M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

24 Balaam realized by now that Jehovah planned to bless Israel, so he didn’t even go to meet the Lord as he had earlier. Instead, he went at once and looked out toward the camp of Israel ² which stretched away across the plains, divided by tribal areas.

Then the Spirit of God came upon him, ^3-9 and he spoke this prophecy concerning them:

¹⁰ King Balak was livid with rage by now. Striking his hands together in anger and disgust he shouted, “I called you to curse my enemies and instead you have blessed them three times. ¹¹ Get out of here! Go back home! I had planned to promote you to great honor, but Jehovah has kept you from it!”

¹² Balaam replied, “Didn’t I tell your messengers ¹³ that even if you gave me a palace filled with silver and gold, I could not go beyond the words of Jehovah, and could not say a word of my own? I said that I would say only what Jehovah says! ¹⁴ Yes, I shall return now to my own people. But first, let me tell you what the Israelites are going to do to your people!”

^15-19 So he spoke this prophecy to him:

²⁰ Then Balaam looked over at the homes of the people of Amalek and prophesied:

^21-22 Then he looked over at the Kenites:

^23-24 He concluded his prophecies by saying:

²⁵ So Balaam and Balak returned to their homes.^[a]

66 Sing to the Lord, all the earth! ² Sing of his glorious name! Tell the world how wonderful he is.

³ How awe-inspiring are your deeds, O God! How great your power! No wonder your enemies surrender! ⁴ All the earth shall worship you and sing of your glories. ⁵ Come, see the glorious things God has done. What marvelous miracles happen to his people! ⁶ He made a dry road through the sea for them. They went across on foot. What excitement and joy there was that day!

⁷ Because of his great power he rules forever. He watches every movement of the nations. O rebel lands, he will deflate your pride.

⁸ Let everyone bless God and sing his praises; ⁹ for he holds our lives in his hands, and he holds our feet to the path. ¹⁰ You have purified us with fire,^[a] O Lord, like silver in a crucible. ¹¹ You captured us in your net and laid great burdens on our backs. ¹² You sent troops to ride across our broken bodies.^[b] We went through fire and flood. But in the end, you brought us into wealth and great abundance.

¹³ Now I have come to your Temple with burnt offerings to pay my vows. ¹⁴ For when I was in trouble, I promised you many offerings. ¹⁵ That is why I am bringing you these fat male goats, rams, and calves. The smoke of their sacrifice shall rise before you.

¹⁶ Come and hear, all of you who reverence the Lord, and I will tell you what he did for me: ¹⁷ For I cried to him for help with praises ready on my tongue. ¹⁸ He would not have listened if I had not confessed my sins. ¹⁹ But he listened! He heard my prayer! He paid attention to it!

²⁰ Blessed be God, who didn’t turn away when I was praying and didn’t refuse me his kindness and love.

67 O God, in mercy bless us; let your face beam with joy as you look down at us.

² Send us around the world with the news of your saving power and your eternal plan for all mankind. ³ How everyone throughout the earth will praise the Lord! ⁴ How glad the nations will be, singing for joy because you are their King^[c] and will give true justice to their people! ⁵ Praise God, O world! May all the peoples of the earth give thanks to you. ^6-7 For the earth has yielded abundant harvests. God, even our own God, will bless us. And peoples from remotest lands will worship him.

14 But the Lord will have mercy on the Israelis; they are still his special ones. He will bring them back to settle once again in the land of Israel. And many nationalities will come and join them there and be their loyal allies. ² The nations of the world will help them to return, and those coming to live in their land will serve them. Those enslaving Israel will be enslaved—Israel shall rule her enemies!

³ In that wonderful day when the Lord gives his people rest from sorrow and fear, from slavery and chains, ⁴ you will jeer at the king of Babylon and say, “You bully, you! At last you have what was coming to you! ⁵ For the Lord has crushed your wicked power and broken your evil rule.” ⁶ You persecuted my people with unceasing blows of rage and held the nations in your angry grip. You were unrestrained in tyranny. ⁷ But at last the whole earth is at rest and is quiet! All the world begins to sing! ⁸ Even the trees of the woods—the fir trees and cedars of Lebanon—sing out this joyous song: “Your power is broken; no one will bother us now; at last we have peace.”

⁹ The denizens of hell crowd to meet you as you enter their domain. World leaders and earth’s mightiest kings, long dead, are there to see you. ¹⁰ With one voice they all cry out, “Now you are as weak as we are!” ¹¹ Your might and power are gone; they are buried with you. All the pleasant music in your palace has ceased; now maggots are your sheet, worms your blanket!

¹² How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground—mighty though you were against the nations of the world. ¹³ For you said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven and rule the angels.^[a] I will take the highest throne. I will preside on the Mount of Assembly far away in the north. ¹⁴ I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.” ¹⁵ But instead, you will be brought down to the pit of hell, down to its lowest depths. ¹⁶ Everyone there will stare at you and ask, “Can this be the one who shook the earth and the kingdoms of the world? ¹⁷ Can this be the one who destroyed the world and made it into a shambles, who demolished its greatest cities and had no mercy on his prisoners?”

