M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

8 God remembered Noah, all those alive, and all the animals with him in the ark. God sent a wind over the earth so that the waters receded. ² The springs of the deep sea and the skies^[a] closed up. The skies held back the rain. ³ The waters receded gradually from the earth. After one hundred fifty days, the waters decreased; ⁴ and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day, the ark came to rest on the Ararat mountains. ⁵ The waters decreased gradually until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the mountain peaks appeared.

⁶ After forty days, Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made. ⁷ He sent out a raven, and it flew back and forth until the waters over the entire earth had dried up. ⁸ Then he sent out a dove to see if the waters on all of the fertile land had subsided, ⁹ but the dove found no place to set its foot. It returned to him in the ark since waters still covered the entire earth. Noah stretched out his hand, took it, and brought it back into the ark. ¹⁰ He waited seven more days and sent the dove out from the ark again. ¹¹ The dove came back to him in the evening, grasping a torn olive leaf in its beak. Then Noah knew that the waters were subsiding from the earth. ¹² He waited seven more days and sent out the dove, but it didn’t come back to him again. ¹³ In Noah’s six hundred first year, on the first day of the first month, the waters dried up from the earth. Noah removed the ark’s hatch and saw that the surface of the fertile land had dried up. ¹⁴ In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day, the earth was dry.

¹⁵ God spoke to Noah, ¹⁶ “Go out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷ Bring out with you all the animals of every kind—birds, livestock, everything crawling on the ground—so that they may populate the earth, be fertile, and multiply on the earth.” ¹⁸ So Noah went out of the ark with his sons, his wife, and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹ All the animals, all the livestock,^[b] all the birds, and everything crawling on the ground, came out of the ark by their families.

God’s promise for the earth

²⁰ Noah built an altar to the Lord. He took some of the clean large animals and some of the clean birds, and placed entirely burned offerings on the altar. ²¹ The Lord smelled the pleasing scent, and the Lord thought to himself, I will not curse the fertile land anymore because of human beings since the ideas of the human mind are evil from their youth. I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done.

A man with a skin disease

8 Now when Jesus had come down from the mountain, large crowds followed him. ² A man with a skin disease came, kneeled before him, and said, “Lord, if you want, you can make me clean.”

³ Jesus reached out his hand and touched him, saying, “I do want to. Become clean.” Instantly his skin disease was cleansed. ⁴ Jesus said to him, “Don’t say anything to anyone. Instead, go and show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded. This will be a testimony to them.”

Healing of the centurion’s servant

⁵ When Jesus went to Capernaum, a centurion approached, ⁶ pleading with him, “Lord, my servant is flat on his back at home, paralyzed, and his suffering is awful.”

⁷ Jesus responded, “I’ll come and heal him.”

⁸ But the centurion replied, “Lord, I don’t deserve to have you come under my roof. Just say the word and my servant will be healed. ⁹ I’m a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and the servant does it.”

¹⁰ When Jesus heard this, he was impressed and said to the people following him, “I say to you with all seriousness that even in Israel I haven’t found faith like this. ¹¹ I say to you that there are many who will come from east and west and sit down to eat with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. ¹² But the children of the kingdom will be thrown outside into the darkness. People there will be weeping and grinding their teeth.” ¹³ Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it will be done for you just as you have believed.” And his servant was healed that very moment.

Healing of many people

¹⁴ Jesus went home with Peter and saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. ¹⁵ He touched her hand, and the fever left her. Then she got up and served them. ¹⁶ That evening people brought to Jesus many who were demon-possessed. He threw the spirits out with just a word. He healed everyone who was sick. ¹⁷ This happened so that what Isaiah the prophet said would be fulfilled: He is the one who took our illnesses and carried away our diseases.^[a]

Discussions about following

¹⁸ Now when Jesus saw the crowd, he ordered his disciples to go over to the other side of the lake. ¹⁹ A legal expert came and said to him, “Teacher, I’ll follow you wherever you go.”

²⁰ Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens, and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Human One^[b] has no place to lay his head.”

²¹ Another man, one of his disciples, said to him, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

²² But Jesus said to him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”

Calming a storm

²³ When Jesus got into a boat, his disciples followed him. ²⁴ A huge storm arose on the lake so that waves were sloshing over the boat. But Jesus was asleep. ²⁵ They came and woke him, saying, “Lord, rescue us! We’re going to drown!”

