M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

25 And Samuel died, and all Israel was gathered together, and they mourned for him, and buried him in his house in Ramatha. And David rose and went down into the wilderness of Pharan.

² Now there was a certain man in the wilderness of Maon, and his possessions were in Carmel, and the man was very great: and he had three thousand sheep, and a thousand goats: and it happened that he was shearing his sheep in Carmel.

³ Now the name of the man was Nabal: and the name of his wife was Abigail. And she was a prudent and very comely woman, but her husband was churlish, and very bad and ill natured: and he was of the house of Caleb.

⁴ And when David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep,

⁵ He sent ten young men, and said to them: Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and salute him in my name with peace.

⁶ And you shall say: Peace be to my brethren, and to thee, and peace to thy house, and peace to all that thou hast.

⁷ I heard that thy shepherds that were with us in the desert were shearing: we never molested them, neither was there ought missing to them of the flock at any time, all the while they were with us in Carmel.

⁸ Ask thy servants, and they will tell thee. Now therefore let thy servants find favour in thy eyes: for we are come in a good day, whatsoever thy hand shall find give to thy servants, and to thy son David.

⁹ And when David's servants came, they spoke to Nabal all these words in David's name: and then held their peace.

¹⁰ But Nabal answering the servants of David, said: Who is David? and what is the son of Isai? servants are multiplied now a days who flee from their masters.

¹¹ Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and the flesh of my cattle, which I have killed for my shearers, and give to men whom I know not whence they are?

¹² So the servants of David went back their way, and returning came and told him all the words that he said.

¹³ Then David said to his young men: Let every man gird on his sword. And they girded on every man his sword. And David also girded on his sword: and there followed David about four hundred men: and two hundred remained with the baggage.

¹⁴ But one of the servants told Abigail the wife of Nabal, saying: Behold David sent messengers out of the wilderness, to salute our master: and he rejected them.

¹⁵ These men were very good to us, and gave us no trouble: neither did we ever lose any thing all the time that we conversed with them in the desert.

¹⁶ They were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.

¹⁷ Wherefore consider, and think what thou hast to do: for evil is determined against thy husband, and against thy house, and he is a son of Belial, so that no man can speak to him.

¹⁸ Then Abigail made haste and took two hundred loaves, and two vessels of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of dry figs, and laid them upon asses:

¹⁹ And she said to her servants: Go before me: behold I will follow after you: but she told not her husband Nabal.

²⁰ And when she had gotten upon an ass, and was coming down to the foot of the mountain, David and his men came down over against her, and she met them.

²¹ And David said: Truly in vain have I kept all that belonged to this man in the wilderness, and nothing was lost of all that pertained unto him: and he hath returned me evil for good.

²² May God do so and so, and add more to the foes of David, if I leave of all that belong to him till the morning, any that pisseth against the wall.

²³ And when Abigail saw David she made haste and lighted off the ass, and fell before David, on her face, and adored upon the ground.

²⁴ And she fell at his feet, and said: Upon me let this iniquity be, my lord: let thy handmaid speak, I beseech thee, in thy ears: and hear the words of thy servant.

²⁵ Let not my lord the king, I pray, regard this naughty man Nabal: for according to his name, he is a fool, and folly is with him: but I thy handmaid did not see thy servants, my lord, whom thou sentest.

²⁶ Now therefore, my lord, the Lord liveth, and thy soul liveth, who hath withholden thee from coming to blood, and hath saved thy hand to thee: and now let thy enemies be as Nabal, and all they that seek evil to my lord.

²⁷ Wherefore receive this blessing, which thy handmaid hath brought to thee, my lord: and give it to the young men that follow thee, my lord.

²⁸ Forgive the iniquity of thy handmaid: for the Lord will surely make for my lord a faithful house, because thou, my lord, fightest the battles of the Lord: let not evil therefore be found in thee all the days of thy life.

²⁹ For if a man at any time shall rise, and persecute thee, and seek thy life, the soul of my lord shall be kept, as in the bundle of the living, with the Lord thy God: but the souls of thy enemies shall be whirled, as with the violence and whirling of a sling.

