M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Chapter 9
Unmerited Success. 1 Hear, O Israel! You are now about to cross the Jordan to enter in and dispossess nations greater and stronger than yourselves, having large cities fortified to the heavens,(A) 2 the Anakim, a people great and tall.(B) You yourselves know of them and have heard it said of them, “Who can stand up against the Anakim?” 3 Know, then, today that it is the Lord, your God, who will cross over before you as a consuming fire; he it is who will destroy them and subdue them before you, so that you can dispossess and remove them quickly, as the Lord promised you.(C) 4 After the Lord, your God, has driven them out of your way, do not say in your heart, “It is because of my justice the Lord has brought me in to possess this land,(D) and because of the wickedness of these nations the Lord is dispossessing them before me.”[a] 5 No, it is not because of your justice or the integrity of your heart that you are going in to take possession of their land; but it is because of their wickedness that the Lord, your God, is dispossessing these nations before you and in order to fulfill the promise he made on oath to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.(E) 6 Know this, therefore: it is not because of your justice that the Lord, your God, is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.(F)
The Golden Calf. 7 Remember and do not forget how you angered the Lord, your God, in the wilderness. From the day you left the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious toward the Lord.(G) 8 (H)At Horeb you so provoked the Lord that he was angry enough to destroy you,(I) 9 when I had gone up the mountain to receive the stone tablets of the covenant which the Lord made with you.(J) Meanwhile I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no food and drank no water. 10 The Lord gave me the two stone tablets inscribed, by God’s own finger,(K) with a copy of all the words that the Lord spoke to you on the mountain from the midst of the fire on the day of the assembly. 11 Then, at the end of the forty days and forty nights, when the Lord had given me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant, 12 (L)the Lord said to me, Go down from here now, quickly, for your people whom you have brought out of Egypt are acting corruptly; they have already turned aside from the way I commanded them and have made for themselves a molten idol. 13 I have seen now how stiff-necked this people is, the Lord said to me. 14 Let me be, that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under the heavens. I will then make of you a nation mightier and greater than they.
15 When I had come down again from the blazing, fiery mountain, with the two tablets of the covenant in both my hands,(M) 16 I saw how you had sinned against the Lord, your God, by making for yourselves a molten calf. You had already turned aside from the way which the Lord had commanded you.(N) 17 I took hold of the two tablets and with both hands cast them from me and broke them before your eyes.(O) 18 Then, as before, I lay prostrate before the Lord for forty days and forty nights; I ate no food, I drank no water, because of all the sin you had committed in the sight of the Lord, doing wrong and provoking him.(P) 19 For I dreaded the fierce anger of the Lord against you: his wrath would destroy you.(Q) Yet once again the Lord listened to me. 20 With Aaron, too, the Lord was deeply angry, and would have destroyed him; but I prayed for Aaron also at that time.(R) 21 Then, taking the calf, the sinful object you had made, I burnt it and ground it down to powder as fine as dust, which I threw into the wadi that went down the mountainside.(S)
22 At Taberah, at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah likewise, you enraged the Lord.(T) 23 And when the Lord sent you up from Kadesh-barnea saying, Go up and take possession of the land I have given you, you rebelled against this command of the Lord, your God, and would not believe him or listen to his voice.(U) 24 You have been rebels against the Lord from the day I first knew you.
25 (V)Those forty days, then, and forty nights, I lay prostrate before the Lord, because he had threatened to destroy you. 26 And I prayed to the Lord and said: O Lord God, do not destroy your people, the heritage you redeemed in your greatness and have brought out of Egypt with your strong hand.(W) 27 Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Do not look upon the stubbornness of this people nor upon their wickedness and sin,(X) 28 lest the land from which you have brought us say, “The Lord was not able to bring them into the land he promised them, and out of hatred for them, he brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.”(Y) 29 They are your people and your heritage, whom you have brought out by your great power and with your outstretched arm.(Z)
Psalm 92[a]
A Hymn of Thanksgiving for God’s Fidelity
1 A psalm. A sabbath song.
I
2 It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
to sing praise to your name, Most High,(A)
3 To proclaim your love at daybreak,
your faithfulness in the night,
4 With the ten-stringed harp,
with melody upon the lyre.(B)
5 For you make me jubilant, Lord, by your deeds;
at the works of your hands I shout for joy.