²⁶ He said to them, “Why are you afraid, you people of weak faith?” Then he got up and gave orders to the winds and the lake, and there was a great calm.

²⁷ The people were amazed and said, “What kind of person is this? Even the winds and the lake obey him!”

Jesus frees demon-possessed men

²⁸ When Jesus arrived on the other side of the lake in the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed came from among the tombs to meet him. They were so violent that nobody could travel on that road. ²⁹ They cried out, “What are you going to do with us, Son of God? Have you come to torture us before the time of judgment?” ³⁰ Far off in the distance a large herd of pigs was feeding. ³¹ The demons pleaded with him, “If you throw us out, send us into the herd of pigs.”

³² Then he said to the demons, “Go away,” and they came out and went into the pigs. The whole herd rushed down the cliff into the lake and drowned. ³³ Those who tended the pigs ran into the city and told everything that had happened to the demon-possessed men. ³⁴ Then the whole city came out and met Jesus. When they saw him, they pleaded with him to leave their region.

8 These are the heads of the families, and this is the genealogy of those who went up with me during the rule of King Artaxerxes:

² of the family of Phinehas, Gershom; of Ithamar, Daniel; of David, Hattush, ³ Shecaniah’s son;^[a] of Parosh, Zechariah and with him were registered 150 men;

Voyage to Jerusalem

¹⁵ I gathered them by the river that runs to Ahava, and there we camped for three days.

As I reviewed the people and the priests, I found no Levites there. ¹⁶ So I called for Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah, and Meshullam, all leaders, together with Joiarib and Elnathan, who were wise. ¹⁷ I sent them^[d] to Iddo, the leader at the place named Casiphia, telling them what to say to Iddo and his colleagues the temple servants at Casiphia, namely, to send us ministers for God’s house. ¹⁸ Because we were favored by God, they brought us Sherebiah, a skillful man of the family of Mahli, Levi’s son and Israel’s grandson, together with his sons and relatives so that there were eighteen in total. ¹⁹ They also brought us Hashabiah and with him Jeshaiah of the family of Merari, together with his relatives and their sons so that there were twenty in total. ²⁰ In addition, there were two hundred twenty temple servants whom David and the princes had appointed to serve the Levites. These were all recorded by name.

²¹ Then I called for a fast there at the Ahava River so that we might submit before our God and ask of him a safe journey for ourselves, our children, and all our possessions. ²² I had been ashamed to ask the king for a group of soldiers and cavalry to help us in facing enemies on the way, because we had told the king, “The power of God favors all who seek him, but his fierce wrath is against all who abandon him.” ²³ So we fasted and prayed to our God for this, and he responded to us.

²⁴ Then I selected twelve of the leading priests, Sherebiah and Hashabiah and ten of their relatives with them. ²⁵ I weighed out to them the silver and the gold and the equipment, the offering for the house of our God that the king, his counselors, his officials, and all Israel present there had offered. ²⁶ I weighed out into their keeping six hundred fifty kikkars of silver, one hundred silver containers weighing a certain number of kikkars, one hundred kikkars of gold, ²⁷ twenty gold bowls worth one thousand darics, and two containers of highly polished copper, which were as precious as gold. ²⁸ I said to them, “You are holy to the Lord, and the equipment is holy; the silver and the gold are a spontaneous gift to the Lord, the God of your ancestors. ²⁹ Guard them carefully until you weigh them out in Jerusalem before the officials of the priests, the Levites, and the heads of the families of Israel, within the rooms of the Lord’s house.” ³⁰ So the priests and the Levites received the silver and the gold and the utensils as they were weighed out, in order to bring them to Jerusalem, to our God’s house.

³¹ Then we left the Ahava River on the twelfth day of the first month^[e] to go to Jerusalem. The power of our God was with us; he saved us from the power of the enemy and ambushes along the way.

Finishing the journey

³² After arriving in Jerusalem, we rested there three days. ³³ On the fourth day, the silver and the gold and the equipment were weighed out in our God’s house into the care of the priest named Meremoth, Uriah’s son, together with Eleazar, Phinehas’ son; and the Levites, Jozabad, Jeshua’s son, and Noadiah, Binnui’s son. ³⁴ Everything was counted and weighed, and the total weight was recorded.