³⁰ And when the Lord shall have done to thee, my lord, all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have made thee prince over Israel,

³¹ This shall not be an occasion of grief to thee, and a scruple of heart to my lord, that thou hast shed innocent blood, or hast revenged thyself: and when the Lord shall have done well by my lord, thou shalt remember thy handmaid.

³² And David said to Abigail: Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, who sent thee this day to meet me, and blessed be thy speech:

³³ And blessed be thou, who hast kept me to day, from coming to blood, and revenging me with my own hand.

³⁴ Otherwise as the Lord liveth the God of Israel, who hath withholden me from doing thee any evil: if thou hadst not quickly come to meet me, there had not been left to Nabal by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

³⁵ And David received at her hand all that she had brought him, and said to her: Go in peace into thy house, behold I have heard thy voice, and have honoured thy face.

³⁶ And Abigail came to Nabal: and behold he had a feast in his house, like the feast of a king, and Nabal's heart was merry: for he was very drunk: and she told him nothing less or more until morning.

³⁷ But early in the morning when Nabal had digested his wine, his wife told him these words, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone.

³⁸ And after ten days had passed, the Lord struck Nabal, and he died.

³⁹ And when David had heard that Nabal was dead, he said: Blessed be the Lord, who hath judged the cause of my reproach at the hand of Nabal, and hath kept his servant from evil, and the Lord hath returned the wickedness of Nabal upon his head. Then David sent and treated with Abigail, that he might take her to himself for a wife.

⁴⁰ And David's servants came to Abigail to Carmel, and spoke to her, saying: David hath sent us to thee, to take thee to himself for a wife.

⁴¹ And she arose and bowed herself down with her face to the earth, and said: Behold, let thy servant be a handmaid, to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.

⁴² And Abigail arose, and made haste, and got upon an ass, and five damsels went with her, her waiting maids, and she followed the messengers of David, and became his wife.

⁴³ Moreover David took also Achinoam of Jezrahel: and they were both of them his wives.

⁴⁴ But Saul gave Michol his daughter, David's wife, to Phalti, the son of Lais, who was of Gallium.

6 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to be judged before the unjust, and not before the saints?

² Know you not that the saints shall judge this world? And if the world shall be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

³ Know you not that we shall judge angels? how much more things of this world?

⁴ If therefore you have judgments of things pertaining to this world, set them to judge, who are the most despised in the church.

⁵ I speak to your shame. Is it so that there is not among you any one wise man, that is able to judge between his brethren?

⁶ But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before unbelievers.

⁷ Already indeed there is plainly a fault among you, that you have lawsuits one with another. Why do you not rather take wrong? Why do you not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?

⁸ But you do wrong and defraud, and that to your brethren.

⁹ Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers,

¹⁰ Nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God.

¹¹ And such some of you were; but you are washed, but you are sanctified, but you are justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Spirit of our God.

¹² All things are lawful to me, but all things are not expedient. All things are lawful to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

¹³ Meat for the belly, and the belly for the meats; but God shall destroy both it and them: but the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

¹⁴ Now God hath both raised up the Lord, and will raise us up also by his power.

¹⁵ Know you not that your bodies are the members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

¹⁶ Or know you not, that he who is joined to a harlot, is made one body? For they shall be, saith he, two in one flesh.

¹⁷ But he who is joined to the Lord, is one spirit.

¹⁸ Fly fornication. Every sin that a man doth, is without the body; but he that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body.

¹⁹ Or know you not, that your members are the temple of the Holy Ghost, who is in you, whom you have from God; and you are not your own?

²⁰ For you are bought with a great price. Glorify and bear God in your body.

4 And thou, O son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee: and draw upon it the plan of the city of Jerusalem.

² And lay siege against it, and build forts, and cast up a mount, and set a camp against it, and place battering rams round about it.

³ And take unto thee an iron pan, and set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city: and set thy face resolutely against it, and it shall be besieged, and thou shalt lay siege against it: it is a sign to the house of Israel.

⁴ And thou shalt sleep upon thy left side, and shalt lay the iniquities of the house of Israel upon it, according to the number of the days that thou shalt sleep upon it, and thou shalt take upon thee their iniquity.

