M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
22 1-2 The Lord told Moses, “Instruct Aaron and his sons to be very careful not to defile my holy name by desecrating the people’s sacred gifts; for I am Jehovah. 3 From now on and forever, if a priest who is ceremonially defiled sacrifices the animals brought by the people or handles the gifts dedicated to Jehovah, he shall be discharged from the priesthood. For I am Jehovah!
4 “No priest who is a leper or who has a running sore may eat the holy sacrifices until healed. And any priest who touches a dead person, or who is defiled by a seminal emission, 5 or who touches any reptile or other forbidden thing, or who touches anyone who is ceremonially defiled for any reason— 6 that priest shall be defiled until evening and shall not eat of the holy sacrifices until after he has bathed that evening. 7 When the sun is down, then he shall be purified again and may eat the holy food, for it is his source of life. 8 He may not eat any animal that dies of itself or is torn by wild animals, for this will defile him. I am Jehovah. 9 Warn the priests to follow these instructions carefully, lest they be declared guilty and die for violating these rules. I am the Lord who sanctifies them.
10 “No one may eat of the holy sacrifices unless he is a priest; no one visiting the priest, for instance, nor a hired servant, may eat this food. 11 However, there is one exception—if the priest buys a slave with his own money, that slave may eat it, and any slave children born in his household may eat it. 12 If a priest’s daughter is married outside the tribe, she may not eat the sacred offerings.[a] 13 But if she is a widow or divorced and has no son to support her, and has returned home to her father’s household, she may eat of her father’s food again. But otherwise, no one who is not in the priestly families may eat this food.
14 “If someone should eat of the holy sacrifices without realizing it, he shall return to the priest the amount he has used, with 20 percent added; 15 for the holy sacrifices brought by the people of Israel must not be defiled by being eaten by unauthorized persons, for these sacrifices have been offered to the Lord. 16 Anyone who violates this law is guilty and is in great danger because he has eaten the sacred offerings; for I am Jehovah who sanctifies the offerings.”
17-18 And the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons and all the people of Israel that if an Israelite or other person living among you offers a burnt offering sacrifice to the Lord—whether it is to fulfill a promise or is a spontaneous freewill offering— 19 it will only be acceptable to the Lord if it is a male animal without defect; it must be a young bull or a sheep or a goat. 20 Anything that has a defect must not be offered, for it will not be accepted.
21 “Anyone sacrificing a peace offering to the Lord from the herd or flock, whether to fulfill a vow or as a voluntary offering, must sacrifice an animal that has no defect, or it will not be accepted: 22 An animal that is blind or disabled or mutilated, or which has sores or itch or any other skin disease, must not be offered to the Lord; it is not a fit burnt offering for the altar of the Lord. 23 If the young bull or lamb presented to the Lord has anything superfluous or lacking in its body parts, it may be offered as a freewill offering, but not for a vow. 24 An animal that has injured genitals—crushed or castrated—shall not be offered to the Lord at any time. 25 This restriction applies to the sacrifices made by foreigners among you as well as those made by yourselves, for no defective animal is acceptable for this sacrifice.”
26-27 And the Lord said to Moses, “When a bullock, sheep, or goat is born, it shall be left with its mother for seven days, but from the eighth day onward it is acceptable as a sacrifice by fire to the Lord. 28 You shall not slaughter a mother animal and her offspring the same day, whether she is a cow or ewe. 29-30 When you offer the Lord a sacrifice of thanksgiving, you must do it in the right way, eating the sacrificial animal the same day it is slain. Leave none of it for the following day. I am the Lord.
31 “You must keep all of my commandments, for I am the Lord. 32-33 You must not treat me as common and ordinary. Revere me and hallow me, for I, the Lord, made you holy to myself and rescued you from Egypt to be my own people! I am Jehovah!”
28 I plead with you to help me, Lord, for you are my Rock of safety. If you refuse to answer me, I might as well give up and die. 2 Lord, I lift my hands to heaven[a] and implore your help. Oh, listen to my cry.
3 Don’t punish me with all the wicked ones who speak so sweetly to their neighbors while planning to murder them. 4 Give them the punishment they so richly deserve! Measure it out to them in proportion to their wickedness; pay them back for all their evil deeds. 5 They care nothing for God or what he has done or what he has made; therefore God will dismantle them like old buildings, never to be rebuilt again.
6 Oh, praise the Lord, for he has listened to my pleadings! 7 He is my strength, my shield from every danger. I trusted in him, and he helped me. Joy rises in my heart until I burst out in songs of praise to him. 8 The Lord protects his people and gives victory to his anointed king.
9 Defend your people, Lord; defend and bless your chosen ones. Lead them like a shepherd and carry them forever in your arms.
29 Praise the Lord, you angels of his; praise his glory and his strength. 2 Praise him for his majestic glory, the glory of his name. Come before him clothed in sacred garments.
