M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
3 One day Naomi said to Ruth, “My dear, isn’t it time that I try to find a husband for you and get you happily married again? 2 The man I’m thinking of is Boaz! He has been so kind to us and is a close relative. I happen to know that he will be winnowing barley tonight out on the threshing floor. 3 Now do what I tell you—bathe and put on some perfume and some nice clothes and go on down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him see you until he has finished his supper. 4 Notice where he lies down to sleep; then go and lift the cover off his feet and lie down there, and he will tell you what to do concerning marriage.”
5 And Ruth replied, “All right. I’ll do whatever you say.”
6-7 So she went down to the threshing floor that night and followed her mother-in-law’s instructions. After Boaz had finished a good meal, he lay down very contentedly beside a heap of grain and went to sleep. Then Ruth came quietly and lifted the covering off his feet and lay there. 8 Suddenly, around midnight, he wakened and sat up, startled. There was a woman lying at his feet!
9 “Who are you?” he demanded.
“It’s I, sir—Ruth,” she replied. “Make me your wife according to God’s law, for you are my close relative.”
10 “Thank God for a girl like you!” he exclaimed. “For you are being even kinder to Naomi now than before. Naturally you’d prefer a younger man, even though poor. But you have put aside your personal desires. 11 Now don’t worry about a thing, my child; I’ll handle all the details, for everyone knows what a wonderful person you are. 12 But there is one problem. It’s true that I am a close relative, but there is someone else who is more closely related to you than I am. 13 Stay here tonight, and in the morning I’ll talk to him, and if he will marry you, fine; let him do his duty; but if he won’t, then I will, I swear by Jehovah; lie down until the morning.”
14 So she lay at his feet until the morning and was up early, before daybreak, for he had said to her, “Don’t let it be known that a woman was here at the threshing floor.”
15-18 “Bring your shawl,” he told her. Then he tied up a bushel and a half of barley in it as a present for her mother-in-law and laid it on her back. Then she returned to the city.
“Well, what happened, dear?” Naomi asked her when she arrived home. She told Naomi everything and gave her the barley from Boaz, and mentioned his remark that she mustn’t go home without a present.
Then Naomi said to her, “Just be patient until we hear what happens, for Boaz won’t rest until he has followed through on this. He’ll settle it today.”
4 So Boaz went down to the marketplace[a] and found the relative he had mentioned.
“Say, come over here,” he called to him. “I want to talk to you a minute.”
So they sat down together. 2 Then Boaz called for ten of the chief men of the village and asked them to sit as witnesses.
3 Boaz said to his relative, “You know Naomi, who came back to us from Moab. She is selling our brother Elimelech’s property. 4 I felt that I should speak to you about it so that you can buy it if you wish, with these respected men as witnesses. If you want it,[b] let me know right away, for if you don’t take it, I will. You have the first right to purchase it and I am next.”
The man replied, “All right, I’ll buy it.”
5 Then Boaz told him, “Your purchase of the land from Naomi requires your marriage to Ruth so that she can have children to carry on her husband’s name and to inherit the land.”
6 “Then I can’t do it,” the man replied. “For her son would become an heir to my property too;[c] you buy it.”
7 In those days it was the custom in Israel for a man transferring a right of purchase to pull off his sandal and hand it to the other party; this publicly validated the transaction. 8 So, as the man said to Boaz, “You buy it for yourself,” he drew off his sandal.
9 Then Boaz said to the witnesses and to the crowd standing around, “You have seen that today I have bought all the property of Elimelech, Chilion, and Mahlon, from Naomi, 10 and that with it I have purchased Ruth the Moabitess, the widow of Mahlon, to be my wife, so that she can have a son to carry on the family name of her dead husband.”
11 And all the people standing there and the witnesses replied, “We are witnesses. May the Lord make this woman, who has now come into your home, as fertile as Rachel and Leah, from whom all the nation of Israel descended! May you be a great and successful man in Bethlehem, 12 and may the descendants the Lord will give you from this young woman be as numerous and honorable as those of our ancestor Perez, the son of Tamar and Judah.”
13 So Boaz married Ruth, and when he slept with her, the Lord gave her a son.
14 And the women of the city said to Naomi, “Bless the Lord who has given you this little grandson; may he be famous in Israel. 15 May he restore your youth and take care of you in your old age; for he is the son of your daughter-in-law who loves you so much, and who has been kinder to you than seven sons!”
