M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Atonement for Unsolved Murders
21 If someone is found slain in the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess, lying in the field, and it is not known who has slain him, 2 then your elders and your judges are to come forth, and they must measure how far it is to the cities which are around him who was slain. 3 And it must be, that the city which is closest to the slain man, that is, the elders of that city shall take a heifer which has not been worked, that has never pulled in yoke, 4 and the elders of that city must bring down the heifer to a valley with flowing water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the valley. 5 Then the priests, the sons of Levi, must come near, for the Lord your God has chosen them to minister to Him, and to bless in the name of the Lord, and by their word every controversy and every assault will be settled. 6 And all the elders of that city, which is nearest to the slain man, shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. 7 Then they must answer and say, “Our hands have not shed this blood, and our eyes have not seen it. 8 Be merciful, O Lord, to Your people Israel, whom You have redeemed, and lay not innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel.” And the blood guilt will be forgiven them. 9 In this way you are to remove the guilt of innocent blood from among you when you do that which is right in the eyes of the Lord.
Marrying Female Captives
10 When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the Lord your God has delivered them into your hands, and you have taken them captive, 11 and you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and have a desire for her to have her as your wife, 12 then you are to bring her home to your house, and she is to shave her head and trim her nails. 13 She must also discard the clothing of her captivity and shall remain in your house, and mourn her father and her mother for a full month. After that you may have relations with her, and be her husband, and she will be your wife. 14 It will be, if you are not pleased with her, then you must let her go wherever she pleases, but you may not sell her at all for money, nor are you to make merchandise of her, because you have humbled her.
The Right of the Firstborn
15 If a man has two wives, one beloved and another unloved, and both have borne him children, both the loved one and the unloved one, and if the firstborn son is hers that is unloved, 16 then it must be, when he gives his sons the inheritance which he has, that he may not make the firstborn son of the loved come before the son of the unloved, who was indeed the firstborn. 17 On the contrary, he must acknowledge the son of the unloved for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he has, for he is the beginning of his strength. The right of the firstborn is his.
Dealing With a Rebellious Son
18 If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son, who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have disciplined him, will not listen to them, 19 then his father and his mother are to lay hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. 20 They shall say to the elders of his city, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not listen to us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his city must stone him with stones, until he dies. In this way you are to remove the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear.
Various Laws
22 If a man has committed a sin worthy of death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree, 23 then his body must not remain all night on the tree, but you must bury him that day (for he that is hanged is accursed of God) so that your land may not be defiled, which the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.
Psalm 108(A)
A Song. A Psalm of David.
1 O God, my heart is determined;
I will sing and give praise with my whole heart.
2 Awake, O lyre and harp!
I will awake at dawn!
3 I will praise you, O Lord, among the peoples,
and I will sing praises unto You among the nations.
4 For Your mercy is great above the heavens;
Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
may Your glory be above all the earth.
6 That Your beloved ones may be delivered,
provide salvation with Your right hand and answer me.
7 God has spoken in His sanctuary:
“I will triumph and will divide up Shechem
and portion out the Valley of Sukkoth.
8 Gilead is Mine; Manasseh is Mine;
Ephraim is My helmet;
Judah is My royal scepter;
9 Moab is My washbasin;
on Edom I throw My shoe;
over Philistia I shout in triumph.”
10 Who will bring me into the fortified city?
Who will lead me into Edom?
11 Have You not rejected us, O God?
You surely do not go out, O God, with our armies.
12 Grant us help against the foe,
for the help of man is worthless.
13 Through God we shall be valiant,
for He shall tread down our enemies.
Psalm 109
For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.
1 Do not remain silent,
O God of my praise!
2 For the mouth of the wicked and deceitful
are opened against me;
they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
3 They encircled me with words of hatred
and fought against me without cause.
4 In return for my love they are my adversaries,
but I give myself to prayer.
5 They have rewarded me evil for good
and hatred for my love.
6 Set a wicked man against him,
and let an accuser stand at his right hand.
7 When he shall be judged, let him be condemned,
and let his prayer be reckoned as sin.
8 Let his days be few,
and let another take his office.
9 Let his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.
10 Let his children be wandering beggars;
let them seek their bread far from their desolate places.
11 Let the creditor seize all that he has;
let the strangers plunder the fruit of his labor.
12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him,
neither let there be any to pity his fatherless children.
13 Let his posterity be cut off,
and in the generation following let his name be blotted out.
14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord,
and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
15 Let them be before the Lord continually,
that the Lord may cut off the memory of them from the earth.
16 For he did not remember to show kindness,
but pursued the poor and needy and broken-hearted
to their death.
17 As he loved cursing,
so let it come over him;
as he did not delight in blessing,
so let it be far from him.
18 As he clothed himself with cursing like a garment,
so let it soak into him like water,
and like oil into his bones.
19 Let it be unto him as the garment that covers him,
and a belt that he continually wears.
20 Let this be the reward of my adversaries from the Lord,
and of those who speak evil against my soul.
21 But You, O God my Lord,
work on my behalf for your name’s sake;
because your mercy is good, deliver me.
22 For I am poor and needy,
and my heart is wounded within me.
23 I am gone like a shadow in the evening;
I am tossed as the locust.
24 My knees are weak through fasting,
and my body is thin with no fat.
25 I am a reproach to my accusers;
when they look upon me, they shake their heads.
26 Help me, O Lord my God!
Save me according to Your mercy,
27 that they may know that this is by Your hand,
that You, O Lord, have done it.
28 Let them curse, but You will bless;
when they arise, let them be ashamed,
but let Your servant rejoice.
