M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

God’s Promise to David

17 When David moved into his palace, he said to Nathan the prophet, “Look, I am living in a palace made of cedar, but the Ark of the Agreement with the Lord sits in a tent.”

² Nathan said to David, “Do what you want to do, because God is with you.”

³ But that night God spoke his word to Nathan, saying, ⁴ “Go and tell David my servant, ‘This is what the Lord says: You are not the person to build a house for me to live in. ⁵ From the time I brought Israel out of Egypt until now I have not lived in a house. I have moved from one tent site to another and from one place to another. ⁶ As I have moved with the Israelites to different places, I have never said to the leaders, whom I commanded to take care of my people, “Why haven’t you built me a house of cedar?”’

⁷ “Now, tell my servant David: ‘This is what the Lord All-Powerful says: I took you from the pasture and from tending the sheep and made you king of my people Israel. ⁸ I have been with you everywhere you have gone. I have defeated your enemies for you. I will make you as famous as any of the great people on the earth. ⁹ I will choose a place for my people Israel, and I will plant them so they can live in their own homes. They will not be bothered anymore. Wicked people will no longer hurt them as they have in the past ¹⁰ when I chose judges for my people Israel. I will defeat all your enemies.

“‘I tell you that the Lord will make your descendants kings of Israel after you. ¹¹ When you die and join your ancestors, I will make one of your sons the new king, and I will set up his kingdom. ¹² He will build a house for me, and I will let his kingdom rule always. ¹³ I will be his father, and he will be my son. I took away my love from Saul, who ruled before you, but I will never stop loving your son. ¹⁴ I will put him in charge of my house and kingdom forever. His family will rule forever.’”

¹⁵ Nathan told David everything God had said in this vision.

David Prays to God

¹⁶ Then King David went in and sat in front of the Lord. David said, “Lord God, who am I? What is my family? Why did you bring me to this point? ¹⁷ But that was not enough for you, God. You have also made promises about my future family. Lord God, you have treated me like a very important person.

¹⁸ “What more can I say to you for honoring me, your servant? You know me so well. ¹⁹ Lord, you have done this wonderful thing for my sake and because you wanted to. You have made known all these great things.

²⁰ “There is no one like you, Lord. There is no God except you. We have heard all this ourselves! ²¹ There is no nation like your people Israel. They are the only people on earth that God chose to be his own. You made your name well known by the great and wonderful things you did for them. You went ahead of them and forced other nations out of the land. You freed your people from slavery in Egypt. ²² You made the people of Israel your very own people forever, and, Lord, you are their God.

²³ “Lord, keep the promise forever that you made about my family and me, your servant. Do what you have said. ²⁴ Then you will be honored always, and people will say, ‘The Lord All-Powerful, the God over Israel, is Israel’s God!’ And the family of your servant David will continue before you.

²⁵ “My God, you have told me that you would make my family great. So I, your servant, am brave enough to pray to you. ²⁶ Lord, you are God, and you have promised these good things to me, your servant. ²⁷ You have chosen to bless my family. Let it continue before you always. Lord, you have blessed my family, so it will always be blessed.”

Give Yourselves to God

4 Do you know where your fights and arguments come from? They come from the selfish desires that war within you. ² You want things, but you do not have them. So you are ready to kill and are jealous of other people, but you still cannot get what you want. So you argue and fight. You do not get what you want, because you do not ask God. ³ Or when you ask, you do not receive because the reason you ask is wrong. You want things so you can use them for your own pleasures.

⁴ So, you are not loyal to God! You should know that loving the world is the same as hating God. Anyone who wants to be a friend of the world becomes God’s enemy. ⁵ Do you think the Scripture means nothing that says, “The Spirit that God made to live in us wants us for himself alone”?^{[a] 6} But God gives us even more grace, as the Scripture says,

⁷ So give yourselves completely to God. Stand against the devil, and the devil will run from you. ⁸ Come near to God, and God will come near to you. You sinners, clean sin out of your lives. You who are trying to follow God and the world at the same time, make your thinking pure. ⁹ Be sad, cry, and weep! Change your laughter into crying and your joy into sadness. ¹⁰ Humble yourself in the Lord’s presence, and he will honor you.

