard about these attacks, he stopped building up Ramah and went back to Tirzah. He stopped all the work he was doing. ⁶ Then King Asa gave an order for all the men in Judah, with no exceptions. They had to go to Ramah and carry out all the stone and wood that Baasha was using to build up the city. They carried the material to Geba in Benjamin and to Mizpah and used it to strengthen those two cities.

⁷ At that time Hanani the seer came to King Asa of Judah and said to him, “Asa, you depended on the king of Aram to help you and not the Lord your God. That’s why the king’s army has escaped from you. ⁸ Did you forget what happened with the Ethiopians and the Libyans who also had a powerful army with many chariots and horse soldiers? That time you depended on the Lord to help you, and he let you defeat them. ⁹ The eyes of the Lord go around looking in all the earth for people who are faithful to him so that he can make them strong. Asa, you did a foolish thing. So from now on you will have wars.”

¹⁰ Asa was angry with Hanani because of what he said. He was so mad that he put Hanani in prison. He was also very rough and cruel to some of the people then.

¹¹ Everything Asa did, from the beginning to the end, is written in the book, The History of the Kings of Judah and Israel. ¹² Asa’s feet became infected in his 39th year as king.^[b] Even though the infection was very serious, Asa did not go to the Lord for help. He went to the doctors instead. ¹³ Asa died in the 41st year as king^[c] and rested with his ancestors. ¹⁴ The people buried Asa in his own tomb that he made for himself in the City of David. They laid him in a bed that was filled with spices and different kinds of mixed perfumes, and they burned a large fire for him.^[d]

Who Can Open the Scroll?

5 Then I saw a scroll in the right hand of the one sitting on the throne. The scroll had writing on both sides and was kept closed with seven seals. ² And I saw a powerful angel, who called in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” ³ But there was no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth who could open the scroll or look inside it. ⁴ I cried and cried because there was no one who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. ⁵ But one of the elders said to me, “Don’t cry! The Lion^[a] from the tribe of Judah has won the victory. He is David’s descendant. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

⁶ Then I saw a Lamb standing in the center near the throne with the four living beings around it. The elders were also around the Lamb. The Lamb looked as if it had been killed. It had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God that were sent into all the world. ⁷ The Lamb came and took the scroll from the right hand of the one sitting on the throne. ⁸ After the Lamb took the scroll, the four living beings and the 24 elders bowed down before the Lamb. Each one of them had a harp. Also, they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s holy people. ⁹ And they all sang a new song to the Lamb:

¹¹ Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels. The angels were around the throne, the four living beings, and the elders. There were thousands and thousands of angels—10,000 times 10,000. ¹² The angels said in a loud voice,

¹³ Then I heard every created being that is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, everything in all these places, saying,

¹⁴ The four living beings said, “Amen!” And the elders bowed down and worshiped.

The Lord Wants His People to Return

1 Zechariah son of Berekiah received a message from the Lord. This was in the eighth month of the second year that Darius^[a] was king in Persia. (Zechariah was the son of Berekiah, who was the son of Iddo the prophet.) This is that message:

² The Lord became very angry with your ancestors. ³ So you must tell the people what the Lord All-Powerful says, “Come back to me, says the Lord All-Powerful, and I will come back to you.” This is what the Lord All-Powerful said.

⁴ “Don’t be like your ancestors. In the past the prophets spoke to them and said, ‘The Lord All-Powerful wants you to change your evil way of living. Stop doing evil things!’ But your ancestors did not listen to me.” This is what the Lord said.

⁵ “Your ancestors are gone, and those prophets did not live forever. ⁶ The prophets were my servants. I used them to tell your ancestors about my laws and teachings. Your ancestors finally learned their lesson and said, ‘The Lord All-Powerful did what he said he would do. He punished us for the way we lived and for all the evil things we did.’ So they came back to God.”

The Four Horses

⁷ On the 24th day of the eleventh month (Shebat) of the second year that Darius was king of Persia, Zechariah received another message from the Lord. (This was Zechariah son of Berekiah, son of Iddo.) This is the message:

⁸ At night I saw a man riding a red horse. He was standing among some myrtle bushes in the valley. Behind him, there were red, brown, and white horses. ⁹ I said, “Sir, what are these horses for?”

Then the angel speaking to me said, “I will show you what these horses are for.”

¹⁰ Then the man standing among the myrtle bushes said, “The Lord sent these horses to go here and there on earth.”

¹¹ Then the horses spoke to the Lord’s angel standing among the myrtle bushes and said, “We have walked here and there on the earth, and everything is calm and quiet.”

¹² Then the Lord’s angel said, “Lord All-Powerful, how long before you comfort Jerusalem and the cities of Judah? You have shown your anger at these cities for 70 years now.”

¹³ Then the Lord answered the angel who was talking with me. He spoke good, comforting words.

¹⁴ Then the angel told me to tell the people this: The Lord All-Powerful says:

The Four Horns and Four Workers

¹⁸ Then I looked up and I saw four horns. ¹⁹ So I asked the angel who was talking with me, “What do these horns mean?”

He said, “These are the horns that forced the people of Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem to go to foreign countries.”

²⁰ The Lord showed me four workers. ²¹ I asked him, “What are these four workers coming to do?”

He said, “The horns represent the nations that attacked the people of Judah and forced them to go to foreign countries. The horns ‘threw’ the people of Judah to the foreign countries. The horns didn’t show mercy to anyone. But these four workers have come to frighten the horns and throw them away.”