29 Let my adversaries be clothed with shame,
and let them cover themselves with their own disgrace like a cloak.
30 I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth;
indeed, I will praise Him among the multitude.
31 For He stands at the right hand of the poor,
to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.
Israel Refined for God’s Glory
48 Hear this, O house of Jacob,
who are called by the name of Israel,
and have come forth from the waters of Judah;
who swear by the name of the Lord,
and invoke the God of Israel,
but not in truth or in righteousness;
2 for they call themselves after the holy city,
and lean on the God of Israel;
the Lord of Hosts is His name:
3 I have declared the former things from the beginning;
and they went forth from My mouth, and I announced them.
Suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.
4 Because I knew that you are obstinate,
and your neck is an iron sinew,
and your brow bronze;
5 I have even from the beginning declared it to you;
before it came to pass I announced it to you,
lest you should say,
“My idol has done them,
and my carved image and my molded image has commanded them.”
6 You have heard; see all this.
And will you not declare it?
I have shown you new things from this time,
even hidden things, and you did not know them.
7 They are created now and not from the beginning;
even before the day when you did not hear them,
lest you should say,
“Yes, I knew them.”
8 You have not heard, you have not known,
indeed, from long ago your ear has not been open.
For I knew that you would deal very treacherously,
and that from birth you have been called a rebel.
9 For My name’s sake I will defer My anger,
and for My praise I will restrain it for you
so that you are not cut off.
10 See, I have refined you, but not with silver;
I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For My own sake, even for My own sake, I will do it;
for how can My name be polluted?
And I will not give My glory to another.
The Lord’s Call to Israel
12 Listen to Me, O Jacob
and Israel, whom I called:
I am He;
I am the First, and I am the Last.
13 My hand also has laid the foundation of the earth,
and My right hand has spanned the heavens;
when I call to them,
they stand up together.
14 Assemble, all of you, and listen.
Who among them has declared these things?
The Lord has loved him;
he will do His pleasure on Babylon,
and His arm shall be against the Chaldeans.
15 I, even I, have spoken,
and I have called him;
I have brought him,
and his way will prosper.
16 Come near to Me, hear this:
I have not spoken in secret from the beginning;
from the time that it was, there I am.
And now the Lord God has sent me
and His Spirit.
17 Thus says the Lord,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
I am the Lord your God,
who teaches you to profit,
who leads you in the way you should go.
18 Oh, that you had listened to My commandments!
Then your peace would have been as a river
and your righteousness as the waves of the sea.
19 Your descendants also would have been as the sand
and your offspring like grains of sand;
their name would not have been cut off
nor destroyed from before Me.
20 Go forth from Babylon!
Flee from the Chaldeans!
With a voice of singing declare,
proclaim this,
utter it even to the ends of the earth;
say, “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob.”
21 They did not thirst when He led them through the deserts;
He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them;
He also split the rock,
and the waters gushed out.
22 “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”
The Fall of Babylon
18 After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. 2 He cried out mightily with a loud voice, saying:
“ ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’[a]
She has become a dwelling place of demons,
a haunt for every unclean spirit,
and a haunt for every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all the nations have drunk
of the wine of the wrath of her sexual immorality,
the kings of the earth have committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the
abundance of her luxury.”
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying:
“ ‘Come out of her, my people,’[b]
lest you partake in her sins,
and lest you receive her plagues.
5 For her sins have reached up to heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Render to her as she has rendered to you,
and repay her double for her deeds;
in the cup which she has mixed, mix a double portion for her.
7 To the extent that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously,
so give her torment and sorrow;
for in her heart she says,
‘I sit as a queen, and am no widow,
and will see no sorrow.’[c]
8 Therefore her plagues will come in one day—
death and mourning and famine.
And she will be utterly burned with fire,
for strong is the Lord God who judges her.
9 “The kings of the earth, who have committed adultery and lived luxuriously with her, will weep and mourn over her when they see the smoke of her burning. 10 Standing far off for the fear of her torment, they will say:
‘Alas, alas for that great city,
that mighty city, Babylon!
In one hour your judgment has come.’
11 “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their merchandise any more: 12 the merchandise of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all artifacts of ivory, all merchandise of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble; 13 and cinnamon and incense, myrrh and frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves and souls of men.
14 ‘The fruit that your soul lusted after
has departed from you,
and all the things which graceful and exquisite
have departed from you,
and you shall never find them.’
15 “The merchants of these things, who gained wealth by her, will stand far off for fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, 16 and saying:
‘Alas, alas, that great city,
that was arrayed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet,
and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls!
17 In one hour such great riches came to nothing!’
“All sea captains and seafaring men, sailors and all who trade by sea, stood far off, 18 and cried out when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, ‘What city is like this great city?’ 19 They threw dust on their heads and cried out, weeping and wailing, and saying:
‘Alas, alas, that great city,
in which all who had ships in the sea
grew rich from her wealth!
In one hour she has been laid waste!’
20 “Rejoice over her, O heaven
and saints and apostles and prophets,
for God has avenged you against her.”
21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying:
“With such violence
shall that great city Babylon be thrown down,
and shall be found no more.
22 The sound of harpists and musicians, flute players and trumpeters,
shall not be heard in you any more.
No craftsman of any craft
shall be found in you any more,
and the sound of a millstone
shall not be heard in you any more.
23 The light of a lamp
shall shine in you no more,
and the voice of bridegroom and of bride
shall be heard in you no more.
For your merchants were the great men of the earth,
and all nations were deceived by your sorcery.
24 In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints
and of all who were slain on the earth.”
The Holy Bible, Modern English Version. Copyright © 2014 by Military Bible Association. Published and distributed by Charisma House.