3 The voice of the Lord echoes from the clouds. The God of glory thunders through the skies. 4 So powerful is his voice; so full of majesty. 5-6 It breaks down the cedars. It splits the giant trees of Lebanon. It shakes Mount Lebanon and Mount Sirion. They leap and skip before him like young calves! 7 The voice of the Lord thunders through the lightning. 8 It resounds through the deserts and shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. 9 The voice of the Lord spins and topples the mighty oaks.[b] It strips the forests bare. They whirl and sway beneath the blast. But in his Temple all are praising, “Glory, glory to the Lord.”
10 At the Flood the Lord showed his control of all creation. Now he continues to unveil his power. 11 He will give his people strength. He will bless them with peace.
5 1-3 As you enter the Temple, keep your ears open and your mouth shut! Don’t be a fool who doesn’t even realize it is sinful to make rash promises to God, for he is in heaven and you are only here on earth, so let your words be few. Just as being too busy gives you nightmares, so being a fool makes you a blabbermouth. 4 So when you talk to God and vow to him that you will do something, don’t delay in doing it, for God has no pleasure in fools. Keep your promise to him. 5 It is far better not to say you’ll do something than to say you will and then not do it. 6-7 In that case, your mouth is making you sin. Don’t try to defend yourself by telling the messenger from God that it was all a mistake to make the vow.[a] That would make God very angry; and he might destroy your prosperity. Dreaming instead of doing is foolishness, and there is ruin in a flood of empty words; fear God instead.
8 If you see some poor man being oppressed by the rich, with miscarriage of justice anywhere throughout the land, don’t be surprised! For every official is under orders from higher up, and the higher officials look up to their superiors. And so the matter is lost in red tape and bureaucracy.[b] 9 And over them all is the king. Oh, for a king who is devoted to his country! Only he can bring order from this chaos.
10 He who loves money shall never have enough. The foolishness of thinking that wealth brings happiness! 11 The more you have, the more you spend, right up to the limits of your income. So what is the advantage of wealth—except perhaps to watch it as it runs through your fingers! 12 The man who works hard sleeps well whether he eats little or much, but the rich must worry and suffer insomnia.
13-14 There is another serious problem I have seen everywhere—savings are put into risky investments that turn sour, and soon there is nothing left to pass on to one’s son. 15 The man who speculates is soon back to where he began—with nothing. 16 This, as I said, is a very serious problem, for all his hard work has been for nothing; he has been working for the wind. It is all swept away. 17 All the rest of his life he is under a cloud—gloomy, discouraged, frustrated, and angry.
18 Well, one thing, at least, is good: It is for a man to eat well, drink a good glass of wine, accept his position in life, and enjoy his work whatever his job may be, for however long the Lord may let him live. 19-20 And, of course, it is very good if a man has received wealth from the Lord and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and to accept your lot in life—that is indeed a gift from God. The person who does that will not need to look back with sorrow on his past, for God gives him joy.
1 From: Paul, Jesus Christ’s missionary, sent out by God to tell men and women everywhere about the eternal life he has promised them through faith in Jesus Christ.
2 To: Timothy, my dear son. May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord shower you with his kindness, mercy, and peace.
3 How I thank God for you, Timothy. I pray for you every day, and many times during the long nights I beg my God to bless you richly. He is my fathers’ God and mine, and my only purpose in life is to please him.
4 How I long to see you again. How happy I would be, for I remember your tears as we left each other.
5 I know how much you trust the Lord, just as your mother Eunice and your grandmother Lois do; and I feel sure you are still trusting him as much as ever.
6 This being so, I want to remind you to stir into flame the strength and boldness[a] that is in you, that entered into you when I laid my hands upon your head and blessed you. 7 For the Holy Spirit, God’s gift, does not want you to be afraid of people, but to be wise and strong, and to love them and enjoy being with them.
8 If you will stir up this inner power, you will never be afraid to tell others about our Lord or to let them know that I am your friend even though I am here in jail for Christ’s sake. You will be ready to suffer with me for the Lord, for he will give you strength in suffering.
9 It is he who saved us and chose us for his holy work not because we deserved it but because that was his plan long before the world began—to show his love and kindness to us through Christ. 10 And now he has made all of this plain to us by the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, who broke the power of death and showed us the way of everlasting life through trusting him. 11 And God has chosen me to be his missionary, to preach to the Gentiles and teach them.
12 That is why I am suffering here in jail, and I am certainly not ashamed of it, for I know the one in whom I trust, and I am sure that he is able to safely guard all that I have given him until the day of his return.
13 Hold tightly to the pattern of truth I taught you, especially concerning the faith and love Christ Jesus offers you.[b] 14 Guard well the splendid, God-given ability you received as a gift from the Holy Spirit who lives within you.
15 As you know, all the Christians who came here from Asia have deserted me; even Phygellus and Hermogenes are gone. 16 May the Lord bless Onesiphorus and all his family because he visited me and encouraged me often. His visits revived me like a breath of fresh air, and he was never ashamed of my being in jail. 17 In fact, when he came to Rome, he searched everywhere trying to find me, and finally did. 18 May the Lord give him a special blessing at the day of Christ’s return. And you know better than I can tell you how much he helped me at Ephesus.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.