M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Rules for justice
23 Do not make false reports. Do not tell lies in court to help wicked people.
2 Do not join a group of bad people to do evil things. When you speak in court, tell the truth so that the judges will decide what is right. Do not tell lies to agree with what everyone else says. 3 Do not speak on behalf of a poor man only because you like him.
4 Perhaps you may find your enemy's cow or his donkey when he has lost it. If so, you must give it back to him. 5 Perhaps you may see your enemy's donkey when it is carrying a heavy load. If the donkey has fallen down, do not refuse to give help. Do not leave the donkey there.
6 Always do what is right for your poor people when they stand in front of a judge. 7 Do not help anyone to use lies to accuse another person. Never punish anyone with death if they are not guilty. I will never say that a wicked person is not guilty.
8 Do not accept a bribe. A bribe will hide the truth even from honest people. It can make good people tell lies.
9 Do not be cruel to a foreign person who lives among you. You yourselves know what that feels like. Remember that you lived in Egypt as foreigners.
Rules about the Sabbath day and Feasts
10 You must plant seed in your fields for six years. Then you can bring your crops home at harvest time. 11 But in the seventh year, you must let your fields lie empty. Do not dig them and do not plant anything in them. Then poor people among you can eat the food that they find in your fields. After that, the wild animals can eat any food that still remains. Do the same thing with your vineyards and your fields of olive trees.
12 Do your work for six days each week, but do not work on the seventh day. Then your oxen and your donkeys will have time to rest. Any slave who was born in your home and any foreigner who works for you may also have time to rest. That will help them to be strong.
13 Be careful to obey everything that I have told you. Do not pray to other gods for help. Do not even speak about them.
14 Three times each year, you must eat a feast to give me honour.
15 Eat the Feast of Flat Bread every year. For seven days, you must eat bread that you have made without any yeast. I have commanded you to do this. Do it at the right time during the month Abib. It was in that month that you came out of Egypt. Nobody must come to me without an offering.
16 Eat the Feast of Harvest every year. Offer to me the first crops that you bring from your fields.[a]
At the end of each year, eat Feast of Final Harvest. Do that when you have finished bringing in all of your crops from the fields.
17 Three times each year, all your men must come to worship the Almighty Lord.
18 When you kill an animal to offer it to me as a sacrifice, do not offer it with bread that has yeast in it. Be sure to burn all the fat of the animal on the same day. Do not keep any of it until the next morning.
19 When you cut the first crops from your fields, bring the best food to the house of the Lord your God.
Do not cook a young goat in its mother's milk.
God's special angel
20 Look! I will send an angel to lead you on your journey. He will keep you safe. He will take you to the place that I have prepared for you. 21 Be careful to obey him. Listen to what he says to you. Do not turn against him. If you do that, he will not forgive you. I have given him my authority. 22 So be careful to obey him. Do everything that I tell you. Then I will be the enemy of your enemies. I will fight against anyone who fights against you. 23 My angel will go in front of you. He will bring you into the land of the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. I will destroy them completely. 24 Do not worship their gods. Do not serve them. Do not copy the evil things that these people do. Destroy their idols and break their special stones into pieces.
25 You must serve only me, the Lord your God. Then I will bless your food and your water. I will remove illness from among you. 26 Your women will safely give birth to babies. They will all be able to have children. Everyone will live a long life.
27 I will cause all the nations that you meet to be afraid. All the people who attack you will become confused. I will cause all your enemies to turn round and run away from you. 28 I will send great fear on the people as you move into the land.[b] That will chase out the Hivites, the Canaanites and the Hittites. 29 But I will not chase out those people in one year. If I did that, the country would become empty of people. Then there would be many wild animals that would cause trouble to you. 30 I will remove the people slowly, one group at a time. As you become strong, you will take the land as your own home.
31 I will decide where the borders of your land will be. You will have the land from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea, and from the desert to the Euphrates River. I will put the people who live there under your power. As you move into the land, you will chase those people out.
32 Do not make any agreement with them or with their gods. 33 Do not let them live in your land. They would cause you to do bad things against me. If you serve their gods, you will become like their prisoners.’
The marriage at Cana
2 Two days after that, there was a marriage party. It was in the town of Cana, in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there. 2 People had asked Jesus and his disciples to come to the party too. 3 When people had drunk all the wine, Jesus' mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’ 4 Jesus replied, ‘Woman, why do you tell me this? It is not my time yet.’ 5 His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you to do.’
6 There were six big pots there. People had used stone to make them. Each pot could contain about 100 litres of water. The water was there so that the Jews could wash themselves in the way that their special rules taught. 7 Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the pots with water.’ So they filled the pots to the top. 8 Then he said, ‘Now take some of the water from the pots and give it to the master of the party.’ So they did that. 9 The master of the party tasted the water. The water had now become wine! The master did not know where the wine had come from. But the servants who had given it to him knew about it. Then the master asked the new husband to come to him. 10 The master said to him, ‘Everyone else brings out the best wine first. When people have had plenty to drink, then they give people cheaper wine. But you are different. You have kept the best wine until now.’
