M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
17 Moses: Don’t sacrifice an ox or a sheep to the Eternal your God if it has any defect or problem. He would be deeply offended by such an offering!
2 What if, in one of the towns the Eternal your God is giving you, a man or a woman does what He considers wrong and breaks His covenant 3 by going and worshiping other gods, bowing down to them or the sun or moon or stars (which I’ve never commanded you to do)? 4 If you discover this, if someone tells you about it, or if you hear about it; then conduct a careful investigation. If you establish conclusively that the report is true, that such a horrible thing has been done within Israel, 5 then bring the man or woman who has done this evil thing out to the gates of your town, and stone that man or woman to death. 6 But for someone to be executed on a charge such as this, there must be testimony from at least two or three witnesses. No one is to be executed on the testimony of just one witness. 7 The witnesses must throw the first deadly stones, and then everyone else must join in. Expel the wicked from your own community.[a]
8 If one person in your town brings a complaint against another to be judged at the city gate, and it’s just too difficult for you to decide what a fair resolution would be—if you can’t determine whether a killing was premeditated, or if you can’t decide who in a dispute makes the best argument, or if you can’t tell whether someone was injured accidentally or intentionally—then adjourn your proceedings and go to the place the Eternal your God will choose. 9 Bring your case to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is serving at the time, and they will give you a verdict. 10 You must carry out their verdict exactly as they stated it because it was delivered in the place the Eternal chose, and it has His authority behind it. 11 Follow each word of the law as they interpret it for you; do everything they’ve told you to do, as they’ve explained it, without deviating from it at all. 12 If anyone is so arrogant that he won’t listen to the priest who serves right there in the presence of the Eternal your God or to the judge of the tribunal, that person must be executed to expel this kind of wickedness from Israel. 13 Everyone will hear about it, and no one will dare to be so arrogant, for they will be afraid.
Having a king is part of God’s plan for Israel. This king is supposed to be someone who depends faithfully on the Lord, not on wealth or power, and who would study God’s laws and follow them. A king like that will be a blessing to everyone in the country. But when the people ask for this king around 1000 b.c., their motives are wrong. They want to depend on this king instead of on God (1 Samuel 8:7). In the years that follow, many ungodly kings bring trouble to the nation and oppress the people. Their political maneuvering and policies of appeasement even lead them to set up altars to foreign gods. The people are ultimately punished for deserting the Lord by being taken into exile away from the promised land.
Moses: 14 Once you’ve gotten into the land the Eternal your God is giving you, and you’ve conquered it and settled there, you may say to yourselves, “Let’s appoint a king to rule our country, just as all the nations around us have!” 15 If you do have a king, remember you must enthrone the king He chooses. It must be a fellow Israelite whom you enthrone; you must not enthrone a foreigner who is not a fellow Israelite. 16 Although an Israelite, he must not try to build a strong army by collecting large herds of horses for his cavalry troops and a chariot corps. The king must certainly not send people back to Egypt to get large herds of horses, because the Lord has commanded you, “Don’t ever go back that way again!” 17 This king must not have many wives. If he takes foreign wives in marriage alliances, they could turn his heart away from the Lord and lead him to worship foreign gods. And the king must not accumulate great quantities of silver and gold for himself.
18 As soon as this king takes the royal throne, he must write out a copy of this law for himself on a scroll with the Levitical priests looking on. 19 He must keep this copy with him and read it every day, so that he will learn to fear the Eternal his God and to obey everything in the law and remember all these regulations very carefully in order to do them. 20 That way he won’t think he’s privileged and oppress and exploit his fellow Israelites. He won’t deviate at all from what the Eternal has commanded, and he and his descendants will rule over Israel in a long dynasty.
Psalm 104
1 Call Him good, my soul, and praise the Eternal.
I am here to declare my affection for You, Eternal One, my God.
You are indeed great—
You who are wrapped in glory and dressed in greatness.
2 For covering, You choose light—Your clothes, sunset and moonrise.
For a tent, You stretch out the heavens; for Your roof, You pitch the sky.
3 Your upper chamber is built on beams that lie in the waters overhead,
and the clouds, Your chariot;
You are held aloft by the wind.
4 You make Your messengers like the winds;
the breeze whispers Your words,
Your servants are like the fire and flame.
5 You made the earth,
and You made its frame stable forever.
Never will it be shaken.
6 You wrapped it in a gown of waters—
ancient mountains under layers of sky.
