M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

The Seventh Year

15 “At the end of every seven years you must do away with debts that are owed. ² This is the way you are to do it: Every man who has loaned money must forget the debt. He cannot make his neighbor and his brother pay it because the Lord has said that all should be forgotten. ³ You may make a stranger pay what he owes, but not your brother. ⁴ Yet there will be no poor among you for the Lord will be sure to bring good to you in the land the Lord your God is giving you for your own. ⁵ But you must listen and obey the voice of the Lord your God. Be careful to do all the Law which I am telling you today. ⁶ The Lord your God will bring good to you as He has promised. You will let many nations use what belongs to you but you will not use what belongs to them. You will rule over many nations but they will not rule over you.

⁷ “In any of the towns in your land the Lord your God is giving you, if there is anyone poor among you, do not let your heart be hard and not be willing to help him. ⁸ Be free to give to him. Let him use what is yours of anything he needs. ⁹ Be careful that there is no sinful thought in your heart, saying, ‘It is almost the seventh year, the time to do away with the debt owed to me,’ so you look on your brother with hate and give him nothing. Then he may cry to the Lord against you and you may be guilty of sin. ¹⁰ Give much to him, without being sorry that you do. Because the Lord your God will bring good to you for this, in all your work and in everything you do. ¹¹ The poor will always be in the land. So I tell you to be free in giving to your brother, to those in need, and to the poor in your land.

¹² “If your brother, a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, he will work for you six years. But you must set him free in the seventh year. ¹³ When you set him free, do not send him away with nothing. ¹⁴ Give him much from your flock, from your grain, and from your wine. Give to him as the Lord your God has given to you. ¹⁵ Remember that you were servants in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God set you free. And so I am telling you today to do this. ¹⁶ But he may say to you, ‘I will not leave you,’ because he loves you and those of your house and gets along well with you. ¹⁷ Then take a sharp tool and put it through his ear into the door. And he will be your servant forever. Do the same with your woman servant. ¹⁸ It should not be hard for you to set him free for he has worked for you six years. He has been worth twice as much as a man paid to work for you. The Lord your God will bring good to you in whatever you do.

¹⁹ “Set apart for the Lord your God all the first-born males among your cattle and your flock. Do no work with the first-born of your cattle. Do not cut the wool from the first-born of your flock. ²⁰ You and those of your house will eat it every year before the Lord your God in the place the Lord chooses. ²¹ But do not kill it and give it to the Lord your God if it is not perfect, such as not being able to walk or see, or anything else wrong with it. ²² Eat it within your towns. Both the clean and the unclean may eat it, as if it were a gazelle or deer. ²³ But do not eat its blood. You must pour it out on the ground like water.

The Prayer of a Man in Trouble

102 Hear my prayer, O Lord! Let my cry for help come to You. ² Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my trouble. Turn Your ear to me. Hurry to answer me in the day when I call. ³ For my days go up in smoke. And my bones are burned as with fire. ⁴ My heart is crushed and dried like grass. And I forget to eat my food. ⁵ I am nothing but skin and bones because of my loud cries. ⁶ I am like a pelican in the desert. I am like an owl of the waste places. ⁷ I lie awake. And I feel like a bird alone on the roof.

⁸ Those who hate me have made it hard for me all day long. Those who are angry with me curse my name. ⁹ For I have eaten ashes like bread and have mixed my drink with tears, ¹⁰ because of Your great anger. For You have lifted me up and thrown me away. ¹¹ My days are like the evening shadow. I dried up like grass.

¹² But You and Your name, O Lord, will always be forever and to all people for all time. ¹³ You will rise up and have loving-pity on Zion. For it is time to show favor to her. The set time has come. ¹⁴ For Your servants respect her stones and show pity for her dust. ¹⁵ The nations will fear the name of the Lord. All the kings of the earth will fear Your shining-greatness. ¹⁶ For the Lord has built up Zion. He will come in His shining-greatness. ¹⁷ He will answer the prayer of those in need. He will not turn from their prayer.

¹⁸ This will be written for the children-to-come. So a people not yet born may give thanks to the Lord. ¹⁹ For He looked down from His holy place. He watched the earth from heaven, ²⁰ to hear the loud cries of those in prison and to set free those who are being sent to death. ²¹ So the name of the Lord will be made known in Zion and His praise in Jerusalem, ²² when the people gather together and the nations gather to serve the Lord.

²³ He has taken away my strength. He has taken days from my life. ²⁴ I said, “O my God, do not take me away when my days are only half done. Your years go on to all people of all time. ²⁵ You made the earth in the beginning. You made the heavens with Your hands. ²⁶ They will be destroyed but You will always live. They will all become old as clothing becomes old. You will change them like a coat. And they will be changed, ²⁷ but You are always the same. Your years will never end. ²⁸ The children of those who work for You will live on. And their children will be set before You.”

The Servant of the Lord

42 “See! My servant, My chosen one! My much Loved, in Whom My soul is well pleased! I will put My Spirit on Him. He will say to the nations what is right from wrong. ² He will not cry out or speak with a loud voice. His voice will not be heard in the streets. ³ He will not break a broken branch or put out a little fire. He will be faithful to make everything fair. ⁴ He will not lose hope or be crushed, until He has made things right on the earth. And the islands will wait with hope in His Law.”