11 Jesus did this first miracle at Cana, in Galilee. In this way, Jesus showed how great and powerful he was. And his disciples believed in him.
Jesus goes to the temple
12 After this, Jesus went to a town called Capernaum. His mother, his brothers and his disciples went with him. They stayed there for a few days.[a]
13 It was almost time for the Jewish Passover festival. So Jesus went to Jerusalem.[b] 14 He went into the yard of the temple. There he found people who were selling cows, sheep and doves. Other people were sitting at tables to change coins for people. 15 So Jesus made a whip from some pieces of rope. Then he made all the people leave the temple quickly, with the sheep and the cows. He threw onto the ground all the coins of the men who changed money. He turned their tables over. 16 He said to the people who sold birds, ‘Take them out of here! Do not make my Father's house into a market!’ 17 His disciples remembered what it says in the Bible: ‘My love for your house burns inside me like a fire.’[c]
18 Then the Jews asked Jesus, ‘What is your authority to do this? Do a miracle to show us that you really do have authority.’ 19 Jesus answered them, ‘If you destroy this house of God, I will build it up again in three days.’ 20 The Jews replied, ‘People have worked for 46 years to build this house. But you say that you will build it again in three days!’ 21 But the house that Jesus was speaking about was his own body. 22 The disciples remembered this when Jesus had become alive again after his death. They remembered that he had said this. Then they believed what the Bible taught. They also believed the words that Jesus had spoken.
23 While Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, he did many miracles.[d] Many people saw these miracles that showed he was from God. As a result, they believed in Jesus. 24 But Jesus himself did not trust the people. He knew what all people are really like. 25 He did not need anyone to tell him what people are like. He knew already what was really in each person.
God continues to ask Job questions
41 ‘It is the same with the sea monsters called Leviathan.[a]
Can you catch them with a hook?
Can you use a rope to keep their mouths shut?
2 Can you tie a rope through their noses?
Can you put a hook into their mouths.
3 No! They will not ask you nicely to be kind
and let them go free.
4 They will not make any agreement with you.
You cannot make them your slaves
to work for you as long as they live.
5 Leviathan is not something to enjoy at home, like a bird.
You cannot tie it with a rope,
so that your girls can play with it.
6 Traders do not buy it at the market.
They do not cut it up to sell it.
7 Job, can you throw spears into Leviathan's body to kill it?
Can you shoot arrows into its head?
8 If you try to take hold of it,
you will never forget the fight!
You will never try to do that again!
9 If anyone hopes to catch it,
he is deceiving himself.
As soon as he sees it,
he no longer feels so brave!
10 No one is brave enough to wake it.
So is anyone brave enough to argue against me?
11 Nobody has ever won against me
to make me pay them anything.
Everything in the whole world belongs to me.
12 I must tell you how strong Leviathan's legs are.
Their bodies are very strong
and they have a wonderful shape.
13 Nobody is able to remove their thick skin.
It is like armour that nobody can cut through.
14 Nobody is strong enough to open its mouth.
Its teeth make everyone afraid.
15 Its back is like rows of shields.
They are as hard as stone with no spaces between them.
16 Each shield is very near the next one.
Not even air can pass between them.
17 They are strongly joined together,
and nothing can pull them apart.
18 When Leviathan breathes out loudly,
bright light shines from its nose.
Its eyes shine like the red sun at dawn.
19 Fire comes out from its mouth.
Bright flames shoot out!
20 Smoke pours out from its nose,
like reeds that burn under a pot.
21 Its breath is hot enough to light a fire!
Flames pour out of its mouth.
22 Its neck is very strong.
Wherever it goes,
people shake with fear.
23 There are no weak places in its skin.
Its skin is as hard as iron.
24 It is cruel and it has no fear.
Its heart is as hard as stone.
25 Even the bravest people are afraid
when Leviathan appears.
They run away when it starts to move.
26 If you hit it with a sword,
you will not hurt it.
Spears, arrows and knives will be useless.
27 It can easily break iron or bronze weapons.
It breaks them as easily as grass or soft wood.
28 If you shoot arrows at it,
it will not run away.
If you use a sling to throw stones at it,
the stones will hurt it no more than bits of chaff.
29 If you hit it with a heavy stick,
that hurts it no more than a piece of straw.
If you throw a spear at it,
it laughs!
30 Its stomach has sharp pieces,
like bits of a pot that someone has broken.
When it moves along,
it ploughs the soil under it.
31 When it swims in the deep water of the sea,
the water seems to boil.
It makes big waves,
like oil that is boiling in a pot.