You Are Not the Judge

¹¹ Brothers and sisters, do not tell evil lies about each other. If you speak against your fellow believers or judge them, you are judging and speaking against the law they follow. And when you are judging the law, you are no longer a follower of the law. You have become a judge. ¹² God is the only Lawmaker and Judge. He is the only One who can save and destroy. So it is not right for you to judge your neighbor.

Let God Plan Your Life

¹³ Some of you say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to some city. We will stay there a year, do business, and make money.” ¹⁴ But you do not know what will happen tomorrow! Your life is like a mist. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away. ¹⁵ So you should say, “If the Lord wants, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ But now you are proud and you brag. All of this bragging is wrong. ¹⁷ Anyone who knows the right thing to do, but does not do it, is sinning.

God Calls and Jonah Runs

1 The Lord spoke his word to Jonah son of Amittai: ² “Get up, go to the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it, because I see the evil things they do.”

³ But Jonah got up to run away from the Lord by going to Tarshish. He went to the city of Joppa, where he found a ship that was going to the city of Tarshish. Jonah paid for the trip and went aboard, planning to go to Tarshish to run away from the Lord.

⁴ But the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, which made the sea so stormy that the ship was in danger of breaking apart. ⁵ The sailors were afraid, and each man cried to his own god. They began throwing the cargo from the ship into the sea to make the ship lighter.

But Jonah had gone down far inside the ship to lie down, and he fell fast asleep. ⁶ The captain of the ship came and said, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray to your god! Maybe your god will pay attention to us, and we won’t die!”

⁷ Then the men said to each other, “Let’s throw lots to see who caused these troubles to happen to us.”

When they threw lots, the lot showed that the trouble had happened because of Jonah. ⁸ Then they said to him, “Tell us, who caused our trouble? What is your job? Where do you come from? What is your country? Who are your people?”

⁹ Then Jonah said to them, “I am a Hebrew. I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.”

¹⁰ The men were very afraid, and they asked Jonah, “What terrible thing did you do?” (They knew he was running away from the Lord because he had told them.)

¹¹ Since the wind and the waves of the sea were becoming much stronger, they said to him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”

¹² Jonah said to them, “Pick me up, and throw me into the sea, and then it will calm down. I know it is my fault that this great storm has come on you.”

¹³ Instead, the men tried to row the ship back to the land, but they could not, because the sea was becoming more stormy.

Jonah’s Punishment

¹⁴ So the men cried to the Lord, “Lord, please don’t let us die because of this man’s life; please don’t think we are guilty of killing an innocent person. Lord, you have caused all this to happen; you wanted it this way.” ¹⁵ So they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the sea became calm. ¹⁶ Then they began to fear the Lord very much; they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made promises to him.

¹⁷ The Lord caused a big fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.

Jesus Is Lord over the Sabbath

6 One Sabbath day Jesus was walking through some fields of grain. His followers picked the heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. ² Some Pharisees said, “Why do you do what is not lawful on the Sabbath day?”

³ Jesus answered, “Have you not read what David did when he and those with him were hungry? ⁴ He went into God’s house and took and ate the holy bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he gave some to the people who were with him.” ⁵ Then Jesus said to the Pharisees, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath day.”

Jesus Heals a Man’s Hand

⁶ On another Sabbath day Jesus went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man with a crippled right hand was there. ⁷ The teachers of the law and the Pharisees were watching closely to see if Jesus would heal on the Sabbath day so they could accuse him. ⁸ But he knew what they were thinking, and he said to the man with the crippled hand, “Stand up here in the middle of everyone.” The man got up and stood there. ⁹ Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath day: to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to destroy it?” ¹⁰ Jesus looked around at all of them and said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” The man held out his hand, and it was healed.