16-17 Naomi took care of the baby, and the neighbor women said, “Now at last Naomi has a son again!”
And they named him Obed. He was the father of Jesse and grandfather of King David.
18-22 This is the family tree of Boaz, beginning with his ancestor Perez: Perez, Hezron, Ram, Amminadab, Nashon, Salmon, Boaz, Obed, Jesse, David.
28 1-2 We soon learned that we were on the island of Malta. The people of the island were very kind to us, building a bonfire on the beach to welcome and warm us in the rain and cold.
3 As Paul gathered an armful of sticks to lay on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, fastened itself onto his hand! 4 The people of the island saw it hanging there and said to each other, “A murderer, no doubt! Though he escaped the sea, justice will not permit him to live!”
5 But Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed. 6 The people waited for him to begin swelling or suddenly fall dead; but when they had waited a long time and no harm came to him, they changed their minds and decided he was a god.
7 Near the shore where we landed was an estate belonging to Publius, the governor of the island. He welcomed us courteously and fed us for three days. 8 As it happened, Publius’s father was ill with fever and dysentery. Paul went in and prayed for him, and laying his hands on him, healed him! 9 Then all the other sick people in the island came and were cured. 10 As a result we were showered with gifts,[a] and when the time came to sail, people put on board all sorts of things we would need for the trip.
11 It was three months after the shipwreck before we set sail again, and this time it was in The Twin Brothers of Alexandria, a ship that had wintered at the island. 12 Our first stop was Syracuse, where we stayed three days. 13 From there we circled around to Rhegium; a day later a south wind began blowing, so the following day we arrived at Puteoli, 14 where we found some believers! They begged us to stay with them seven days. Then we went on to Rome.
15 The brothers in Rome had heard we were coming and came to meet us at the Forum[b] on the Appian Way. Others joined us at The Three Taverns. When Paul saw them, he thanked God and took courage.
16 When we arrived in Rome, Paul was permitted to live wherever he wanted to, though guarded by a soldier.
17 Three days after his arrival, he called together the local Jewish leaders and spoke to them as follows:
“Brothers, I was arrested by the Jews in Jerusalem and handed over to the Roman government for prosecution, even though I had harmed no one nor violated the customs of our ancestors. 18 The Romans gave me a trial and wanted to release me, for they found no cause for the death sentence demanded by the Jewish leaders. 19 But when the Jews protested the decision, I felt it necessary, with no malice against them, to appeal to Caesar. 20 I asked you to come here today so we could get acquainted and I could tell you that it is because I believe the Messiah[c] has come that I am bound with this chain.”
21 They replied, “We have heard nothing against you! We have had no letters from Judea or reports from those arriving from Jerusalem.[d] 22 But we want to hear what you believe, for the only thing we know about these Christians is that they are denounced everywhere!”
23 So a time was set, and on that day large numbers came to his house. He told them about the Kingdom of God and taught them about Jesus from the Scriptures—from the five books of Moses and the books of prophecy. He began lecturing in the morning and went on into the evening!
24 Some believed and some didn’t. 25 But after they had argued back and forth among themselves, they left with this final word from Paul ringing in their ears: “The Holy Spirit was right when he said through Isaiah the prophet,
26 ‘Say to the Jews, “You will hear and see but not understand, 27 for your hearts are too fat and your ears don’t listen and you have closed your eyes against understanding, for you don’t want to see and hear and understand and turn to me to heal you.”’[e]
28-29 [f]So I want you to realize that this salvation from God is available to the Gentiles too, and they will accept it.”
30 Paul lived for the next two years in his rented house[g] and welcomed all who visited him, 31 telling them with all boldness about the Kingdom of God and about the Lord Jesus Christ; and no one tried to stop him.
38 But when Shephatiah (son of Mattan) and Gedaliah (son of Pashhur) and Jucal (son of Shelemiah) and Pashhur (son of Malchiah) heard what Jeremiah had been telling the people— 2 that everyone remaining in Jerusalem would die by sword, starvation, or disease, but anyone surrendering to the Babylonians would live, 3 and that the city of Jerusalem would surely be captured by the king of Babylon— 4 they went to the king and said: “Sir, this fellow must die. That kind of talk will undermine the morale of the few soldiers we have left, and of all the people too. This man is a traitor.”
