M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Civil War

12 Jeroboam son of Nebat was still in Egypt where he had run away from Solomon. When he heard about Solomon’s death, he returned to his city, Zeredah, in the hills of Ephraim.^[a]

Rehoboam and all the Israelites went to Shechem to make him the king. The people said to Rehoboam, ⁴ “Your father forced us to work very hard. Now, make it easier for us. Stop the heavy work that your father forced us to do and we will serve you.”

⁵ Rehoboam answered, “Come back to me in three days, and I will answer you.” So the people left.

⁶ There were some older men who had helped Solomon make decisions when he was alive. So King Rehoboam asked these men what he should do. He said, “How do you think I should answer the people?”

⁷ They answered, “If you are like a servant to them today, they will sincerely serve you. If you speak kindly to them, they will always work for you.”

⁸ But Rehoboam did not listen to the advice from the older men. He asked the young men who were his friends. ⁹ Rehoboam asked them, “The people said, ‘Give us easier work than your father gave us.’ How do you think I should answer them? What should I tell them?”

¹⁰ Then the young men who grew up with him answered, “Those people came to you and said, ‘Your father forced us to work very hard. Now make our work easier.’ So you should tell them, ‘My little finger is stronger than my father’s whole body. ¹¹ My father forced you to work hard, but I will make you work much harder! My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with whips that have sharp metal tips.’”

¹² Three days later, Jeroboam and all the people came back as Rehoboam had said. ¹³ King Rehoboam did not listen to the advice from the older men, and he was rude to the people. ¹⁴ He did what his friends told him to do and said, “My father forced you to work hard, but I will make you work much harder! My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with whips that have sharp metal tips.” ¹⁵ So the king did not do what the people wanted. The Lord caused this to happen. He did this in order to keep the promise he made to Jeroboam son of Nebat when he sent the prophet Ahijah from Shiloh to speak to him.

¹⁶ The Israelites saw that the new king refused to listen to them, so they said to him,

So the Israelites went home. ¹⁷ But Rehoboam still ruled over the Israelites who lived in the cities of Judah.

¹⁸ A man named Adoniram was one of the men who directed the workers. King Rehoboam sent Adoniram to talk to the people, but the Israelites threw stones at him until he died. King Rehoboam ran to his chariot and escaped to Jerusalem. ¹⁹ So Israel rebelled against the family of David, and this is how things are even today.

²⁰ When all the Israelites heard that Jeroboam had come back, they called him to a meeting and made him king over all Israel. The tribe of Judah was the only tribe that continued to follow the family of David.

²¹ Rehoboam went back to Jerusalem and gathered together an army of 180,000 men from the families of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin. Rehoboam wanted to go fight against the Israelites and take back his kingdom. ²² But God spoke to a prophet named Shemaiah. He said, ²³ “Talk to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to men of Judah and Benjamin. ²⁴ Say to them, ‘The Lord says that you must not go to war against your brothers. Everyone, go home! I made all this happen.’” So all the men in Rehoboam’s army obeyed the Lord. They went home, just as the Lord had commanded.

²⁵ Jeroboam rebuilt the city of Shechem, in the hill country of Ephraim, and lived there. Later he went to the city of Penuel^[b] and rebuilt it.

^26-27 Jeroboam said to himself, “If the people keep going to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices at the Lord’s Temple, someday they will want to be ruled by their old masters. They will want to be ruled by King Rehoboam of Judah. And then they will kill me.” ²⁸ So the king asked his advisors what to do. They gave him their advice, and King Jeroboam made two golden calves. He said to the people, “You don’t have to go to Jerusalem to worship anymore. Israel, these are the gods that brought you out of Egypt.^[c]” ²⁹ King Jeroboam put one golden calf in Bethel and the other one in the city of Dan.^{[d] 30} What a terrible sin this was, because the Israelites started going to the cities of Dan and Bethel^[e] to worship the calves.

³¹ Jeroboam also built temples at the high places and chose priests from among the different tribes of Israel. (He did not choose priests only from the tribe of Levi.) ³² Then King Jeroboam started a new festival that was like the festival^[f] in Judah, but it was on the 15th day of the eighth month. At this time the king offered sacrifices on the altar at Bethel. He and the priests he chose offered the sacrifices to the calves that he had set up at the high places he had made. ³³ So King Jeroboam chose his own time for a festival for the Israelites, the 15th day of the eighth month. And during that time he offered sacrifices and burned incense on the altar he had built at Bethel.

Christ Is More Important Than Anything

3 And now, my brothers and sisters, be filled with joy in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things to you again. I want to be sure that you are prepared.