32 As it swims, the water behind it shines.
It makes waves that look like white hair on the sea.
33 There is no other animal like it in the whole world.
It is not afraid of anything.
34 It does not respect any other great animal.
It rules as king over all the proud animals.’
Paul speaks about false teachers
11 Please be patient with me! I am speaking like a fool. I know that you are being patient with me already! 2 God wants to keep you for himself. And that is what I want too. I have brought you to Christ, like a pure bride who marries one husband. I want you to be pure and to belong only to him. 3 Remember how the snake deceived Eve. Because he was clever, she believed his lies.[a] I am afraid that the same thing might happen to you. False teachers may make you believe wrong things. Then you will no longer love Christ in a pure and honest way. 4 You are ready to listen to any false teachers who come to you. They might tell you about a different Jesus from the Jesus that we told you about. They might want you to receive a different spirit from the Spirit that you received from us. They might tell you a different kind of good news from the message that you heard from us. You seem to accept all this!
5 Those teachers call themselves very special apostles. But I think that I am as special as they are! 6 Perhaps I do not speak as well as they speak. But I do know what I am speaking about. We have always made this very clear to you in everything that we do.
7 When I told you God's good news, I never asked you to pay me anything. I made myself less important so that you could be more important. I do not think that I was wrong to do that. 8 Believers in other churches gave money to me so that I could serve you. It is like I was robbing them so that I could help you. 9 When I was there with you, I never made you help me. Even when I needed something, I did not cause trouble to anyone. Instead, the believers who came from Macedonia gave me everything that I needed. I was very careful never to cause you to have trouble. And I will continue to be careful like that. 10 The message that I speak about Christ is true. So I will continue to be proud of how I lived among you. Nobody in the whole region of Achaia can stop me doing that. 11 You must not think that I say this because I do not love you. God himself knows that I love you.
12 Yes, I will continue to work among you in the way that I am already doing. I will not take any pay from you. Then there will be no chance for those other teachers to be proud about themselves. They will not be able to say that they work in the same way that we do. 13 Those people are false apostles. They do not work in an honest way. They try to make people think that Christ has sent them as his apostles. 14 That should not surprise you! Even Satan can change himself to look like an angel who belongs to the light. 15 So do not be surprised when Satan's servants do the same thing. They can also seem to be serving God. They may seem to be doing good things, but really what they do is bad. So God will punish them in the end.
Paul speaks about his own work
16 I say this again: nobody should think that I am a fool. But even if you do think that, still listen to me. Give me a chance to praise myself a little, as a fool would do. 17 When I say good things about myself like this, it is not how the Lord would talk. No, these are the words of a fool. 18 But many other people are using human ideas to praise themselves. So I will also do that.
19 You think that you are very wise! So you are happy to listen to fools. 20 You accept people who make you like their slaves. You accept people who cheat you, or take things from you. You accept people who are proud of themselves. Even if someone hits you in your face, you still accept him. 21 But we were not brave enough to do things like that to you. Should I be ashamed of that?
But other people are brave enough to praise themselves. So I will also be proud of the same things. (Now I am talking like a fool!) 22 Are they proud that they are Hebrew people? So am I.[b] Do they belong to Israel's people? So do I. Are they descendants of Abraham's family? So am I. 23 Are they Christ's servants? I serve him even better than they do! (Now I am speaking like a crazy person.) I work much more than they have worked. I have been in prison more often than they have. People have hit me with whips very many times. I have nearly died many times.
24 At five different times, the Jewish leaders punished me with whips. Each time they hit me 39 times. 25 Three times the Romans punished me with sticks. People threw stones at me to kill me once. Three times I have been on ships that broke in the sea. Once I was in the sea for a night and a day. 26 I have travelled on many journeys. I have been in danger from rivers and also from robbers. I have been in danger from my own people and also from Gentiles. I have been in danger in cities and also in the wilderness. I have been in danger on the sea. I have been in danger from false believers. 27 I have worked very hard, and I have been in pain. Many times I have not slept. I have often been hungry and thirsty. Many times I have had no food. I have often been cold and without enough clothes.
28 All these troubles have happened to me. But also, every day I have trouble in my mind. I worry about the believers in all the churches. 29 When one of these believers is weak, then I feel weak too. When something causes one of them to do something wrong, then I am very upset.
30 If I must be proud about myself, I will only be proud of things that show my weakness. 31 I am not telling lies. God, the Father of the Lord Jesus, knows that. He is the one that we should praise for ever. 32 When I was in Damascus, the ruler of that city sent soldiers to catch me. He was under the authority of King Aretas. The soldiers were watching carefully outside the city. 33 But my friends put me in a basket on the end of a rope. They sent me out through a window in the city wall and they let me drop to the ground. That is how I got away from the ruler of the city.[c]
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