M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
9 God spoke a blessing over Noah and his sons.
Eternal One: Be fruitful, multiply, and populate the earth! 2 All the animals on the earth, all the birds in the sky, all the creatures that creep along the ground, and all the fish of the sea will now be afraid and run from you; they have been handed over to you. 3 Every living thing that moves will be available to you as food. Just as I once gave you the green plants to eat, I now give you everything. 4 But listen carefully: Do not eat any meat with its life-blood still in it. 5 More than that, do not spill the blood of any human. If anyone spills your blood, I will hold him responsible. It makes no difference whether it is a man or an animal, both will be accountable to Me! If someone murders a fellow human being, then I will require his life in return.
6 Whoever sheds the blood of a human,
that person’s blood will be shed in return by another
for God made humanity in His own image.
7 Now all of you, be fruitful and multiply; spread out and populate the earth.
All life is sacred. Human life is especially so. Protecting it is of utmost importance to God. He takes this so seriously and personally because He made humanity to reflect Him. We are His earthly representatives, made in His image. To murder another person is to mount an attack on the One who created him.
8 But God was not finished. He had more to say both to Noah and his sons.
Eternal One: 9 Look, for I am now going to make a pact, a special covenant, with you and all your descendants. 10 This covenant also extends to every living creature in the world—the birds, the domesticated animals, and every wild animal on the earth—as many as emerged with you from the ark. 11 As part of this covenant, I promise you I will never again wipe out all living flesh by means of flooding waters. Never again will a flood destroy the earth. 12 As a sign of this perpetual covenant I now make between Me and you and all living creatures along with you, as well as all future generations, 13 I will hang a rainbow among the clouds. It will serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. 14 And from now on, whenever a cloud rises over the earth and a rainbow appears in the sky, 15 I will remember My covenant—My promise I have made between Me and you and all living creatures. No waters will ever again turn into a flood powerful enough to destroy all living creatures. 16 When that rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember this eternal covenant I have made with all living creatures.
17 Look for the rainbow, and remember My promise. With it I sign the covenant I have made between Me and all the living creatures residing on the earth.
18 Now Noah’s sons who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham, by the way, was the father of Canaan.) 19 Yes, these three, Noah’s sons, went on to populate the entire earth.
20 Now Noah became a farmer and decided to plant a vineyard. 21 One day he drank too much of the wine he had made and fell into a deep, drunken sleep in his tent. As he lay there stark naked, 22 Ham (the father of Canaan) peeked in and saw his father’s exposed body. After leaving the tent, he told his two brothers what he had seen. 23 So Shem and Japheth took a large cloak and laid it across their shoulders, and they walked backward into the tent. They never looked behind, as they covered their father’s nakedness. Out of respect, they purposely kept their faces turned away, so they wouldn’t see their father lying there naked. 24 When Noah regained consciousness and realized what his youngest son had done, 25 he uttered this curse:
Noah: A curse upon your son, Canaan!
May he become the lowest of servants to his brothers.
26 May the Eternal One, the God of Shem, be blessed,
and let Canaan be his slave!
27 May God make plenty of room for Japheth’s family
and give them homes among Shem’s tents.
And let Canaan be his slave also!
Noah’s words are not idle words. As the story unfolds, the importance of this curse becomes clear. But as the ancients knew, and we now have forgotten, words have power. It was with a word that God created the heavens above and the earth below. Now Noah’s words create a new reality, a harsh reality for Ham and his children.
28 From the time the flood was over, Noah lived another 350 years. 29 In all, Noah lived 950 years, and then he died.
10 Here is the account of the descendants of Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, who fathered many children after the flood.
2 The descendants of Japheth were Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3 Now the descendants of Gomer were Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. 4 The descendants of Javan were Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 5 The descendants of Japheth became the peoples who settled the coastal and island regions. They developed their own languages, their own families and cultures, and they would eventually become separate peoples.