¹⁸ The kings of the nations lie in stately glory in their graves, ¹⁹ but your body is thrown out like a broken branch; it lies in an open grave, covered with the dead bodies of those slain in battle. It lies as a carcass in the road, trampled and mangled by horses’ hoofs. ²⁰ No monument will be given you, for you have destroyed your nation and slain your people. Your son will not succeed you as the king. ²¹ Slay the children of this sinner. Do not let them rise and conquer the land nor rebuild the cities of the world.

²² I, myself, have risen against him, says the Lord of heaven’s armies, and will cut off his children and his children’s children from ever sitting on his throne. ²³ I will make Babylon into a desolate land of porcupines, full of swamps and marshes. I will sweep the land with the broom of destruction, says the Lord of the armies of heaven. ²⁴ He has taken an oath to do it! For this is his purpose and plan. ²⁵ I have decided to break the Assyrian army when they are in Israel and to crush them on my mountains; my people shall no longer be their slaves. ²⁶ This is my plan for the whole earth—I will do it by my mighty power that reaches everywhere around the world. ²⁷ The Lord, the God of battle, has spoken—who can change his plans? When his hand moves, who can stop him?

²⁸ This is the message that came to me the year King Ahaz died:

²⁹ Don’t rejoice, Philistines, that the king who smote you is dead.^[b] That rod is broken, yes; but his son will be a greater scourge to you than his father ever was! From the snake will be born an adder, a fiery serpent to destroy you! ³⁰ I will shepherd the poor of my people; they shall graze in my pasture! The needy shall lie down in peace. But as for you—I will wipe you out with famine and the sword. ³¹ Weep, Philistine cities—you are doomed. All your nation is doomed. For a perfectly trained army^[c] is coming down from the north against you. ³² What then shall we tell the reporters? Tell them that the Lord has founded Jerusalem and is determined that the poor of his people will find a refuge within her walls.

2 So get rid of your feelings of hatred. Don’t just pretend to be good! Be done with dishonesty and jealousy and talking about others behind their backs. ^2-3 Now that you realize how kind the Lord has been to you, put away all evil, deception, envy, and fraud. Long to grow up into the fullness of your salvation; cry for this as a baby cries for his milk.^[a]

⁴ Come to Christ, who is the living Foundation of Rock upon which God builds; though men have spurned him, he is very precious to God who has chosen him above all others.

⁵ And now you have become living building-stones for God’s use in building his house. What’s more, you are his holy priests; so come to him—you who are acceptable to him because of Jesus Christ^[b]—and offer to God those things that please him. ⁶ As the Scriptures express it, “See, I am sending Christ to be the carefully chosen, precious Cornerstone of my church, and I will never disappoint those who trust in him.”

⁷ Yes, he is very precious to you who believe; and to those who reject him, well—“The same Stone that was rejected by the builders has become the Cornerstone, the most honored and important part of the building.” ⁸ And the Scriptures also say, “He is the Stone that some will stumble over, and the Rock that will make them fall.” They will stumble because they will not listen to God’s Word nor obey it, and so this punishment must follow—that they will fall.

⁹ But you are not like that, for you have been chosen by God himself—you are priests of the King, you are holy and pure, you are God’s very own—all this so that you may show to others how God called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were less than nothing; now you are God’s own. Once you knew very little of God’s kindness; now your very lives have been changed by it.

¹¹ Dear brothers, you are only visitors here. Since your real home is in heaven, I beg you to keep away from the evil pleasures of this world; they are not for you, for they fight against your very souls.

¹² Be careful how you behave among your unsaved neighbors; for then, even if they are suspicious of you and talk against you, they will end up praising God for your good works when Christ returns.

¹³ For the Lord’s sake, obey every law of your government: those of the king as head of the state, ¹⁴ and those of the king’s officers, for he has sent them to punish all who do wrong, and to honor those who do right.

¹⁵ It is God’s will that your good lives should silence those who foolishly condemn the Gospel without knowing what it can do for them, having never experienced its power. ¹⁶ You are free from the law, but that doesn’t mean you are free to do wrong. Live as those who are free to do only God’s will at all times.

¹⁷ Show respect for everyone. Love Christians everywhere. Fear God and honor the government.

¹⁸ Servants, you must respect your masters and do whatever they tell you—not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they are tough and cruel. ¹⁹ Praise the Lord if you are punished for doing right! ²⁰ Of course, you get no credit for being patient if you are beaten for doing wrong; but if you do right and suffer for it, and are patient beneath the blows, God is well pleased.

²¹ This suffering is all part of the work God has given you. Christ, who suffered for you, is your example. Follow in his steps: ²² He never sinned, never told a lie, ²³ never answered back when insulted; when he suffered he did not threaten to get even; he left his case in the hands of God who always judges fairly. ²⁴ He personally carried the load of our sins in his own body when he died on the cross so that we can be finished with sin and live a good life from now on. For his wounds have healed ours! ²⁵ Like sheep you wandered away from God, but now you have returned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls who keeps you safe from all attacks.