II
6 How great are your works, Lord!(C)
How profound your designs!
7 A senseless person cannot know this;
a fool cannot comprehend.
8 Though the wicked flourish like grass(D)
and all sinners thrive,
They are destined for eternal destruction;
9 but you, Lord, are forever on high.
10 Indeed your enemies, Lord,
indeed your enemies shall perish;
all sinners shall be scattered.(E)
III
11 You have given me the strength of a wild ox;(F)
you have poured rich oil upon me.(G)
12 My eyes look with glee on my wicked enemies;
my ears shall hear what happens to my wicked foes.(H)
13 The just shall flourish like the palm tree,
shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon.(I)
14 [b]Planted in the house of the Lord,
they shall flourish in the courts of our God.
15 They shall bear fruit even in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
16 To proclaim: “The Lord is just;
my rock, in whom there is no wrong.”(J)
Psalm 93[c]
God Is a Mighty King
1 The Lord is king,[d] robed with majesty;
the Lord is robed, girded with might.(K)
The world will surely stand in place,
never to be moved.(L)
2 Your throne stands firm from of old;
you are from everlasting.(M)
3 [e]The flood has raised up, Lord;
the flood has raised up its roar;
the flood has raised its pounding waves.
4 More powerful than the roar of many waters,
more powerful than the breakers of the sea,
powerful in the heavens is the Lord.
5 Your decrees are firmly established;
holiness befits your house, Lord,
for all the length of days.
Chapter 37
1 [a]When King Hezekiah heard this, he tore his garments, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. 2 He sent Eliakim, the master of the palace, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to tell the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz,
3 “Thus says Hezekiah:
A day of distress and rebuke,
a day of disgrace is this day!
Children are due to come forth,
but the strength to give birth is lacking.[b](A)
4 Perhaps the Lord, your God, will hear the words of the commander, whom his lord, the king of Assyria, sent to taunt the living God, and will rebuke him for the words which the Lord, your God, has heard. So lift up a prayer for the remnant that is here.”
5 When the servants of King Hezekiah had come to Isaiah, 6 he said to them: “Tell this to your lord: Thus says the Lord: Do not be frightened by the words you have heard, by which the deputies of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.(B)
7 I am putting in him such a spirit
that when he hears a report
he will return to his land.
I will make him fall by the sword in his land.”
8 When the commander, on his return, heard that the king of Assyria had withdrawn from Lachish, he found him besieging Libnah. 9 The king of Assyria heard a report: “Tirhakah,[c] king of Ethiopia, has come out to fight against you.” Again he sent messengers to Hezekiah to say: 10 “Thus shall you say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you by saying, ‘Jerusalem will not be handed over to the king of Assyria.’(C) 11 You, certainly, have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands: they put them under the ban! And are you to be delivered? 12 Did the gods of the nations whom my fathers destroyed deliver them—Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the Edenites in Telassar? 13 Where are the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, or a king of the cities Sepharvaim, Hena or Ivvah?”
14 Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then he went up to the house of the Lord, and spreading it out before the Lord, 15 Hezekiah prayed to the Lord:
16 “Lord of hosts, God of Israel,
enthroned on the cherubim!
You alone are God
over all the kingdoms of the earth.
It is you who made
the heavens and the earth.[d]
17 Incline your ear, Lord, and listen!
open your eyes, Lord, and see!
Hear all the words Sennacherib has sent
to taunt the living God.
18 Truly, O Lord,
the kings of Assyria have laid waste
the nations and their lands.
19 They gave their gods to the fire
—they were not gods at all,
but the work of human hands—
Wood and stone, they destroyed them.(D)
20 Therefore, Lord, our God,
save us from this man’s power,
That all the kingdoms of the earth may know
that you alone, Lord, are God.”
21 [e]Then Isaiah, son of Amoz, sent this message to Hezekiah: “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you have prayed concerning Sennacherib, king of Assyria: I have listened! 22 This is the word the Lord has spoken concerning him:(E)
She despises you, laughs you to scorn,
the virgin daughter Zion;
Behind you she wags her head,
daughter Jerusalem.