6 The descendants of Ham were Cush, Mizraim, Put, and Canaan. 7 Cush’s descendants were Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The descendants of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush also fathered Nimrod, who was the first man on earth to be known as a powerful warrior. 9 He was also a skillful hunter before the Eternal One. That’s why you often hear people say, “So-and-so is like Nimrod, a skillful hunter before the Eternal.” 10 The center of his kingdom was in Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh; all are located in the land of Shinar. 11 From there, he traveled into Assyria and established the cities of Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, 12 and Resen, which lies between Nineveh and Calah—and that is one magnificent city! 13 Now Mizraim fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, 14 Pathrusim, Casluhim (the ancestor of the people known as the Philistines), and Caphtorim.
15 Canaan fathered Sidon (his firstborn), Heth, 16 the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Soon all of the families of Canaan’s descendants would spread abroad. 19 As a result, the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar all the way to Gaza; and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim all the way to Lasha. 20 All of these are descendants of Ham, who grew from a few initial families into a great people with their own languages, lands, and nations.
21 Now Shem (Japheth’s older brother) fathered a great number of children as well. He was the patriarch of all of the people of Eber. 22 His descendants include Elam, Asshur, Arpachshad, Lud, and Aram. 23 Aram’s descendants were Uz, Hul, Gether, and Mash. 24 Now Arpachshad fathered Shelah, and Shelah fathered Eber. 25 Eber had two sons: one was named Peleg, which means “division,” because in his days, the earth was divided into many languages, and his brother’s name was Joktan. 26 Joktan fathered Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 29 Ophir, Havilah, and Jobab. All of these peoples were descended from Joktan. 30 They lived in the territory that extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar to the eastern hill country. 31 Shem’s descendants also grew from a few initial families to become a great people with their own languages, lands, and nations.
32 So these are the families descended from Noah’s sons according to their known genealogies. These cultures would soon spread farther and farther across the earth after the flood.
9 He got back in the boat, crossed the sea, and returned to His own town. 2 When He got there, some men approached Him carrying a mat. On the mat was another man, a paralytic. The men evidently believed that Jesus could heal the paralytic, and Jesus saw their faith, how much faith they had in His authority and power.
Jesus: Rest assured, My son; your sins are forgiven.
3 Now some scribes and teachers of the law had been watching this whole scene.
Scribes and Teachers (to themselves): This man is blaspheming!
4 Though they had only spoken in low whispers among themselves, Jesus knew their thoughts.
Jesus: Why do you hold such hardness and wickedness in your hearts? 5 Look, is it easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or “Get up and walk”? 6 To make clear that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins (turning to the paralytic man on the mat), Get up, pick up your mat, and go home.
7 And the man did. 8 When the crowd saw this, they were amazed, even a little scared, and they praised God who had given humans the authority to do such miraculous things.
9 Later Jesus was walking along and He saw a man named Matthew sitting in the tax collector’s office.
Jesus (to Matthew): Follow Me.
Matthew got up and followed Him.
10 Once when He ate a meal at home with His disciples, a whole host of tax collectors and other sinners joined them. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked Jesus’ disciples,
Pharisees: Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?
Jesus (overhearing this): 12 Look, who needs a doctor—healthy people or sick people? 13 I am not here to attend to people who are already right with God; I am here to attend to sinners. In the book of the prophet Hosea, we read, “It is not sacrifice I want, but mercy.”[a] Go and meditate on that for a while—maybe you’ll come to understand it.
14 And then some of the disciples of John came.
John’s Disciples: What’s the story with fasting? We fast and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast!
Jesus: 15 When you celebrate—as at a wedding when one’s dearest friend is getting married—you do not fast. The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them. Then My friends and followers will fast. 16 You would begin by washing and shrinking a patch you would use to mend a garment—otherwise, the patch would shrink later, pull away from the garment, and make the original tear even worse. 17 You wouldn’t pour new wine into old wineskins. If you did, the skins would burst, the wine would run out, and the wineskins would be ruined. No, you would pour new wine into new wineskins—and both the wine and the wineskins would be preserved.
18 As He was saying these things, a certain official came before Jesus and knelt in front of Him.
Official: My daughter just died. Would You come and lay Your hands on her? Then, I know, she would live again.
