M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
5 When all the work was completed on the Lord’s Temple, Solomon brought in everything his father David had set aside for the Temple. Solomon put all the furniture and all the things made of silver and gold into the storage rooms in God’s Temple.
The Holy Box Carried Into the Temple
2 Solomon commanded the elders of Israel, the leaders of the tribes, and the heads of families to meet together in Jerusalem. He did this so that they could bring the Box of the Lord’s Agreement up to the Temple from the City of David, that is, Zion. 3 All the men of Israel met together before King Solomon during the special festival[a] in the seventh month of the year.
4 When all the elders of Israel arrived, the Levites[b] lifted the Box of the Agreement 5 and carried it up to the Temple. The priests and the Levites[c] also brought the Meeting Tent and all the holy things that were in it to the Temple in Jerusalem. 6 Then King Solomon and all the Israelites met in front of the Box of the Agreement to offer sheep and bulls as sacrifices. There were so many offerings that no one could count them. 7 Then the priests carried the Box of the Lord’s Agreement to the place that was prepared for it in the Most Holy Place inside the Temple. They put the Box of the Agreement under the wings of the Cherub angels. 8 The Cherub angels stood with their wings spread over the Box of the Agreement and the poles that were used to carry it. 9 The poles are still there today. They were too long for the Most Holy Place, so their ends could be seen by anyone standing in the Holy Place, although no one outside could see them. 10 The only things inside the Holy Box are the two tablets that Moses put there at Mt. Horeb. This is where the Lord made his agreement with the Israelites after they came out of Egypt.
11 All the priests who were there did the ceremony to make themselves holy. Then, as they came out of the Holy Place, they stood together, but not in their special groups. 12 The Levite singers stood at the east side of the altar. All the singing groups of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun were there. And their sons and relatives were there. The Levite singers were dressed in white linen. They had cymbals, lyres, and harps. There were 120 priests there with the Levite singers. The 120 priests blew trumpets. 13 Those who blew the trumpets and those who sang were like one person. They made one sound when they praised and thanked the Lord. They made a loud noise with the trumpets, cymbals, and instruments of music. They praised the Lord, singing,
“The Lord is good.
His faithful love will last forever.”
Then the Lord’s Temple was filled with a cloud. 14 The priests could not continue to serve because of the cloud, because the Glory of the Lord filled the Temple.
6 Then Solomon said, “The Lord chose to live in a dark cloud. 2 But, Lord, I have built a beautiful house for you to live in forever.”
Solomon’s Speech
3 King Solomon turned around and blessed all the Israelites gathered in front of him. 4 He said,
“Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who has done what he promised my father David. The Lord said, 5 ‘I led Israel out of Egypt long ago. And in all that time, I have not chosen a city from any tribe of Israel for a place to build a house for my name. I have not chosen a man to lead my people, the people of Israel. 6 But now I have chosen Jerusalem as a place for my name, and I have chosen David to lead my people Israel.’
7 “My father David wanted to build a temple for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. 8 But the Lord said to my father, ‘David, it is good that you want to build a temple for my name, 9 but you cannot build the Temple. Your son will build the Temple for my name.’ 10 Now, the Lord has done what he said he would do. I am the new king in my father’s place. David was my father. Now I am Israel’s king. That is what the Lord promised, and I have built the Temple for the name of the Lord, the God of Israel. 11 I have put the Box of the Agreement in the Temple. The Lord’s Agreement with Israel is in that box.”
John Warns Against False Teachers
4 My dear friends, many false prophets are in the world now. So don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God. 2 This is how you can recognize God’s Spirit. One spirit says, “I believe that Jesus is the Messiah who came to earth and became a man.” That Spirit is from God. 3 Another spirit refuses to say this about Jesus. That spirit is not from God. This is the spirit of the enemy of Christ. You have heard that the enemy of Christ is coming, and now he is already in the world.
4 My dear children, you belong to God, so you have already defeated these false prophets. That’s because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 And they belong to the world, so what they say is from the world too. And the world listens to what they say. 6 But we are from God. So the people who know God listen to us. But the people who are not from God don’t listen to us. This is how we know the Spirit that is true and the spirit that is false.
Love Comes From God
7 Dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has become God’s child. And so everyone who loves knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love to us: He sent his only Son into the world to give us life through him. 10 True love is God’s love for us, not our love for God. He sent his Son as the way to take away our sins.
11 That is how much God loved us, dear friends! So we also must love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us. If we love each other, God’s love has reached its goal—it is made perfect in us.