⁵ And I have laid upon thee the years of their iniquity, according to the number of the days three hundred and ninety days: and thou shalt bear the iniquity of the house of Israel.

⁶ And when thou hast accomplished this, thou shalt sleep again upon thy right side, and thou shalt take upon thee the iniquity of the house of Juda forty days: a day for a year, yea, a day for a year I have appointed to thee.

⁷ And thou shalt turn thy face to the siege of Jerusalem, and thy arm shall be stretched out: and thou shalt prophesy against it.

⁸ Behold I have encompassed thee with bands: and thou shalt not turn thyself from one side to the other, till thou hast ended the days of thy siege.

⁹ And take to thee wheat and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and fitches, and put them in one vessel, and make thee bread thereof according to the number of the days that thou shalt lie upon thy side: three hundred and ninety days shalt thou eat thereof.

¹⁰ And thy meat that thou shalt eat, shall be in weight twenty staters a day: from time to time thou shalt eat it.

¹¹ And thou shalt drink water by measure, the sixth part of a hin: from time to time thou shalt drink it,

¹² And thou shalt eat it as barley bread baked under the ashes: and thou shalt cover it, in their sight, with the dung that cometh out of a man.

¹³ And the Lord said: So shall the children of Israel eat their bread all filthy among the nations whither I will cast them out.

¹⁴ And I said: Ah, ah, ah, O Lord God, behold my soul hath not been defiled, and from my infancy even till now, I have not eaten any thing that died of itself, or was torn by beasts, and no unclean flesh hath entered into my mouth.

¹⁵ And he said to me: Behold I have given thee neat's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt make thy bread therewith.

¹⁶ And he said to me: Son of man: Behold, I will break in pieces the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with care: and they shall drink water by measure, and in distress.

¹⁷ So that when bread and water fail, every man may fall against his brother, and they may pine away in their iniquities.

40 Unto the end, a psalm for David himself.

² Blessed is he that understandeth concerning the needy and the poor: the Lord will deliver him in the evil day.

³ The Lord preserve him and give him life, and make him blessed upon the earth: and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

⁴ The Lord help him on his bed of sorrow: thou hast turned all his couch in his sickness.

⁵ I said: O Lord, be thou merciful to me: heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.

⁶ My enemies have spoken evils against me: when shall he die and his name perish?

⁷ And if he came in to see me, he spoke vain things: his heart gathered together iniquity to itself. He went out and spoke to the same purpose.

⁸ All my enemies whispered together against me: they devised evils to me.

⁹ They determined against me an unjust word: shall he that sleepeth rise again no more?

¹⁰ For even the man of peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, hath greatly supplanted me.

¹¹ But thou, O Lord, have mercy on me, and raise me up again: and I will requite them.

¹² By this I know, that thou hast had a good will for me: because my enemy shall not rejoice over me.

¹³ But thou hast upheld me by reason of my innocence: and hast established me in thy sight for ever.

¹⁴ Blessed by the Lord the God of Israel from eternity to eternity. So be it. So be it.

41 Unto the end, understanding for the sons of Core.

² As the hart panteth after the fountains of water; so my soul panteth after thee, O God.

³ My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God?

⁴ My tears have been my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God?

⁵ These things I remembered, and poured out my soul in me: for I shall go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God: With the voice of joy and praise; the noise of one feasting.

⁶ Why art thou sad, O my soul? and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance,

⁷ And my God. My soul is troubled within myself: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan and Hermoniim, from the little hill.

⁸ Deep calleth on deep, at the noise of thy flood-gates. All thy heights and thy billows have passed over me.

⁹ In the daytime the Lord hath commanded his mercy; and a canticle to him in the night. With me is prayer to the God of my life.

¹⁰ I will say to God: Thou art my support. Why hast thou forgotten me? and why go I mourning, whilst my enemy afflicteth me?

¹¹ Whilst my bones are broken, my enemies who trouble me have reproached me; Whilst they say to me day be day: Where is thy God?

¹² Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why dost thou disquiet me? Hope thou in God, for I will still give praise to him: the salvation of my countenance, and my God.