5 So King Zedekiah agreed. “All right,” he said. “Do as you like—I can’t stop you.”
6 They took Jeremiah from his cell and lowered him by ropes into an empty cistern in the prison yard. (It belonged to Malchiah, a member of the royal family.) There was no water in it, but there was a thick layer of mire at the bottom, and Jeremiah sank down into it.
7 When Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, an important palace official, heard that Jeremiah was in the cistern, 8 he rushed out to the Gate of Benjamin where the king was holding court.
9 “My lord the king,” he said, “these men have done a very evil thing in putting Jeremiah into the cistern. He will die of hunger, for almost all the bread in the city is gone.”
10 Then the king commanded Ebed-melech to take thirty men with him and pull Jeremiah out before he died. 11 So Ebed-melech took thirty men and went to a palace depot for discarded supplies where used clothing was kept. There he found some old rags and discarded garments which he took to the cistern and lowered to Jeremiah on a rope. 12 Ebed-melech called down to Jeremiah, “Use these rags under your armpits to protect you from the ropes.” Then, when Jeremiah was ready, 13 they pulled him out and returned him to the palace prison, where he remained.
14 One day King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah to meet him at the side entrance of the Temple.
“I want to ask you something,” the king said, “and don’t try to hide the truth.”
15 Jeremiah said, “If I tell you the truth, you will kill me. And you won’t listen to me anyway.”
16 So King Zedekiah swore before Almighty God his Creator that he would not kill Jeremiah or give him to the men who were after his life.
17 Then Jeremiah said to Zedekiah, “The Almighty Lord, the God of Israel, says: If you will surrender to Babylon, you and your family shall live and the city will not be burned. 18 If you refuse to surrender, this city shall be set afire by the Babylonian army and you will not escape.”
19 “But I am afraid to surrender,” the king said, “for the Babylonians will hand me over to the Jews who have defected to them, and who knows what they will do to me?”
20 Jeremiah replied, “You won’t get into their hands if only you will obey the Lord; your life will be spared, and all will go well for you. 21-22 But if you refuse to surrender, the Lord has said that all the women left in your palace will be brought out and given to the officers of the Babylonian army; and these women will taunt you with bitterness. ‘Fine friends you have,’ they’ll say, ‘those Egyptians. They have betrayed you and left you to your fate!’ 23 All your wives and children will be led out to the Babylonians, and you will not escape. You will be seized by the king of Babylon, and this city will be burned.”
24 Then Zedekiah said to Jeremiah, “On pain of death, don’t tell anyone you told me this! 25 And if my officials hear that I talked with you and they threaten you with death unless you tell them what we discussed, 26 just say that you begged me not to send you back to the dungeon in Jonathan’s house, for you would die there.”
27 And sure enough, it wasn’t long before all the city officials came to Jeremiah and asked him why the king had called for him. So he said what the king had told him to, and they left without finding out the truth, for the conversation had not been overheard by anyone. 28 And Jeremiah remained confined to the prison yard until the day Jerusalem was captured.
11 How dare you tell me, “Flee[a] to the mountains for safety,” when I am trusting in the Lord?
2 For the wicked have strung their bows, drawn their arrows tight against the bowstrings, and aimed from ambush at the people of God. 3 “Law and order have collapsed,”[b] we are told. “What can the righteous do but flee?”
4 But the Lord is still in his holy temple; he still rules from heaven. He closely watches everything that happens here on earth. 5 He puts the righteous and the wicked to the test; he hates those loving violence. 6 He will rain down fire and brimstone on the wicked and scorch them with his burning wind.
7 For God is good, and he loves goodness; the godly shall see his face.[c]
12 Lord! Help! Godly men are fast disappearing. Where in all the world can dependable men be found? 2 Everyone deceives and flatters and lies. There is no sincerity left.
3-4 But the Lord will not deal gently with people who act like that; he will destroy those proud liars who say, “We will lie to our heart’s content. Our lips are our own; who can stop us?”
5 The Lord replies, “I will arise and defend the oppressed, the poor, the needy. I will rescue them as they have longed for me to do.” 6 The Lord’s promise is sure. He speaks no careless word; all he says is purest truth, like silver seven times refined. 7 O Lord, we know that you will forever preserve your own from the reach of evil men, 8 although they prowl on every side and vileness is praised throughout the land.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.