M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Abijah, king of Judah

15 Abijah became king of Judah after Nebat's son Jeroboam had been king of Israel for 18 years. ² Abijah ruled in Jerusalem as king for three years. His mother's name was Maakah. She was the daughter of Abishalom.^{[a] 3} Abijah did the same bad things that his father had done before him. He did not serve the Lord his God faithfully, as his ancestor King David had done. ⁴ But the Lord his God gave Abijah a son to rule after him in Jerusalem. He also made Jerusalem a strong city. The Lord did that because of his promise to David. ⁵ David had always done things that pleased the Lord. David had obeyed the Lord's commands in his whole life, except what he did to Uriah, the Hittite man.^[b]

⁶ In Abijah's whole life, there was a war between the armies of Rehoboam and Jeroboam.

⁷ The other things that happened while Abijah was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of Judah's kings’. It tells about all the things that Abijah did. While Abijah was king, there was war between his army and Jeroboam's army.

⁸ Abijah died and they buried him beside his ancestors in the City of David. Abijah's son Asa became king after him.

Asa, king of Judah

⁹ Asa became king of Judah when Jeroboam had been king of Israel for 20 years. ¹⁰ Asa ruled in Jerusalem as king for 41 years. His grandmother was Maakah. She was the daughter of Abishalom. ¹¹ Asa did things that pleased the Lord, as his ancestor King David had done. ¹² He removed the male prostitutes from the altars on the hills. He sent them out of Judah. He removed all the useless idols that his ancestors had made. ¹³ He also told his grandmother Maakah that she could no longer have authority as the Queen Mother.^[c] This was because she had made a disgusting Asherah pole to worship. Asa cut down the Asherah pole and he burned it in the Kidron Valley.^{[d] 14} Asa did not remove the altars on all the hills, but he served the Lord faithfully for his whole life. ¹⁵ He brought into the Lord's temple the things that he and his father had made as gifts to the Lord. They used silver and gold to make some of these things.

¹⁶ There was always a war between King Asa of Judah and King Baasha of Israel while they ruled. ¹⁷ One time, Baasha attacked Judah. He put a group of his soldiers in Ramah and he made it a strong town. As a result, nobody could travel into Judah or out of Judah, where King Asa ruled.^{[e] 18} So Asa took all the silver and gold that they had stored in his palace and in the Lord's temple. He gave it to his servants. He told them to take it to Ben-Hadad, king of Syria, who lived in Damascus. Ben-Hadad's father was Tabrimmon and his grandfather was Hezion. ¹⁹ Asa sent this message to Ben-Hadad: ‘We should make an agreement to be friends, as our fathers did. I am sending you this gift of silver and gold. Please stop being friends with Baasha, king of Israel. If you no longer help him, he will have to take his soldiers out of my country.’ ²⁰ Ben-Hadad agreed to do what King Asa asked him to do. He sent his army with its leaders to attack towns in Israel. They won the battles at Ijon, Dan, Abel-Beth-Maakah, as well as the region of Kinnereth and the land of Naphtali. ²¹ When King Baasha heard this news, he stopped the work in Ramah. He left there and he went to live in Tirzah. ²² Then King Asa commanded all the men in Judah to do some hard work. Everyone had to do this: They must carry away from Ramah all the big stones and the wood that Baasha had been using there. Then King Asa used those things to make Geba (in Benjamin's land) and Mizpah strong towns again.

²³ The other things that happened while Asa was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of Judah's kings’. It tells about Asa's power and all the great things that he did. It also tells about the cities that he built. When Asa became an old man he had a disease in his feet.

²⁴ Asa died and they buried him beside his ancestors in the City of David, his ancestor. Asa's son Jehoshaphat became king after him.

Nadab, king of Israel

²⁵ When Asa had been king of Judah for two years, Jeroboam's son became king of Israel. Nadab ruled Israel as king for two years. ²⁶ He did things that the Lord said were evil. He did the same bad things that his father had done. He also caused the Israelites to do bad things.

²⁷ Baasha decided to kill King Nadab. Baasha was Ahijah's son and he belonged to Issachar's tribe. This happened while Nadab and Israel's army were attacking Gibbethon, a town of the Philistines. ²⁸ Baasha killed King Nadab in the third year that Asa was king of Judah. Baasha became king of Israel instead of Nadab.

