M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Setting Up the Lamps

8 The Lord said to Moses, ² “Say to Aaron, ‘When you put the seven lamps on the lamp-stand, they should give light in front of the lamp-stand.’” ³ And Aaron did so. He put the lamps so they would give light in front of the lamp-stand, as the Lord had told Moses. ⁴ Now this is the way the lamp-stand was made. It was made of beaten gold from the base to its flowers. He made the lamp-stand the way the Lord had shown Moses.

The Levites Are Set Apart

⁵ Then the Lord said to Moses, ⁶ “Take the Levites from among the people of Israel, and make them clean. ⁷ To make them clean, put holy water on them that takes away sin. Let them cut all the hair from their body, and wash their clothes, and they shall be clean. ⁸ Then let them take a young bull and its grain gift of fine flour mixed with oil. Take another young bull for a sin gift. ⁹ Bring the Levites in front of the meeting tent and gather together all the people of Israel also. ¹⁰ Bring the Levites before the Lord and the people of Israel will lay their hands on the Levites. ¹¹ Aaron will give the Levites to the Lord as a wave gift from the people of Israel so they will be able to do the work of the Lord. ¹² The Levites will lay their hands on the heads of the bulls. They will give one for a sin gift and the other for a burnt gift to the Lord, to pay for the sins of the Levites. ¹³ Then have the Levites stand in front of Aaron and his sons, to give them as a wave gift to the Lord.

¹⁴ “So you will divide the Levites from the people of Israel. And the Levites will be Mine. ¹⁵ After that the Levites may go in to work in the meeting tent. But you must make them clean and give them as a wave gift. ¹⁶ For they are all given to Me from among the people of Israel. I have taken them for Myself instead of every first child to be born, the first-born of all the people of Israel. ¹⁷ For every first-born among the people of Israel is Mine, both of man and animal. I set them apart for Myself on the day that I killed all the first-born in the land of Egypt. ¹⁸ But I have taken the Levites instead of every first-born among the people of Israel. ¹⁹ And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and his sons from among the people of Israel. They will do the work of the people of Israel at the meeting tent. By this they take away the sins of the people of Israel. So no trouble will come upon the people of Israel if they come near the meeting tent.”

²⁰ Moses and Aaron and all the people of Israel did this to the Levites. The people of Israel did to them all the things the Lord had told Moses about the Levites. ²¹ The Levites made themselves pure, putting away their sin. And they washed their clothes. Aaron gave them as a wave gift before the Lord. He did what had to be done to pay for their sin so they would be clean. ²² After that the Levites went in to do their work in the meeting tent in front of Aaron and his sons. So they did to the Levites just what the Lord had told Moses to do.

²³ The Lord said to Moses, ²⁴ “This is the rule for the Levites. Those who are twenty-five years old and older will go in to do the work of the meeting tent. ²⁵ But when they are fifty years old they will stop these duties and not work any more. ²⁶ They may help their brothers in the meeting tent to do what needs to be done but they themselves must not do the work. These are the rules for the Levites when giving them their duties.”

Prayer because of Troubles

44 O God, we have heard with our ears. Our fathers have told us what work You did in their days, in the days long ago. ² With Your own hand You made the nations leave, and put our fathers in the land. You brought trouble upon the nations, and You spread them out. ³ It was not by their sword that they took the land. Their own arm did not save them. But it was Your right hand, and Your arm, and the light of Your face, for You favored them.

⁴ You are my King, O God. Jacob wins because You say it must be so. ⁵ Through You we will push away those who hate us. Through Your name we will walk over those who rise up against us. ⁶ For I will not trust my bow, and my sword will not save me. ⁷ But You have saved us from those who fight against us. You have put to shame those who hate us. ⁸ In God we have had our pride all day long. And we will give thanks to Your name forever.

⁹ But now You have turned from us and have put us to shame. You do not go out with our armies. ¹⁰ You made us turn away from those who fight against us. And those who hate us have robbed us. ¹¹ You give us up to be eaten like sheep. You have spread us out among the nations. ¹² You sell Your people for nothing, and become no richer from their price. ¹³ You have made us a shame to our neighbors. Those around us laugh and make fun of us. ¹⁴ You have made us hated among the nations. The people laugh at us. ¹⁵ All day long my shame is with me and has become too much for me. ¹⁶ Those who talk against me, and who hate me are around me and want to punish me.

¹⁷ All this has come upon us, but we have not forgotten You. We have not been false to Your agreement. ¹⁸ Our heart has not turned away. And our steps have not turned from Your way. ¹⁹ But You have crushed us in a place of wild dogs, and covered us with the shadow of death.