19 Jesus got up, and He and His disciples went with the man. 20-21 But as they were heading to the man’s house, a woman who had been hemorrhaging and bleeding for 12 years—12 years!—crept up behind Jesus.
She evidently believes that if she so much as touches the fringes of His cloak, she will be healed.
And so she came up behind Him and touched His cloak. 22 Jesus turned around and saw her.
Jesus: Take heart, daughter. Your faith has healed you.
And indeed, from that moment, the woman was healed. 23 Then Jesus went to the official’s house. He saw flute players and mourners.
Jesus (to the crowd): 24 Go away, and do your ministering somewhere else. This girl is not dead. She is merely asleep.
The crowd—who knew with certainty that the girl was dead—laughed at Him. 25 But they obeyed Him and left the house, and once they were gone, Jesus went to the girl. When He took her hand, she opened her eyes and stood up. 26 When the crowds outside learned that the girl was indeed alive, they spread throughout the town and the surrounding country telling everyone what had happened.
27 Jesus left the official’s house. And as He was walking, two blind men began to follow Him.
Blind Men: Son of David! Have mercy on us!
28 Jesus went to their house, and the blind men sat in front of Him.
Jesus: Do you believe that I am able to do this?
Blind Men: Yes, Lord.
Faith in Jesus and His power is essential for healing, so it isn’t surprising that all it takes is Jesus’ touch to heal these men.
Jesus (touching their eyes): 29 According to your faith, it will be done to you.
30 And they could see. Then Jesus spoke to them as He had spoken to the leper.
Jesus: Don’t tell anyone about this.
31 But when the men (who could now see) left, they told everyone in the area they met what had happened.
32 Later a man who was possessed by demons and could not talk was brought to Jesus. 33 Jesus drove out the demons, and the mute man spoke. The crowds were amazed.
Crowd: Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.
Pharisees: 34 It must be the prince of demons who gives Him the power to cast out demons.
35 Jesus went through many towns and villages. He taught in their synagogues. He preached the good news of the kingdom of God. He healed every disease and sickness. 36 Whenever crowds came to Him, He had compassion for them because they were so deeply distraught, malaised, and heart-broken. They seemed to Him like lost sheep without a shepherd. 37 Jesus understood what an awesome task was before Him, so He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. 38 Ask the Lord of the harvest to send more workers into His harvest field.”
If Ezra expects to retain the support of the Persian king, he has to obey Artaxerxes’ four commands. Within five months, Ezra completes the first two demands—he leads the Jews to Jerusalem, and he delivers all the offerings to the temple. His obedience to Artaxerxes is matched by the governors’ obedience: they agree to support financially the Jews’ efforts at reestablishing their nation.
Now that Ezra has addressed the religious situation in Jerusalem, he can tend to the legal situation as Artaxerxes requested. Ezra still needs to investigate how the Jews are practicing the law and appoint judges and teachers for the nation.
9 1-2 After we had returned to Jerusalem, made our offerings to Him, and begun to settle, the leaders notified me of a legal problem.
Jewish Leaders: The Israelites, priests, Levites, and even our chiefs have intermarried with the daughters of non-Jews and adopted the cultures of the Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Jebusites, Ammonites, Moabites, Egyptians, and Amorites. By mixing our families with theirs through marriage, our lineage is no longer pure, and the officials and rulers have been the worst offenders.
The law does not forbid foreign marriages to keep bloodlines pure; it forbids them for religious reasons. David’s own ancestor, Ruth, was a Moabite. This marriage was blessed because Ruth converted to the religion of Israel and was no longer considered an outsider by God. In spite of this success, Israel’s history is a strong precedent against foreign marriages because more often than not, foreign marriages end badly. The great King Solomon was influenced by his Egyptian bride; Ahab (of the Northern Kingdom) completely dissociated himself from God in favor of his wife, Jezebel, and her gods. Such marriages tend to lead God’s followers away from His path—and that is the real tragedy.