²⁹ When Baasha became king, he killed all Jeroboam's descendants. He did not leave anyone in Jeroboam's family alive. He killed them all. The Lord had already said that this would happen. He had given the message to his servant Ahijah, who was from Shiloh.^{[f] 30} This happened because of Jeroboam's sins, and the sins which he caused the Israelites to do. These sins had made the Lord, Israel's God, very angry.

³¹ The other things that happened while Nadab was king are written in a book. The book is called ‘The history of Israel's kings’. It tells about all the things that Nadab did. ³² There was always a war between the armies of King Asa and King Nadab.

Baasha, king of Israel

³³ In the third year that Asa was king of Judah, Ahijah's son Baasha became the king of all Israel. He was living in Tirzah. Baasha ruled as king for 24 years.^{[g] 34} Baasha did things that the Lord said were evil. He did the same sins that Jeroboam had done. He also caused the Israelites to do those bad things.

2 I want you to know that I am doing a difficult work on your behalf. I am also working to help the people at Laodicea and other people who have never met me. ² I want all the believers to become strong in their spirits. I want them to help each other because they love one another. Then God will bless them very much, because they understand God's secret message very well. They will be completely sure of it. And they will know Christ himself, who is God's secret. ³ Christ is the one who holds everything that makes people wise. He helps people to know the true message that God had hidden.

⁴ I am telling you these things so that false teachers will not deceive you. They may teach ideas that seem good, but do not listen to them. ⁵ My body is not there with you, but I think about you a lot. I hear that you are living and working well together. I also hear that you continue to trust Christ strongly. That makes me very happy.

How Christians should live

⁶ You have accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord. So remember that you belong to him as you live your lives. ⁷ Get your strength from Christ himself, so that you become stronger and stronger.^[a] Continue to believe the true message that we taught you. And thank God very much for everything.

⁸ Be careful that you do not believe any false teachers. The ideas that they teach may seem clever. But they really want to deceive you. They are ideas that have come from the human minds of our ancestors. Or ideas that come from spirits that belong to this world. They are not the true message about Christ. ⁹ The whole nature of God himself lives in Christ, in his human body. ¹⁰ And because you are united with Christ, you are now complete. He is the one who rules over everything that has power or authority.

¹¹ Also, because you are united with Christ, you truly belong to God's people. No person has circumcised you to show this. It is like Christ himself has circumcised you, to show that you belong to God. It is like he has cut off your old nature which made you do bad things.^{[b] 12} When they baptized you, it was like God buried you with Christ.^[c] And God also raised you to a new life with Christ. You believed that God has great power to do that. You believed that God raised Jesus to life after he died. Because you believed, God raised you to have a new life.

¹³ At one time, you were dead in your spirits, because of the wrong things that you did. God had not cut off your old nature. You did not belong to his people. But now God has caused you to become alive with Christ. He has forgiven us for all the wrong things that we have done. ¹⁴ We are guilty of many wrong things that are against God's laws. But Christ died on the cross on our behalf. He paid the debt of our sins. It is like he has destroyed the list of all the debts that we should pay to God. ¹⁵ On the cross, Christ took away the power of the bad spirits that have authority to rule people. He showed clearly that he himself has won against them. Now everyone can see that those bad spirits have no power.

Do not obey human ideas

¹⁶ Some people may tell you that it is wrong for you to eat or to drink certain things. Or they make rules about special festival days, about new moons, or about the Jewish days for rest. Do not agree with people like that. ¹⁷ Rules like that are only like shadows of real things that would happen later. But now we have what is real, Christ himself!

¹⁸ Some people may tell you that you must always serve other people like a slave. They may tell you that you must worship angels. Do not let those people speak bad things against you. They like to talk a lot about the special things that God has shown them. They think that they are very clever. But their ideas only come from human minds. ¹⁹ False teachers like that do not receive their message from Christ. As God's people, we are like a body and Christ is like our head. He is the one who causes the whole body to be strong. He helps us to work well together, like the different parts of a body. Then we can all grow properly, because it is God who is helping us to grow.

²⁰ Remember that your old nature has died with Christ. So the powerful spirits that rule this world no longer have any authority over you. You do not need to serve them, because you do not belong to this world now. You do not need to obey their rules. ²¹ They teach, ‘Do not touch things like that!’ Or, ‘Do not eat that kind of food!’ Or, ‘Keep away from that thing!’ ²² Rules like that are only about things that spoil when you use them.^[d] They are rules that come from human ideas. ²³ They teach you ideas about what you must do to worship God. They teach you to serve other people like a slave. They say that you must hurt yourself. You must show that you control your body. Rules like that may seem to be wise, but really they are not worth anything. They cannot stop our weak human nature from doing the bad things that we want to do.