23 Whom have you insulted and blasphemed,
at whom have you raised your voice
And lifted up your eyes on high?
At the Holy One of Israel!(F)
24 Through the mouths of your messengers
you have insulted the Lord when you said:
‘With my many chariots I went up
to the tops of the peaks,
to the recesses of Lebanon,
To cut down its lofty cedars,
its choice cypresses;
I reached the farthest shelter,
the forest ranges.
25 I myself dug wells
and drank foreign water;
Drying up all the rivers of Egypt
beneath the soles of my feet.’
26 Have you not heard?
A long time ago I prepared it,
from days of old I planned it,
Now I have brought it about:
You are here to reduce
fortified cities to heaps of ruins,(G)
27 Their people powerless,
dismayed and distraught,
They are plants of the field,
green growth,
thatch on the rooftops,
Grain scorched by the east wind.
28 I know when you stand or sit,
when you come or go,
and how you rage against me.
29 Because you rage against me
and your smugness has reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth,
And make you leave by the way you came.(H)
30 This shall be a sign[f] for you:
This year you shall eat the aftergrowth,
next year, what grows of itself;
But in the third year, sow and reap,
plant vineyards and eat their fruit!
31 The remaining survivors of the house of Judah
shall again strike root below
and bear fruit above.(I)
32 For out of Jerusalem shall come a remnant,
and from Mount Zion, survivors.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this.(J)
33 Therefore, thus says the Lord about the king of Assyria:
He shall not come as far as this city,
nor shoot there an arrow,
nor confront it with a shield,
Nor cast up a siege-work against it.
34 By the way he came he shall leave,
never coming as far as this city,
oracle of the Lord.
35 I will shield and save this city
for my own sake and the sake of David my servant.”(K)
36 Then the angel of the Lord went forth and struck down one hundred and eighty-five thousand in the Assyrian camp. Early the next morning, there they were, all those corpses, dead 37 So Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, broke camp, departed, returned home, and stayed in Nineveh.
38 When he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and fled into the land of Ararat.[h] His son Esarhaddon reigned in his place.
Chapter 7[a]
The 144,000 Sealed. 1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth,[b] holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on land or sea or against any tree.(A) 2 Then I saw another angel come up from the East,[c] holding the seal of the living God. He cried out in a loud voice to the four angels who were given power to damage the land and the sea, 3 “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we put the seal on the foreheads of the servants of our God.”(B) 4 I heard the number of those who had been marked with the seal, one hundred and forty-four thousand marked[d] from every tribe of the Israelites:(C) 5 twelve thousand were marked from the tribe of Judah,[e] twelve thousand from the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand from the tribe of Gad, 6 twelve thousand from the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand from the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand from the tribe of Manasseh, 7 twelve thousand from the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand from the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand from the tribe of Issachar, 8 twelve thousand from the tribe of Zebulun, twelve thousand from the tribe of Joseph, and twelve thousand were marked from the tribe of Benjamin.
Triumph of the Elect. 9 After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count, from every nation, race, people, and tongue. They stood before the throne and before the Lamb, wearing white robes and holding palm branches[f] in their hands. 10 They cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation comes from[g] our God, who is seated on the throne,
and from the Lamb.”
11 All the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They prostrated themselves before the throne, worshiped God, 12 and exclaimed:
“Amen. Blessing and glory, wisdom and thanksgiving,
honor, power, and might
be to our God forever and ever. Amen.”
13 Then one of the elders spoke up and said to me, “Who are these wearing white robes, and where did they come from?” 14 I said to him, “My lord, you are the one who knows.” He said to me, “These are the ones who have survived the time of great distress;[h] they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.(D)
15 “For this reason they stand before God’s throne
and worship him day and night in his temple.
The one who sits on the throne will shelter them.
16 They will not hunger or thirst anymore,
nor will the sun or any heat strike them.(E)
17 For the Lamb who is in the center of the throne will shepherd them
and lead them to springs of life-giving water,[i]
and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”(F)
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.