³⁵ At that time, those who had come from the captivity, the returned exiles, offered as entirely burned offerings to the God of Israel twelve bulls for all Israel, ninety-six rams, seventy-seven lambs, and twelve male goats as a purification offering. All this was an entirely burned offering to the Lord. ³⁶ They also delivered the king’s orders to the royal chief administrators and governors of the province Beyond the River, who supported the people and God’s house.

8 ¹ Saul was in full agreement with Stephen’s murder.

The church scatters

At that time, the church in Jerusalem began to be subjected to vicious harassment. Everyone except the apostles was scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. ² Some pious men buried Stephen and deeply grieved over him. ³ Saul began to wreak havoc against the church. Entering one house after another, he would drag off both men and women and throw them into prison.

Philip in Samaria

⁴ Those who had been scattered moved on, preaching the good news along the way. ⁵ Philip went down to a city in Samaria^[a] and began to preach Christ to them. ⁶ The crowds were united by what they heard Philip say and the signs they saw him perform, and they gave him their undivided attention. ⁷ With loud shrieks, unclean spirits came out of many people, and many who were paralyzed or crippled were healed. ⁸ There was great rejoicing in that city.

⁹ Before Philip’s arrival, a certain man named Simon had practiced sorcery in that city and baffled the people of Samaria. He claimed to be a great person. ¹⁰ Everyone, from the least to the greatest, gave him their undivided attention and referred to him as “the power of God called Great.” ¹¹ He had their attention because he had baffled them with sorcery for a long time. ¹² After they came to believe Philip, who preached the good news about God’s kingdom and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. ¹³ Even Simon himself came to believe and was baptized. Afterward, he became one of Philip’s supporters. As he saw firsthand the signs and great miracles that were happening, he was astonished.

¹⁴ When word reached the apostles in Jerusalem that Samaria had accepted God’s word, they commissioned Peter and John to go to Samaria. ¹⁵ Peter and John went down to Samaria where they prayed that the new believers would receive the Holy Spirit. (¹⁶ This was because the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) ¹⁷ So Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

¹⁸ When Simon perceived that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money. ¹⁹ He said, “Give me this authority too so that anyone on whom I lay my hands will receive the Holy Spirit.”

²⁰ Peter responded, “May your money be condemned to hell along with you because you believed you could buy God’s gift with money! ²¹ You can have no part or share in God’s word because your heart isn’t right with God. ²² Therefore, change your heart and life! Turn from your wickedness! Plead with the Lord in the hope that your wicked intent can be forgiven, ²³ for I see that your bitterness has poisoned you and evil has you in chains.”

²⁴ Simon replied, “All of you, please, plead to the Lord for me so that nothing of what you have said will happen to me!” ²⁵ After the apostles had testified and proclaimed the Lord’s word, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the good news to many Samaritan villages along the way.

Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch

²⁶ An angel from the Lord spoke to Philip, “At noon, take^[b] the road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.) ²⁷ So he did. Meanwhile, an Ethiopian man was on his way home from Jerusalem, where he had come to worship. He was a eunuch and an official responsible for the entire treasury of Candace. (Candace is the title given to the Ethiopian queen.) ²⁸ He was reading the prophet Isaiah while sitting in his carriage. ²⁹ The Spirit told Philip, “Approach this carriage and stay with it.”

³⁰ Running up to the carriage, Philip heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you really understand what you are reading?”

³¹ The man replied, “Without someone to guide me, how could I?” Then he invited Philip to climb up and sit with him. ³² This was the passage of scripture he was reading:

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, about whom does the prophet say this? Is he talking about himself or someone else?” ³⁵ Starting with that passage, Philip proclaimed the good news about Jesus to him. ³⁶ As they went down the road, they came to some water.

The eunuch said, “Look! Water! What would keep me from being baptized?”^{[d] 38} He ordered that the carriage halt. Both Philip and the eunuch went down to the water, where Philip baptized him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Lord’s Spirit suddenly took Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing. ⁴⁰ Philip found himself in Azotus. He traveled through that area, preaching the good news in all the cities until he reached Caesarea.