7 But when You reprimanded those waters, they fled;
the thunder of Your voice sent them running away.
8-9 They hammered out new depths, heaved up new heights,
and swallowed up whatever You commanded.
At first, they covered the earth,
but now You have bound them,
and they know their appointed place.
10 You send fresh streams that spring up in the valleys,
in the cracks between hills.
11 Every animal of the open field makes its journey there for drink:
wild donkeys lap at the brooks’ edges.
12 Birds build their nests by the streams,
singing among the branches.
13 And the clouds, too, drink up their share,
raining it back down on the mountains from the upper reaches of Your home,
Sustaining the whole earth with what comes from You.
And the earth is satisfied.
14-15 Thus You grow grain for bread, grapes for wine, grass for cattle—
all of this for us.
And so we have bread to make our bodies strong,
wine to make our hearts happy,
oil to make our faces shine.
Every good thing we need, Your earth provides;
our faces grow flush with Your life in them.
16 The forests are Yours, Eternal One—stout hardwoods watered deeply, swollen with sap—
like the great cedars of Lebanon You planted,
17 Where many birds nest.
There are fir trees for storks,
18 High hills for wild goats,
stony cliffs for rock badgers.
For each place, a resident,
and for each resident, a home.
19 The moon strides through her phases, marking seasons as she goes.
The sun hides at his appointed time,
20 And with the darkness You bring, so comes night—
when the prowling animals of the forest move about.
21 It is then that lions seek the food You, the True God, give them,
roaring after their prey.
22 At sunrise, they disappear
and sleep away the day in their dens.
23 Meanwhile, the people take to the fields and to the shops and to the roads,
to all the places that people work, until evening when they rest.
24 There is so much here, O Eternal One, so much You have made.
By the wise way in which You create, riches and creatures fill the earth.
25 Of course, the sea is vast and stretches like the heavens beyond view,
and numberless creatures inhabit her.
From the tiny to the great, they swarm beneath her waves.
26 Our ships skim her surface
while the monsters of the sea play beneath.
27 And all of these look to You
to give them food when the time is right.
28 When You feed, they gather what You supply.
When You open Your hand, they are filled with good food.
29 When You withdraw Your presence, they are dismayed.
When You revoke their breath, the life goes out of them,
and they become, again, the dust of the earth from which You formed them at the start.
30 When You send out Your breath, life is created,
and the face of the earth is made beautiful and is renewed.
31 May the glorious presence of the Eternal linger among us forever.
And may He rejoice in the greatness of His own works—
32 He, who rattles the earth with a glance;
He, who sets mountains to smoking with a touch.
33 I will sing to the Eternal all of my life;
I will call my God good as long as I live.
The last phrase of Psalm 104, “Praise the Eternal,” gives us a clear picture of the use of these songs in Israel. This phrase, which not only ends Psalm 104 but often opens and closes other psalms (for example, Psalms 146–150), is not part of the song itself. It is a direction for worship.
The Bible indicates that praise is the natural response to God’s gifts to His people. When David brought the covenant chest to Jerusalem, he appointed Asaph and his relatives to lead in praise. After the Levites chanted a marvelous psalm, the people responded in praise to the Eternal (1 Chronicles 16:36). In John’s vision of the final destruction of Babylon—a symbol for God’s enemies throughout all the ages—a vast number of creatures in heaven, the 24 elders and the 4 living creatures offer praise and adoration to the Lord (Revelation 18 and 19). Praise is simply the inevitable response of God’s people to all He is and all He has done.
34 May the thoughts of my mind be pleasing to Him,
for the Eternal has become my happiness.
35 But may those who hate Him, who act against Him,
disappear from the face of this beautiful planet.
As for the Eternal, call Him good, my soul.
Praise the Eternal!
44 Eternal One: Nevertheless, listen to Me, My people:
Jacob, My servant; Israel, My chosen.
2 The Eternal who made you,
who formed you in the womb and promised to help you, has this to say:
Eternal One: Don’t be afraid, My servant Jacob,
My dear Jeshurun—My chosen.
3 Like a devoted gardener, I will pour sweet water on parched land,
streams on hard-packed ground;
I will pour My spirit on your children and grandchildren—
and let My blessing flow to your descendants.
4 And they will sprout among the grasses, grow vibrant and tall
like the willow trees lining a riverbank.
5 One will call out: “I belong to the Eternal.”
Another will say, “Jacob is my people; Israel my honored name.”