13 We know that we live in God and God lives in us. We know this because he gave us his Spirit. 14 We have seen that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world, and this is what we tell people now. 15 Anyone who says, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,” is a person who lives in God, and God lives in that person. 16 So we know the love that God has for us, and we trust that love.
God is love. Everyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in them. 17 If God’s love is made perfect in us, we can be without fear on the day when God judges the world. We will be without fear, because in this world we are like Jesus.[a] 18 Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love takes away fear. It is his punishment that makes a person fear. So his love is not made perfect in the one who has fear.
19 We love because God first loved us. 20 If we say we love God but hate any of our brothers or sisters in his family, we are liars. If we don’t love someone we have seen, how can we love God? We have never even seen him. 21 God gave us this command: If we love God, we must also love each other as brothers and sisters.
Bad News for Nineveh
3 It will be very bad for that city of murderers.
Nineveh is a city full of lies.
It is filled with things taken from other countries.
It is filled with plenty of people that it hunted and killed.
2 You can hear the sounds of whips
and the noise of wheels.
You can hear horses galloping
and chariots bouncing along!
3 Soldiers on horses are attacking,
their swords are shining,
their spears are gleaming!
There are many dead people.
Dead bodies are piled up—too many bodies to count.
People are tripping over the dead bodies.
4 All this happened because of Nineveh.
Nineveh is like a prostitute who could never get enough.
She wanted more and more.
She sold herself to many nations,
and she used her magic to make them her slaves.
5 The Lord All-Powerful says,
“I am against you, Nineveh.
I will pull your dress[a] up over your face.
I will let the nations see your naked body.
The kingdoms will see your shame.
6 I will throw dirty things on you
and treat you in a hateful way.
People will look at you and laugh.
7 Everyone who sees you will be shocked.
They will say, ‘Nineveh is destroyed.
Who will cry for her?’
I know I cannot find anyone to comfort you, Nineveh.”
8 Nineveh, are you better than Thebes[b] on the Nile River? Thebes also had water all around her to protect herself from enemies. She used that water like a wall too. 9 Ethiopia and Egypt made Thebes strong. Libya and the Sudan supported her, 10 but Thebes was defeated. Her people were taken away as prisoners to a foreign country. Soldiers beat her small children to death at every street corner. They threw lots to see who got to keep the important people as slaves. They put chains on all the important men of Thebes.
11 So, Nineveh, you will also fall like a drunk. You will try to hide. You will look for a safe place away from the enemy. 12 But Nineveh, all your strong places will be like fig trees. When new figs become ripe, people come and shake the tree. The figs fall into their mouths. They eat them, and the figs are gone.
13 Nineveh, your people are all like women—and the enemy soldiers are ready to take them. The gates of your land are open wide for your enemies to come in. Fire has destroyed the wooden bars across the gates.
14 Get water and store it inside your city, because the enemy soldiers will surround your city. Make your defenses strong! Get clay to make more bricks and mix the mortar. Get the molds for making bricks. 15 You can do all these things, but the fire will still destroy you completely. And the sword will kill you. Your land will look like a swarm of grasshoppers came and ate everything.
Nineveh, you grew and grew. You became like a swarm of grasshoppers. You were like a swarm of locusts. 16 You have many traders who go places and buy things. They are as many as the stars in the sky. They are like locusts that come and eat until everything is gone and then leave. 17 And your government officials are also like locusts that settle on a stone wall on a cold day. But when the sun comes up, the rocks become warm, and the locusts all fly away. And no one knows where.
18 King of Assyria, your shepherds fell asleep. These powerful men are sleeping. And now your sheep have wandered away on the mountains. There is no one to bring them back. 19 Nineveh, you have been hurt badly, and nothing can heal your wound. Everyone who hears the news of your destruction claps their hands. They are all happy, because they all felt the pain you caused again and again.
Zacchaeus
19 Jesus was going through the city of Jericho. 2 In Jericho there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a wealthy, very important tax collector. 3 He wanted to see who Jesus was. There were many others who wanted to see Jesus too. Zacchaeus was too short to see above the people. 4 So he ran to a place where he knew Jesus would come. Then he climbed a sycamore tree so he could see him.
5 When Jesus came to where Zacchaeus was, he looked up and saw him in the tree. Jesus said, “Zacchaeus, hurry! Come down! I must stay at your house today.”
6 Zacchaeus hurried and came down. He was happy to have Jesus in his house. 7 Everyone saw this. They began to complain, “Look at the kind of man Jesus is staying with. Zacchaeus is a sinner!”