² Be careful of the dogs—those men whose work does only harm. They want to cut on everyone who isn’t circumcised.^{[a] 3} But we are the ones who have the true circumcision^[b]—we who worship God through his Spirit. We don’t trust in ourselves or anything we can do. We take pride only in Christ Jesus. ⁴ Even if I am able to trust in myself, still I don’t do it. If anyone else thinks they have a reason to trust in themselves, they should know that I have a greater reason for doing so. ⁵ I was circumcised on the eighth day after my birth. I am from the people of Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. I am a true Jew, and so were my parents. The law was very important to me. That is why I became a Pharisee. ⁶ I was so eager to defend my religion^[c] that I persecuted the church. And no one could find fault with the way I obeyed the Law of Moses.

⁷ At one time all these things were important to me. But because of Christ, I decided that they are worth nothing. ⁸ Not only these things, but now I think that all things are worth nothing compared with the greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Christ, I lost all these things, and now I know that they are all worthless trash. All I want now is Christ. ⁹ I want to belong to him. In Christ I am right with God, but my being right does not come from following the law. It comes from God through faith. God uses my faith in^[d] Christ to make me right with him. ¹⁰ All I want is to know Christ and the power that raised him from death. I want to share in his sufferings and be like him even in his death. ¹¹ Then there is hope that I myself will somehow be raised from death.

Trying to Reach the Goal

¹² I don’t mean that I am exactly what God wants me to be. I have not yet reached that goal. But I continue trying to reach it and make it mine. That’s what Christ Jesus wants me to do. It is the reason he made me his. ¹³ Brothers and sisters, I know that I still have a long way to go. But there is one thing I do: I forget what is in the past and try as hard as I can to reach the goal before me. ¹⁴ I keep running hard toward the finish line to get the prize that is mine because God has called me through Christ Jesus to life up there in heaven.

¹⁵ All of us who have grown to be spiritually mature should think this way too. And if there is any of this that you don’t agree with, God will make it clear to you. ¹⁶ But we should continue following the truth we already have.

¹⁷ Brothers and sisters, join together in following my example. Also, learn by watching those who are living the way we showed you. ¹⁸ There are many who live like enemies of the cross of Christ. I have often told you about them. And it makes me cry to tell you about them now. ¹⁹ The way they live is leading them to destruction. They have replaced God with their own desires. They do shameful things, and they are proud of what they do. They think only about earthly things. ²⁰ But the government that rules us is in heaven. We are waiting for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from there. ²¹ He will change our humble bodies and make them like his own glorious body. Christ can do this by his power, with which he is able to rule everything.

The Priests’ Room

42 Then the man led me through the north gate out into the outer courtyard. He led me to a building with many rooms that was west of the restricted area and the building on the north side. ² This building was 100 cubits^[a] long and 50 cubits^[b] wide. People entered it from the courtyard on the north side. ³ The building was three stories tall and had balconies. The 20-cubit^[c] inner courtyard was between the building and the Temple. On the other side, the rooms faced the pavement of the outer courtyard. ⁴ There was a path 10 cubits^[d] wide and 100 cubits long running along the south side of the building, even though the entrance was on the north side. ^5-6 Since this building was three stories tall and did not have columns like those columns of the outer courtyards, the top rooms were farther back than the rooms on the middle and bottom floors. The top floor was narrower than the middle floor, which was narrower than the bottom floor because the balconies used this space. ⁷ There was a wall outside that was parallel to the rooms and ran along the outer courtyard. It ran in front of the rooms for 50 cubits. ⁸ The row of rooms that ran along the outer courtyard was 50 cubits long, although the total length of the building, as on the Temple side, was 100 cubits long. ⁹ The entrance was below these rooms at the east end of the building so that people could enter from the outer courtyard. ¹⁰ The entrance was at the start of the wall beside the courtyard.

There were rooms on the south side, by the restricted area and the other building. These rooms had a ¹¹ path in front of them. They were like the rooms on the north side. They had the same length and width and the same kind of doors. ¹² The entrance to the lower rooms was at the east end of the building so that people could enter from the open end of the path by the wall.

¹³ The man said to me, “The north rooms and south rooms across from the restricted area are holy. These rooms are for the priests who offer the sacrifices to the Lord. That is where the priests will put the most holy offerings and eat them. That is because that place is holy. The most holy offerings are the grain offerings, the sin offerings, and the guilt offerings. ¹⁴ The priests who enter the holy area must leave their serving clothes in that holy place before they go out into the outer courtyard, because these clothes are holy. If a priest wants to go to the part of the Temple where the other people are, he must go to those rooms and put on other clothes.”

The Outer Courtyard

¹⁵ The man had finished measuring inside the Temple area. Then he brought me out through the east gate and measured all around that area. ¹⁶ He measured the east side with the ruler. It was 500 cubits^[e] long. ¹⁷ He measured the north side. It was 500 cubits long. ¹⁸ He measured the south side. It was 500 cubits long. ¹⁹ He went around to the west side and measured it. It was 500 cubits long. ²⁰ He measured the four walls that went all the way around the Temple. The wall was 500 cubits long and 500 cubits wide. It separated the holy area from the area that is not holy.