Yet others will write “Property of the Eternal” on their hands.
6 The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies,
King of Israel, who paid their ransom, has this to say:
Eternal One: I am at the beginning and will be at the end.
There is no God except for Me.
7 If you know any God like Me, tell it now.
Declare and demonstrate any who can compare to Me.
Or if you know and have announced events before their time,
told what is to come, then speak so now.
8 Don’t be afraid. Let your minds be clear of fear.
Haven’t I announced events and revealed what is to come?
From the earliest days, I have done so. You know it—you have seen and know.
So, go ahead, My witnesses: is there a god out there other than Me?
Witnesses: There is no other rock like God. I don’t know a single one.
All of the nations that Israel encounters are involved in some form of idol worship. They imagine these gods and fashion these images in order to satisfy a desire—a God-given desire—to connect with something, with someone out there. Human beings know at some deep, intuitive level that God exists, life is sacred, and there are mysteries more profound than the daily grind. This is why every human civilization exhibits some form of religious life and devotion. But instead of seeking the God who is, people have a tendency to create the gods they want, gods that give them control over the complexities and problems of life. Israel is elected by God for a number of reasons. Perhaps two of the most significant are to bear witness to the one True God and to warn the nations against idolatry. According to Scripture, idol worship is not some neutral, unfortunate habit people get themselves into; it is more than just a waste of time, hope, and effort. It is a dangerous substitute—a counterfeit experience—that adversely misshapes and disorders their lives. To persist in idolatry is to give way to malevolent evils and to miss out on a relationship with the one True God.
9 But whoever does make an idol is not improved or enriched. On the contrary, their passing fancies contribute nothing of value or purpose. Those who look on at such misplaced attention don’t understand what they’re seeing, and the idol-makers will end up embarrassed at best. 10 It’s easy to say, “What pathetic idiocy! Who would do such a thing—make gods that are by definition worthless?” 11 The people who worship them will be shamed and humiliated. After all, people made those gods. Yet it happens all the time. So, let’s put these images, these figurines all together; stand them up—they will tremble with terror and be ashamed.
12 A metalworker shapes the raw materials into tools and then uses them to make little gods by hammering, bending, heating, and cooling the materials. And in the process, he gets tired and hungry; without water he soon grows faint. 13 Likewise, the woodworker measures and marks the wood, chisels and planes it down, marks it with a compass, and carves it until it looks a bit like a human—lovely, maybe—in order to put it in a house. 14 To take it back a bit further, perhaps he cuts down cedars or he carefully selects the cypress or oak himself, watches it, nurtures it until it is ready for his purpose. Perhaps he plants a pine; with sun and rain, it grows tall. 15 When it’s time to harvest, he uses some of the wood for fuel to stay warm, some to heat the oven and bake bread, and some to craft a god. Then the woodworker bows down and worships before the image he just made. 16-17 Do you see the irony? He sits around, warming himself and roasting dinner with wood from the same tree from which he crafted a god to which he bows and worships and prays—one time saying, “I am warmed by the wood fire”; another time saying, “O dear god, save me.”
18-19 So we see again how it is that they’re blind—their eyes shut to the truth in front of them, their hearts and minds refusing to think and really understand what’s going on. So without stopping to think about it, the fool says, “Gosh, I used half of the wood to build a fire, and baked the bread and roasted the meat over its hot coals. After I eat, I think I’ll use the rest of it to make a repulsive god. Maybe I’ll bow down to this leftover lumber.” 20 A fool like this is feeding on ashes—his addled mind and deceived heart lead him nowhere. He can’t figure out how to save himself, much less see the error of his ways and say, “Is this idol in my right hand just a lie?”
Eternal One: Let that be a lesson to you, My people.
21 Don’t forget it, Jacob; O Israel, remember—you are Mine.
I made you; you are My servant; I will not forget you.
22 I have swept away your wrongdoing, as wind sweeps a cloud from the sky:
I have cleared you of your sins, as the sun clears the morning mist.
I have rescued you; come back to Me.
23 Sing, starry sky and every constellation, for what the Eternal has done.
Shout for joy, dark soil underfoot and deep caverns below;
Erupt in joyful songs, mountains and forests, and every tree in them!
Sing joyfully, for the Eternal One has rescued Jacob, His people;
The splendor of God will be revealed in Israel.
