M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

7 So the men of Kiriath Jearim came and took up the ark of the Lord. And they brought it into the house of Abinadab on the hill, and sanctified Eleazar his son to keep the ark of the Lord. ² And from the day the ark resided in Kiriath Jearim, the days increased to twenty years.

Samuel Judges Israel

And all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. ³ Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and Ashtoreths from your midst. And make firm your hearts unto the Lord, and serve Him only. Then He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” ⁴ So the children of Israel put away the Baals and Ashtoreths and served the Lord only.

⁵ Then Samuel said, “Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to the Lord for you.” ⁶ They gathered together to Mizpah. And they drew water and poured it out before the Lord. And they fasted on that day, and said there, “We have sinned against the Lord.” So Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah.

⁷ When the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together to Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. And when the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. ⁸ The children of Israel said to Samuel, “Do not stop crying unto the Lord our God for us, that He might save us out of the hand of the Philistines.” ⁹ Samuel took a suckling lamb, and offered it for a burnt offering unto the Lord. And Samuel cried to the Lord for Israel and the Lord heard him.

¹⁰ As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to battle against Israel, but the Lord thundered with a great thunder on that day against the Philistines, and confused them. So they were beaten before Israel. ¹¹ Israel’s fighting men went out of Mizpah, and pursued the Philistines, and struck them, as far as below Beth Kar.

¹² Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen. And he called its name Ebenezer^[a] saying, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.”

¹³ So the Philistines were subdued, and they did not again come into the territory of Israel. And the hand of the Lord was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel. ¹⁴ The cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron even to Gath. And Israel rescued their territory out of the hands of the Philistines. And there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.

¹⁵ So Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. ¹⁶ He went annually in a circuit to Bethel, and Gilgal, and Mizpah. And he judged Israel in all those places. ¹⁷ But his return was to Ramah, for his house was there and there he judged Israel. And there he built an altar to the Lord.

Israel Demands a King

8 And it came about when Samuel was old, that he installed his sons as judges for Israel. ² Now the name of his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second son was Abijah. They were judging in Beersheba. ³ But his sons did not walk in his way, for they followed after unlawful gain, and they took bribes, and they perverted justice.

⁴ And all the elders of Israel gathered together and they came to Samuel at Ramah. ⁵ They said to him, “You are old and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now, install for us a king to govern us like all the nations.”

⁶ But the thing was evil in the eyes of Samuel, because they said, “Give us a king to govern us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. ⁷ The Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in relation to all that they say to you. For it is not you they have rejected, but Me they have rejected from reigning over them. ⁸ Just as all the deeds which they have done to Me, from the day I brought them up from Egypt even to this day, in that they have forsaken Me and have served other gods, so they are doing also to you now. ⁹ Now then, obey their voice. Only you will testify against them and proclaim to them the judgment concerning the king who will reign over them.”

¹⁰ So Samuel said all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking from him a king. ¹¹ And he said, “This will be the judgment concerning the king who will reign over you: Your sons he will take in order to place them for himself in his chariots and as his horsemen, and they will run before his chariot, ¹² and in order to assign for himself captains of thousands and captains of fifties, and to plow his ground, and to gather in his harvest, and to make his weapons of war and the equipment of his chariots. ¹³ And your daughters he will take for perfumers, and cooks, and bakers. ¹⁴ And your choicest fields, and vineyards, and olive groves he will take and give them to his servants. ¹⁵ And of your seed fields and your vineyards he will take a tenth of their harvest and will give it to his high officials and to his servants. ¹⁶ And your menservants and your maidservants, and the best of your young men and asses he will take and make do his work. ¹⁷ Your flocks he will take a tenth of, but you will be his for slaves. ¹⁸ And you will cry out in that day because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

¹⁹ But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, “No! But surely a king will be over us! ²⁰ So that we also will be like all the nations! And so that our king will govern us, and will go out before us, and will fight our battles.”

²¹ And after Samuel heard all the words of the people, he spoke them in the hearing of the Lord. ²² And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice, and make for them a king.”

So Samuel said to Israel’s fighting men, “Go every man to his city.”

Dead to Sin but Alive in Christ

6 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may increase? ² God forbid! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? ³ Do you not know that we who were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death? ⁴ Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united with Him in the likeness of His death, so shall we also be united with Him in the likeness of His resurrection, ⁶ knowing this, that our old man has been crucified with Him, so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we should no longer be slaves to sin. ⁷ For the one who has died is freed from sin.

⁸ Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death has no further dominion over Him. ¹⁰ For the death He died, He died to sin once for all, but the life He lives, He lives to God.

¹¹ Likewise, you also consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. ¹² Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but yield yourselves to God, as those who are alive from the dead, and your bodies to God as instruments of righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law, but under grace.