⁵ This is what God the Lord Who made the heavens and spread them out and Who spread out the earth and what comes from it, Who gives breath to the people on it, and spirit to those who walk in it, says, ⁶ “I am the Lord. I have called you to be right and good. I will hold you by the hand and watch over you. And I will give you as an agreement to the people, as a light to the nations. ⁷ You will open blind eyes. You will bring people out of prison, out of the prison where they live in darkness. ⁸ I am the Lord. That is My name. I will not give My shining-greatness to another, or My praise to false gods. ⁹ See, the things told about in the past have happened. Now I speak about new things. Before they happen I will tell you about them.”

A Song of Praise to the Lord

¹⁰ Sing a new song to the Lord! Sing His praise from the end of the earth, you who go down to the sea, and all that is in it, you islands and those who live on them. ¹¹ Let the desert and its cities lift up their voice, the towns where Kedar lives. Let the people of Sela sing. Let them call out for joy from the tops of the mountains. ¹² Let them give honor to the Lord, and praise Him in the islands. ¹³ The Lord will go out like a powerful soldier. He will be ready like a man of war. He will call out, yes, He will call out a war cry. He will be strong against those who hate Him.

God Promises to Help His People

¹⁴ “I have been quiet for a long time. I have been quiet and have held Myself back. Now I will cry out like a woman giving birth. I will breathe hard and fast. ¹⁵ I will lay waste the mountains and hills, and dry up all their plants. I will make the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools. ¹⁶ I will lead the blind by a way that they do not know. I will lead them in paths they do not know. I will turn darkness into light in front of them. And I will make the bad places smooth. These are the things I will do and I will not leave them.” ¹⁷ They will be turned back and be put to shame who trust in false gods, who say to these objects of worship, “You are our gods.”

Israel Is Blind and Cannot Hear

¹⁸ Listen, you who do not hear! And look, you blind, that you may see. ¹⁹ Who is blind but My servant? Who does not hear, as the one whom I send with news? Who is so blind as he who is at peace with Me, or so blind as the servant of the Lord? ²⁰ You see many things, but you cannot tell what you see. Your ears are open, but you do not hear. ²¹ Because He is right and good, the Lord was pleased to make the Law great and give it honor. ²² But this is a people robbed of what they owned. All of them are trapped in deep holes, or hidden in prisons. They have been robbed of what they have, with no one to help them. They have been taken away, with no one to say, “Give them back!”

²³ Who among you will hear this? Who will listen and hear in the future? ²⁴ Who let Jacob be taken? Who gave Israel to robbers? Was it not the Lord, Whom we have sinned against, in Whose ways we were not willing to walk, and Whose Law we did not obey? ²⁵ So He poured out upon Israel the heat of His anger and the power of battle. It set him on fire all around. Yet he did not understand. It burned him, but he did not think about it.

The Woman and the Dragon

12 Something very special was seen in heaven. A woman was there dressed with the sun. The moon was under her feet. A crown with twelve stars in it was on her head. ² She was about to become a mother. She cried out with pain waiting for the child to be born. ³ Something else special was seen in heaven. A large dragon was there. It was red and had seven heads and ten horns. There was a crown on each head. ⁴ With his tail he pulled one-third part of the stars out of heaven. He threw them down to the earth. This dragon stood in front of the woman as she was about to give birth to her child. He was waiting to eat her child as soon as it was born. ⁵ Then the woman gave birth to a son. He is to be the leader of the world using a piece of iron. But this child was taken away to God and His throne. ⁶ The woman ran away into the desert. God had made the place ready for her. He will care for her there 1,260 days.

War in Heaven

⁷ Then there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against this dragon. This animal and his angels fought back. ⁸ But the dragon was not strong enough to win. There was no more room in heaven for them. ⁹ The dragon was thrown down to earth from heaven. This animal is the old snake. He is also called the Devil or Satan. He is the one who has fooled the whole world. He was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him.

¹⁰ Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “Now God has saved from the punishment of sin! God’s power as King has come! God’s holy nation has come! God’s Christ is here with power! The one who spoke against our Christian brothers has been thrown down to earth. He stood before God speaking against them day and night. ¹¹ They had power over him and won because of the blood of the Lamb and by telling what He had done for them. They did not love their lives but were willing to die. ¹² For this reason, O heavens and you who are there, be full of joy. It is bad for you, O earth and sea. For the devil has come down to you. He is very angry because he knows he has only a short time.”

War on Earth

¹³ When the dragon which is the devil saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he began to hunt for the woman who had given birth to the boy baby. ¹⁴ The woman was given two wings like the wings of a very large bird so she could fly to her place in the desert. She was to be cared for there and kept safe from the snake, which is the devil, for three-and one-half years. ¹⁵ Then the snake spit water from his mouth so the woman might be carried away with a flood. ¹⁶ The earth helped the woman by opening its mouth. It drank in the flood of water that this dragon spit from his mouth. ¹⁷ This dragon was very angry with the woman. He went off to fight with the rest of her children. They are the ones who obey the Laws of God and are faithful to the teachings of Jesus.