24 The Eternal, your rescuing hero who formed you before birth, declares,
Eternal One: I am the Eternal, Creator of all there is and will be.
I alone stretched out the heavens and spread out the blue earth.
25 I confound the lying swindlers who claim to tell the future,
and I make the fortune-tellers look like fools.
I stop the highbrow intellectuals in their tracks,
and I show the fault of their reasoning.
26 But I stand behind the words of My servants,
and I accomplish what they predict.
The one who says about Jerusalem, “This place will be built up again”;
about Judah’s cities, “They will be restored”:
I confirm their predictions. They will rise from their ruins.
27 After all, I am the One who needs only to say “Dry up” to great waters,
and your rivers run dry.
28 I am the one who says of the Persian victor over Babylon,
“Cyrus is My shepherd. He will accomplish what I determine.”
My word goes out concerning Jerusalem:
“It will stand, a glorious city, again”
and of My house within it, “Restoration will begin at once.”
The number “666” stands in contrast to the perfection of the Lamb and the Spirit. Because this number is “the number of a person,” readers have tried to pin down the identity of this person throughout history. In John’s day, the name and title “Nero Caesar” was a likely candidate for the beast because Nero persecuted and executed believers, demanding obedience and even worship. Every era seems to have its Neros, those beastly characters who occupy seats of power and yet use their power to oppress God’s people. The speculation continues as to this person’s identity, but what has not changed is the message of hope in the midst of extreme persecution; that is the beauty proclaimed in this vision given to John.
14 The scene changed. I looked and saw the Lamb standing on top of Mount Zion, and with Him were the 144,000 who had His name and His Father’s name inscribed on their foreheads. 2 And I heard a voice from heaven roaring like a waterfall and clapping like thunder. The voice I heard was like a symphony of harpists playing their instruments. 3 As I watched, they began to sing a new song before the throne, the four living creatures, and the twenty-four elders. The only ones with the ability to learn this song were the 144,000 who had been rescued from the earth, 4 virgins who had not given themselves to sexual relations. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. They have been purchased from among humanity as the firstfruits, set apart for God and the Lamb. 5 In their mouths, no lie was found; no blemish marred them.
6 I saw another messenger flying through midheaven. He carried an eternal gospel, bringing good news to all the citizens of the earth—every ethnicity, nation, language, and people.
Heavenly Messenger (with a loud voice): 7 Fear God. Give Him glory, for the time of judgment has arrived. Worship the One who fashioned heaven and earth and created the seas and the springs.
8 Another messenger, a second, came along.
Second Messenger: Fallen, fallen is Babylon, the great city! She has intoxicated all the nations with the wine of the wrath of her sexual perversion.
9 Another messenger, a third, followed.
Third Messenger (with a loud voice): Those who worship the beast and its image, and all who receive its mark on their foreheads or on their hands, 10 will be forced to drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured out undiluted into the cup of God’s anger. And they will face the torment of fire and the agony of sulfurous flames before the holy messengers and the Lamb. 11 The smoke of their torment will rise throughout the ages for eternity. Day and night will come and go without pause or cessation. There will be no end to the torture experienced by those who worship the beast and its image and by those who receive the mark of its name.
12 Here is the patient endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and remain faithful to Jesus.
13 Then I heard a voice call out from heaven.
A Voice: Record this: “Blessed are the dead who have died in the Lord from now until the end.”
Spirit: Yes, they will rest from their labors because their deeds remain with them.
14 Then I saw a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one like the Son of Man, a golden wreath atop His head and a sharp sickle in His hand. 15 Another messenger proceeded from the temple and called with a loud voice to the One who sat on the cloud.
Heavenly Messenger: Take Your sickle and reap the harvest, because the harvest of the earth is full and ripe and because the time to harvest has come.
16 Then the One seated on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth gave up its harvest.
17 Just then another messenger proceeded out of the heavenly temple. He also had a sharp sickle. 18 Then another messenger (the one with authority over fire) came out from the altar, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle.
Messenger of Fire: Take your sharp sickle and gather together the clusters of grapes from the vines of the earth, for the grapes are ripe and ready for harvest.
19 So the heavenly messenger swung his sickle over the earth, gathered the fruit of the vine from the earth, and threw it into the great winepress, which is the wrath of God. 20 And the winepress was trampled outside of the city, and blood flowed from the winepress. The blood ran deep. It reached as high as the bridle on a horse and ran for the distance of about 185 miles.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.