Slaves of Righteousness

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid! ¹⁶ Do you not know that to whom you yield yourselves as slaves to obey, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God, for you were slaves of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of teaching to which you were entrusted, ¹⁸ and having been freed from sin, you became the slaves of righteousness.

¹⁹ I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for just as you have yielded your members as slaves to impurity and iniquity leading to more iniquity, even so now yield your members as slaves to righteousness unto holiness. ²⁰ For when you were the slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. ²¹ What fruit did you have then from the things of which you are now ashamed? The result of those things is death. ²² But now, having been freed from sin and having become slaves of God, you have fruit unto holiness, and the end is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Idolatry Leads to Judgment

44 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews which dwell in the land of Egypt, who dwell at Migdol, and Tahpanhes, and Memphis, and in the country of Pathros,^[a] saying, ² Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: You have seen all the calamity that I have brought upon Jerusalem and upon all the cities of Judah. Look at them; today they are a desolation, and no man dwells in them, ³ because of their wickedness, which they have committed to provoke Me to anger, in that they went to burn incense and to serve other gods, whom they did not know; they nor you nor your fathers. ⁴ However, I sent to you all My servants the prophets, rising early and sending them, saying, “Oh, do not do this abominable thing that I hate.” ⁵ But they did not listen nor incline their ear to turn from their wickedness, not to burn incense to other gods. ⁶ Therefore My fury and My anger was poured out and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are ruined and desolate, as it is this day.

⁷ Now thus says the Lord God of Hosts, the God of Israel: Why are you committing this great evil against your souls, to cut off from you man and woman, child and infant, out of Judah, leaving you no one to remain, ⁸ provoking Me to wrath with the works of your hands, burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt, where you have gone to dwell, so that you might cut yourselves off and become a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? ⁹ Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, and the wickedness of the kings of Judah, and the wickedness of their wives, and your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives, which they have committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰ They are not humbled even to this day, nor have they feared, nor have they walked in My law and My statutes that I set before you and before your fathers.

¹¹ Therefore thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: I will set My face against you for disaster, and to cut off all Judah. ¹² I will take the remnant of Judah who have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to sojourn there, and they all will be consumed and fall in the land of Egypt. They will even be consumed by the sword and by the famine. They will die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine; and they will be an execration, and an astonishment, and a curse, and a reproach. ¹³ For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem; by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. ¹⁴ So none of the remnant of Judah who have gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there will escape or remain, with the result that they return into the land of Judah to which they have a desire to return to dwell there. For no one shall return except those who escape.

¹⁵ Then all the men who knew that their wives had burned incense to other gods and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people who lived in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying: ¹⁶ “As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord, we will not listen to you. ¹⁷ But we will certainly do whatever we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our officials, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. For then we had plenty of food, and were well off, and saw no disaster. ¹⁸ But since we left off burning incense to the queen of heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have been in want of all things and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”

¹⁹ The women also said, “When we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make her cakes to worship her and pour out drink offerings to her without our husbands?”

Calamity for the Jews

²⁰ Then Jeremiah said to all the people, to the men and to the women, and to all the people who had given him such an answer: ²¹ “The incense offerings that you burned in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, you, and your fathers, your kings, and your officials, and the people of the land, did not the Lord remember them and did they not come into His mind? ²² So the Lord could no longer bear it because of the evil of your deeds and because of the abominations which you have committed. Therefore your land is a desolation, and an astonishment, and a curse, without an inhabitant, as it is this day. ²³ Because you have burned incense and because you have sinned against the Lord and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, nor walked in His law, nor in His statutes, nor in His testimonies, therefore this calamity has happened to you, as it is this day.”

²⁴ Moreover Jeremiah said to all the people and to all the women, “Hear the word of the Lord, all Judah who are in the land of Egypt. ²⁵ Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel: You and your wives have both spoken with your mouths and fulfilled with your hand, saying, ‘We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out drink offerings to her.’

“Proceed to accomplish your vows and surely perform your vows! ²⁶ Yet hear the word of the Lord, all Judah who dwells in the land of Egypt: I have sworn by My great name, says the Lord, that My name shall no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, ‘As the Lord God lives.’ ²⁷ I will watch over them for disaster and not for good. And all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt shall be consumed by the sword and by the famine until there is an end of them. ²⁸ Yet a small number who escape the sword shall return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah, and all the remnant of Judah who have gone into the land of Egypt to sojourn there will know whose words will stand, Mine or theirs.

²⁹ “This will be a sign to you, says the Lord, that I will punish you in this place so that you may know that My words shall surely stand against you for disaster. ³⁰ Thus says the Lord: I will give Pharaoh Hophra the king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life, just as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy, and sought his life.”

Psalm 20

For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.

Psalm 21

For the Music Director. A Psalm of David.