¹¹ But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were very angry and discussed with each other what they could do to Jesus.

Jesus Chooses His Apostles

¹² At that time Jesus went off to a mountain to pray, and he spent the night praying to God. ¹³ The next morning, Jesus called his followers to him and chose twelve of them, whom he named apostles: ¹⁴ Simon (Jesus named him Peter), his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, ¹⁵ Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Simon (called the Zealot), ¹⁶ Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who later turned Jesus over to his enemies.

Jesus Teaches and Heals

¹⁷ Jesus and the apostles came down from the mountain, and he stood on level ground. A large group of his followers was there, as well as many people from all around Judea, Jerusalem, and the seacoast cities of Tyre and Sidon. ¹⁸ They all came to hear Jesus teach and to be healed of their sicknesses, and he healed those who were troubled by evil spirits. ¹⁹ All the people were trying to touch Jesus, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

²⁰ Jesus looked at his followers and said,

²² “People will hate you, shut you out, insult you, and say you are evil because you follow the Son of Man. But when they do, you will be blessed. ²³ Be full of joy at that time, because you have a great reward in heaven. Their ancestors did the same things to the prophets.

²⁶ “How terrible when everyone says only good things about you, because their ancestors said the same things about the false prophets.

Love Your Enemies

²⁷ “But I say to you who are listening, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who are cruel to you. ²⁹ If anyone slaps you on one cheek, offer him the other cheek, too. If someone takes your coat, do not stop him from taking your shirt. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and when someone takes something that is yours, don’t ask for it back. ³¹ Do to others what you would want them to do to you. ³² If you love only the people who love you, what praise should you get? Even sinners love the people who love them. ³³ If you do good only to those who do good to you, what praise should you get? Even sinners do that! ³⁴ If you lend things to people, always hoping to get something back, what praise should you get? Even sinners lend to other sinners so that they can get back the same amount! ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without hoping to get anything back. Then you will have a great reward, and you will be children of the Most High God, because he is kind even to people who are ungrateful and full of sin. ³⁶ Show mercy, just as your Father shows mercy.

Look at Yourselves

³⁷ “Don’t judge others, and you will not be judged. Don’t accuse others of being guilty, and you will not be accused of being guilty. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. ³⁸ Give, and you will receive. You will be given much. Pressed down, shaken together, and running over, it will spill into your lap. The way you give to others is the way God will give to you.”

³⁹ Jesus told them this story: “Can a blind person lead another blind person? No! Both of them will fall into a ditch. ⁴⁰ A student is not better than the teacher, but the student who has been fully trained will be like the teacher.

⁴¹ “Why do you notice the little piece of dust in your friend’s eye, but you don’t notice the big piece of wood in your own eye? ⁴² How can you say to your friend, ‘Friend, let me take that little piece of dust out of your eye’ when you cannot see that big piece of wood in your own eye! You hypocrite! First, take the wood out of your own eye. Then you will see clearly to take the dust out of your friend’s eye.

Two Kinds of Fruit

⁴³ “A good tree does not produce bad fruit, nor does a bad tree produce good fruit. ⁴⁴ Each tree is known by its own fruit. People don’t gather figs from thornbushes, and they don’t get grapes from bushes. ⁴⁵ Good people bring good things out of the good they stored in their hearts. But evil people bring evil things out of the evil they stored in their hearts. People speak the things that are in their hearts.

Two Kinds of People

⁴⁶ “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but do not do what I say? ⁴⁷ I will show you what everyone is like who comes to me and hears my words and obeys. ⁴⁸ That person is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on rock. When the floods came, the water tried to wash the house away, but it could not shake it, because the house was built well. ⁴⁹ But the one who hears my words and does not obey is like a man who built his house on the ground without a foundation. When the floods came, the house quickly fell and was completely destroyed.”