3 When I heard their story, I mourned for the Jews as if the nation were dead: I ripped my clothes, I ripped hair from my head and chin, and I sat in stunned silence 4 until the evening offering. All those who obeyed the True God of Israel’s words and recognized the unfaithfulness of their neighbors joined me.
5 At the evening offering, I stopped mourning with the people and turned my attention to God. In my torn garments, I knelt before Him and stretched out my hands to the Eternal God.
Ezra’s Prayer: 6 O my True God, witness my shame and embarrassment as I appeal to You. My True God, our sins are so great that they have flooded over us, and they have reached to the heavens. 7 Our people are chronic sinners, our sin is greater than we could have imagined, and You have tried to correct our behavior by subjecting our kings and our priests to death, captivity, theft, and shame by foreign rulers. Those pagans continue to rule us today. 8 Even though You, our Eternal God, have shown Your grace by preserving a remnant and by giving us a secure hold in Your holy place, may You, our God, brighten our eyes and grant us assurance even in our bondage to the Persian rulers. 9 We are still their slaves. In this bondage, You, our True God, have not forgotten us; Your loyal love inspired the kings of Persia to allow us to rebuild Your house and the walls to provide protection in Judah and Jerusalem.
10 But in spite of Your love, we have abandoned Your commands, and we have no excuse. 11 You warned us through Your servants, the prophets, that the land of Canaan was polluted with pagans, that their evil actions had removed anything pure or good there, even filling up the land from end to end with horrible practices. 12 You warned us not to marry our children to theirs, to seek treaties with them, or to covet their prosperity so that we would remain strong as a nation and as individuals, eating good foods from the earth and leaving that earth to Your children always.
13 In spite of Your mercy toward us—You, our True God, did not punish us as much as our obvious guilt and our evil actions required and have freed these exiles— 14 once again we have ignored Your commands. We married pagans and have taken on their horrible practices, knowing that Your anger would motivate You to destroy every last Jew without leaving any remnant people.
15 Eternal God of Israel, You are righteous and justified in everything You do. Today we are nothing but the preserved remnant who escaped Your wrath, and today we confess our guilt. None of us should be able to stand and be acquitted before You.
9 Back to Saul—this fuming, raging, hateful man who wanted to kill every last one of the Lord’s disciples: he went to the high priest in Jerusalem 2 for authorization to purge all the synagogues in Damascus of followers of the way of Jesus.[a] His plan was to arrest and chain any of Jesus’ followers—women as well as men—and transport them back to Jerusalem. 3 He traveled north toward Damascus with a group of companions.
Imagine this: Suddenly a light flashes from the sky around Saul, 4 and he falls to the ground at the sound of a voice.
The Lord: Saul, Saul, why are you attacking Me?
Saul: 5 Lord, who are You?
Then he hears these words:
The Lord: I am Jesus. I am the One you are attacking. 6 Get up. Enter the city. You will learn there what you are to do.
These are shocking, unexpected words that will change his life forever.
7 His other traveling companions just stand there, paralyzed, speechless because they, too, heard the voice; but there is nobody in sight. 8 Saul rises to his feet, his eyes wide open, but he can’t see a thing. So his companions lead their blind friend by the hand and take him into Damascus. 9 He waits for three days—completely blind—and does not eat a bite or drink a drop of anything.
10 Meanwhile, in Damascus a disciple named Ananias had a vision in which the Lord Jesus spoke to him.
The Lord: Ananias.
Ananias: Here I am, Lord.
The Lord: 11 Get up and go to Straight Boulevard. Go to the house of Judas, and inquire about a man from Tarsus, Saul by name. He is praying to Me at this very instant. 12 He has had a vision—a vision of a man by your name who will come, lay hands on him, and heal his eyesight.
Ananias: 13 Lord, I know whom You’re talking about. I’ve heard rumors about this fellow. He’s an evil man and has caused great harm for Your special people in Jerusalem. 14 I’ve heard that he has been authorized by the religious authorities to come here and chain everyone who associates with Your name.