Special land for the Lord

45 ‘You must divide the land into different parts to belong to each tribe. When you do this, you must give one part to the Lord. It will belong to the Lord as a holy piece of land. It will be 12½ kilometres long and 10 kilometres wide. All of this land will be holy. ² Part of this land will be for the temple. It will be 250 metres long and 250 metres wide. Keep an empty space 25 metres wide all around this piece of land. ³ Inside the holy piece of land, measure a part that is 12½ kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide. This part will contain the temple, the most holy place. ⁴ The priests will have this holy part of the land. They are the men who work in the temple and come near to the Lord to serve him. The priests' houses will be there, as well as the temple. ⁵ The other half of the holy piece of land will be for the Levites, who work in the temple. They will have towns there to live in. Their land will be 12½ kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide.

⁶ There will also be a piece of land for the city, 12½ kilometres long and 2½ kilometres wide. It will be beside the holy piece of land. Any of Israel's people may live there.

⁷ There will be two pieces of land for the ruler. One piece will be on the east side of the holy piece of land and the land for the city. The other piece will be on the west side. The piece on the west side will go as far as the sea. The piece on the east side will go as far as the border of the land. So his land will be as long as a part of the land that belongs to each tribe. ⁸ This will be the part of Israel's land that belongs to the ruler. Because my rulers will have their own land, they will no longer need to make my people suffer. They will give to each tribe a part of the land that will belong to them.

⁹ The Almighty Lord says this: Rulers of Israel, stop cheating my people and making them suffer! You have done enough bad things! Instead, do things that are right and fair. Stop chasing my people off their land. That is what the Almighty Lord says.

¹⁰ You must use correct measures for size and for weight. ¹¹ The ephah that you use to measure dry things must be the same measure that you use for wet things. Ten ephahs will be equal to one homer. ¹² 20 gerahs will be equal to one shekel. 60 shekels will be equal to one mina.^[a]

Offerings and holy days

¹³ This is the offering that you must give. Take from your harvest one homer from every 60 homers of wheat or barley. ¹⁴ Take one litre of olive oil from every 100 litres. ¹⁵ Take one sheep from every 200 sheep that feed on the grass in Israel. These gifts will be for grain offerings, for burnt offerings and for friendship offerings. These offerings will cause me to forgive you for your sins. I, the Almighty Lord, tell you to do this.

¹⁶ All Israel's people must bring these offerings to the ruler of Israel. ¹⁷ The ruler must provide the animals for the burnt offerings. He must provide the grain for the grain offerings and the wine for the wine offerings. He must provide these things for the holy festivals that I have chosen for Israel's people. Those include feasts for the new moon and for the Sabbath days. He must provide these things for the sin offerings, the grain offerings, the burnt offerings and the friendship offerings. They will cause me to forgive the sins of Israel's people.

¹⁸ This is what the Almighty Lord says: Each year, on the first day of the first month, you must offer a young bull as a sacrifice. It must not have anything wrong with it. This sacrifice will cause the temple to be clean. ¹⁹ The priest will take some of the blood of this sin offering and he will put it on the posts of the temple doors. He must also put some of the blood on the four corners on the top of the altar. He must also put some blood on the gate posts at the entrance to the inside yard of the temple. ²⁰ You must also do this on the seventh day of the first month. That will cause me to forgive anyone who has done a wrong thing by mistake. Perhaps they did not know that it was a sin. In this way you will make the temple a clean place for me.

²¹ Each year, on the 14th day of the first month, you must start the Passover festival. The festival will continue for seven days.^[b] During that time you must not eat any bread that hasyeast in it.

²² On the first day of the festival, the ruler must provide a bull as a sin offering. It is an offering for himself and for all the people of Israel. ²³ Every day of the feast he must provide seven young bulls and seven male sheep for burnt offerings to the Lord. The animals must have nothing wrong with them. Each day of the festival, he must also give a male goat as a sin offering. ²⁴ With each bull and each sheep, the ruler must also provide an ephah of grain. He must provide a hin of olive oil with each ephah of grain.^[c]

²⁵ You will have another festival that starts on the 15th day of the 7th month. It will continue for seven days. Each day, the ruler must provide the same things for sin offerings, burnt offerings and grain offerings, as well as the olive oil.’

The Lord is holy!^[a]

This is a psalm to say ‘thank you’.

Thank you, God!^[f]

David wrote this psalm.

The king's song^[h]