8 Zacchaeus said to the Lord, “I want to do good. I will give half of my money to the poor. If I have cheated anyone, I will pay them back four times more.”
9 Jesus said, “Today is the day for this family to be saved from sin. Yes, even this tax collector is one of God’s chosen people.[a] 10 The Son of Man came to find lost people and save them.”
Use What God Gives You(A)
11 As the crowd listened to what he was saying, Jesus went on to tell a story. He was now near Jerusalem and knew that the people thought it was almost time for God’s kingdom to come. 12 So he said, “A very important man was preparing to go to a country far away to be made a king. Then he planned to return home and rule his people. 13 So he called ten of his servants together. He gave a bag of money[b] to each servant. He said, ‘Do business with this money until I come back.’ 14 But the people in the kingdom hated the man. They sent a group to follow him to the other country. There they said, ‘We don’t want this man to be our king.’
15 “But the man was made king. When he came home, he said, ‘Call those servants who have my money. I want to know how much more money they earned with it.’ 16 The first servant came and said, ‘Sir, I earned ten bags of money with the one bag you gave me.’ 17 The king said to him, ‘That’s great! You are a good servant. I see that I can trust you with small things. So now I will let you rule over ten of my cities.’
18 “The second servant said, ‘Sir, with your one bag of money I earned five bags.’ 19 The king said to this servant, ‘You can rule over five cities.’
20 “Then another servant came in and said to the king, ‘Sir, here is your bag of money. I wrapped it in a piece of cloth and hid it. 21 I was afraid of you because you are a hard man. You even take money that you didn’t earn and gather food that you didn’t grow.’
22 “Then the king said to him, ‘What a bad servant you are! I will use your own words to condemn you. You said that I am a hard man. You said that I even take money that I didn’t earn and gather food that I didn’t grow. 23 If that is true, you should have put my money in the bank. Then, when I came back, my money would have earned some interest.’ 24 Then the king said to the men who were watching, ‘Take the bag of money away from this servant and give it to the servant who earned ten bags of money.’
25 “The men said to the king, ‘But sir, that servant already has ten bags of money.’
26 “The king said, ‘People who use what they have will get more. But those who do not use what they have will have everything taken away from them. 27 Now where are my enemies? Where are the people who did not want me to be king? Bring my enemies here and kill them. I will watch them die.’”
Jesus Enters Jerusalem Like a King(B)
28 After Jesus said these things, he continued traveling toward Jerusalem. 29 He came near Bethphage and Bethany, towns near the hill called the Mount of Olives. He sent out two of his followers. 30 He said, “Go into the town you can see there. When you enter the town, you will find a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it, and bring it here to me. 31 If anyone asks you why you are taking the donkey, you should say, ‘The Master needs it.’”
32 The two followers went into town. They found the donkey exactly like Jesus told them. 33 They untied it, but its owners came out. They said to the followers, “Why are you untying our donkey?”
34 The followers answered, “The Master needs it.” 35 So the followers brought the donkey to Jesus. They put their coats on its back. Then they put Jesus on the donkey. 36 He rode along the road toward Jerusalem. The followers spread their coats on the road before him.
37 Jesus was coming close to Jerusalem. He was already near the bottom of the Mount of Olives. The whole group of followers was happy. They were very excited and praised God. They thanked God for all the powerful things they had seen. 38 They said,
“‘Welcome! God bless the king who comes in the name of the Lord.’ (C)
Peace in heaven and glory to God!”
39 Some of the Pharisees said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell your followers not to say these things.”
40 But Jesus answered, “I tell you, if my followers didn’t say them, these stones would shout them.”
Jesus Cries for Jerusalem
41 Jesus came near Jerusalem. Looking at the city, he began to cry for it 42 and said, “I wish you knew today what would bring you peace. But it is hidden from you now. 43 A time is coming when your enemies will build a wall around you and hold you in on all sides. 44 They will destroy you and all your people. Not one stone of your buildings will stay on top of another. All this will happen because you did not know the time when God came to save you.”
Jesus Goes to the Temple(D)
45 Jesus went into the Temple area. He began to throw out the people who were selling things there. 46 He said, “The Scriptures say, ‘My Temple will be a house of prayer.’[c] But you have changed it into a ‘hiding place for thieves.’[d]”
47 Jesus taught the people in the Temple area every day. The leading priests, the teachers of the law, and some of the leaders of the people wanted to kill him. 48 But they did not know how they could do it, because everyone was listening to him. The people were very interested in what Jesus said.
Copyright © 2006 by Bible League International