The Lord: 15 Yes, but you must go! I have chosen him to be My instrument to bring My name far and wide—to outsiders, to kings, and to the people of Israel as well. 16 I have much to show him, including how much he must suffer for My name.
17 So Ananias went and entered the house where Saul was staying. He laid his hands on Saul and called to him.
Ananias: Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here, sent me so you can regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
18 At that instant, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see. So he got up, received the ceremonial washing of baptism[b] identifying him as a disciple, 19 ate some food (remember, he had not eaten for three days), and regained his strength. He spent a lot of time with the disciples in Damascus over the next several days. 20 Then he went into the very synagogues he had intended to purge, proclaiming,
Saul: Jesus is God’s Son!
21 Obviously this amazed everybody, and the buzz spread.
The People: Isn’t he the man who caused so much trouble in Jerusalem for everyone identified with Jesus? Didn’t he come here to arrest followers of Jesus and bring them in chains to the religious authorities? Now he’s switched sides and is preaching Jesus?
22 As time passed, Saul’s confidence grew stronger and stronger, so much so that he debated with the Jews of Damascus and made an irrefutable case that Jesus is, in fact, God’s Anointed, the Liberating King.
23 They didn’t like being confounded like this; so after several days, the Jews plotted to assassinate Saul. 24 But he learned of the plot. He knew they were keeping the city gates under constant surveillance, so they could follow and kill him when he left. 25 To save Saul, the disciples came up with a plan of their own. During the night, they put Saul in a basket and lowered him by ropes from an opening in the wall of the city rather than passing through the gates. Their plan worked, 26 and he returned to Jerusalem.
He tried to join the disciples there, but they didn’t think he was sincere.
27 Only one person accepted Saul as a genuine disciple, Barnabas, who became Saul’s advocate to the apostles. He told the whole story of what happened in Damascus, from Saul’s vision and message from the Lord to his transformation into a confident proclaimer of the name of Jesus. 28 Finally they accepted Saul and gave him access to their community, and he continued to speak confidently in the name of the Lord. 29 He dialogued—and argued—with a group of Greek-speaking Jews. That didn’t go well either, because soon they were plotting to kill him also. 30 His fellow believers helped him escape by bringing him to Caesarea and sending him to his hometown, Tarsus.
31 And so the church enjoyed a period of peace and growth throughout the regions of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. The disciples lived in deep reverence for the Lord, they experienced the strong comfort of the Holy Spirit, and their numbers increased.
32 Peter hadn’t been idle during all this time. He was having a number of amazing experiences of his own, traveling from group to group and visiting the various communities of believers. Once he came to a town called Lydda, a border town between Samaria and Judea, and met with God’s special people there. 33 He visited a man named Aeneas. This poor fellow had been paralyzed for eight years, unable to leave his bed.
Peter: 34 Aeneas, Jesus the Anointed heals you. Get up! Now you can make your own bed!
And immediately—he got up! 35 All the local residents—both of Lydda and nearby Sharon—saw Aeneas healthy and strong again, so they turned to the Lord.
36 In a nearby coastal city, Joppa, there lived a disciple whose Aramaic name was Tabitha, or Dorcas in Greek. She was a good woman—devotedly doing good and giving to the poor. 37 While Peter was in Lydda, she fell sick and died. Her fellow disciples washed her body and laid her in an upstairs room. 38 They had heard Peter was nearby, so two of them went with an urgent message, “Please come to Joppa as soon as possible.”
39 Peter went with them and immediately entered the room where the corpse had been placed. It was quite a scene—the widows of the community were crowded in the room, weeping, showing the various items of clothing that Dorcas had made for them.
40 Peter asked them to leave the room; then he got on his knees. He prayed for a while and then turned to her body.
Peter: Tabitha, get up!
She opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up. 41 Giving her his hand, Peter lifted her up. Then he called in the other disciples—including the widows—and reintroduced them to their beloved friend. 42 The news of this miracle spread throughout the city, and many believed in the Lord. 43 Peter stayed in Joppa for some time as the guest of Simon, a tanner by profession.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.