Jesus Talks to a Woman in Samaria

4 Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard the report that he was making and baptizing more followers than John. ² (But really, Jesus himself did not baptize anyone; his followers baptized people for him.) ³ So he left Judea and went back to Galilee. ⁴ On the way to Galilee, he had to go through the country of Samaria.

⁵ In Samaria Jesus came to the town called Sychar, which is near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there. Jesus was tired from his long trip, so he sat down beside the well. It was about noon. ⁷ A Samaritan woman came to the well to get some water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” ⁸ This happened while his followers were in town buying some food.

⁹ The woman answered, “I am surprised that you ask me for a drink! You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman!” (Jews have nothing to do with Samaritans.^[a])

¹⁰ Jesus answered, “You don’t know what God can give you. And you don’t know who I am, the one who asked you for a drink. If you knew, you would have asked me, and I would have given you living water.”

¹¹ The woman said, “Sir, where will you get that living water? The well is very deep, and you have nothing to get water with. ¹² Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob? He is the one who gave us this well. He drank from it himself, and his sons and all his animals drank from it too.”

¹³ Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again. ¹⁴ But anyone who drinks the water I give will never be thirsty again. The water I give people will be like a spring flowing inside them. It will bring them eternal life.”

¹⁵ The woman said to Jesus, “Sir, give me this water. Then I will never be thirsty again and won’t have to come back here to get more water.”

¹⁶ Jesus told her, “Go get your husband and come back.”

¹⁷ The woman answered, “But I have no husband.”

Jesus said to her, “You are right to say you have no husband. ¹⁸ That’s because, although you have had five husbands, the man you live with now is not your husband. That much was the truth.”

¹⁹ The woman said, “Sir, I can see that you are a prophet.^{[b] 20} Our fathers worshiped on this mountain. But you Jews say that Jerusalem is the place where people must worship.”

²¹ Jesus said, “Believe me, woman! The time is coming when you will not have to be in Jerusalem or on this mountain to worship the Father. ²² You Samaritans worship something you don’t understand. We Jews understand what we worship, since salvation comes from the Jews. ²³ But the time is coming when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. In fact, that time is now here. And these are the kind of people the Father wants to be his worshipers. ²⁴ God is spirit. So the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

²⁵ The woman said, “I know that the Messiah is coming.” (He is the one called Christ.) “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶ Then Jesus said, “He is talking to you now—I am the Messiah.”

²⁷ Just then Jesus’ followers came back from town. They were surprised because they saw Jesus talking with a woman. But none of them asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸ Then the woman left her water jar and went back to town. She told the people there, ²⁹ “A man told me everything I have ever done. Come see him. Maybe he is the Messiah.” ³⁰ So the people left the town and went to see Jesus.

³¹ While the woman was in town, Jesus’ followers were begging him, “Teacher, eat something!”

³² But Jesus answered, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³ So the followers asked themselves, “Did someone already bring him some food?”

³⁴ Jesus said, “My food is to do what the one who sent me wants me to do. My food is to finish the work that he gave me to do. ³⁵ When you plant, you always say, ‘Four more months to wait before we gather the grain.’ But I tell you, open your eyes, and look at the fields. They are ready for harvesting now. ³⁶ Even now, the people who harvest the crop are being paid. They are gathering crops for eternal life. So now the people who plant can be happy together with those who harvest. ³⁷ It is true when we say, ‘One person plants, but another person harvests the crop.’ ³⁸ I sent you to harvest a crop that you did not work for. Others did the work, and you get the profit from their work.”

³⁹ Many of the Samaritan people in that town believed in Jesus. They believed because of what the woman had told them about him. She had told them, “He told me everything I have ever done.” ⁴⁰ The Samaritans went to Jesus. They begged him to stay with them. So he stayed there two days. ⁴¹ Many more people became believers because of the things he said.

⁴² The people said to the woman, “First we believed in Jesus because of what you told us. But now we believe because we heard him ourselves. We know now that he really is the one who will save the world.”

Jesus Heals an Official’s Son^(A)

⁴³ Two days later Jesus left and went to Galilee. ⁴⁴ (Jesus had said before that a prophet is not respected in his own country.) ⁴⁵ When he arrived in Galilee, the people there welcomed him. They had been at the Passover festival in Jerusalem and had seen everything he did there.

⁴⁶ Jesus went to visit Cana in Galilee again. Cana is where he had changed the water into wine. One of the king’s important officials lived in the city of Capernaum. This man’s son was sick. ⁴⁷ The man heard that Jesus had come from Judea and was now in Galilee. So he went to Jesus and begged him to come to Capernaum and heal his son, who was almost dead. ⁴⁸ Jesus said to him, “You people must see miraculous signs and wonders before you will believe in me.”

⁴⁹ The king’s official said, “Sir, come before my little son dies.”

⁵⁰ Jesus answered, “Go. Your son will live.”

The man believed what Jesus told him and went home. ⁵¹ On the way home, the man’s servants came and met him. They said, “Your son is well.”

⁵² The man asked, “What time did my son begin to get well?”

They answered, “It was about one o’clock yesterday when the fever left him.”

⁵³ The father knew that one o’clock was the same time that Jesus had said, “Your son will live.” So the man and everyone in his house believed in Jesus.

⁵⁴ That was the second miraculous sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.