²⁰ If we had forgotten the name of our God, or put out our hands to a strange god, ²¹ would not God find this out? For He knows the secrets of the heart. ²² But we are killed all day long because of You. We are thought of as sheep that are ready to be killed. ²³ Awake, O Lord! Why do You sleep? Rise up! Do not turn away from us forever. ²⁴ Why do You hide Your face? Why do You forget our troubles and our suffering? ²⁵ For our soul is brought down to the dust. Our body holds on to the earth. ²⁶ Rise up and help us! Save us because of Your loving-kindness.

Women of Jerusalem

6 “Where has your loved one gone, O most beautiful among women? Where has your loved one turned, that we may look for him with you?”

The Woman

² “My love has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices. He has gone to feed his flock in the gardens and to gather lilies. ³ I am my love’s, and my love is mine, he who feeds his flock among the lilies.”

The Fifth Song

King Solomon

⁴ “You are as beautiful as Tirzah, my love, as beautiful as Jerusalem. You are to be feared as an army with flags. ⁵ Turn your eyes away from me, for they trouble me. Your hair is like a flock of goats that has come down from Gilead. ⁶ Your teeth are like a flock of sheep which has come up from the washing. All of them give birth to two lambs at a time, and not one of them has lost her young. ⁷ The sides of your forehead are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your face-covering. ⁸ There are sixty queens, and eighty women kept who act like wives, and there are too many young women to number who have never had a man. ⁹ But my dove, my perfect one, is special. She is her mother’s only daughter. She is the pure child of the one who gave birth to her. The young women saw her and knew she was honored. The queens and the women who act as wives praised her, saying, ¹⁰ ‘Who is this that looks out like the first light of day? She is as beautiful as the full moon, as pure as the sun. She is to be feared as an army with flags.’”

The Woman

¹¹ “I went down to the field of nut trees to see the flowers of the valley, to see if the vines or the pomegranates had flowers. ¹² Before I knew it, I wanted to be over the war-wagons of the princes of my people.”

Women of Jerusalem

¹³ “Return, return, O Shulammite! Return, return, that we may look upon you!”

The Woman

“Why should you look upon the Shulammite, as upon a dance in front of two armies?”

Going Ahead

6 So let us leave the first things you need to know about Christ. Let us go on to the teaching that full-grown Christians should understand. We do not need to teach these first truths again. You already know that you must be sorry for your sins and turn from them. You know that you must have faith in God. ² You know about being baptized and about putting hands on people. You know about being raised from the dead and about being punished forever. ³ We will go on, if God lets us.

⁴ There are those who have known the truth. They have received the gift from heaven. They have shared the Holy Spirit. ⁵ They know how good the Word of God is. They know of the powers of the world to come. ⁶ But if they turn away, they cannot be sorry for their sins and turn from them again. It is because they are nailing the Son of God on a cross again. They are holding Him up in shame in front of all people. ⁷ It is the same with a piece of ground that has had many rains fall on it. God makes it possible for that ground to give good fruits and vegetables. ⁸ But if it gives nothing but weeds, it is worth nothing. It will be hated and destroyed by fire.

⁹ Dear friends, even as we tell you this, we are sure of better things for you. These things go along with being saved from the punishment of sin. ¹⁰ God always does what is right. He will not forget the work you did to help the Christians and the work you are still doing to help them. This shows your love for Christ. ¹¹ We want each one of you to keep on working to the end. Then what you hope for, will happen. ¹² Do not be lazy. Be like those who have faith and have not given up. They will receive what God has promised them.

God’s Promise

¹³ When God made a promise to Abraham, He made that promise in His own name because no one was greater. ¹⁴ He said, “I will make you happy in so many ways. For sure, I will give you many children.” ^{(A) 15} Abraham was willing to wait and God gave to him what He had promised.

¹⁶ When men make a promise, they use a name greater than themselves. They do this to make sure they will do what they promise. In this way, no one argues about it. ¹⁷ And so God made a promise. He wanted to show Abraham that He would never change His mind. So He made the promise in His own name. ¹⁸ God gave these two things that cannot be changed and God cannot lie. We who have turned to Him can have great comfort knowing that He will do what He has promised. ¹⁹ This hope is a safe anchor for our souls. It will never move. This hope goes into the Holiest Place of All behind the curtain of heaven. ²⁰ Jesus has already gone there. He has become our Religious Leader forever and has made the way for man to go to God. He is like Melchizedek.