M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The Beginning of Sin
3 Now the snake was the most clever of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day the snake said to the woman, “Did God really say that you must not eat fruit from any tree in the garden?”
2 The woman answered the snake, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. 3 But God told us, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You must not even touch it, or you will die.’”
4 But the snake said to the woman, “You will not die. 5 God knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, you will learn about good and evil and you will be like God!”
6 The woman saw that the tree was beautiful, that its fruit was good to eat, and that it would make her wise. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of the fruit to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
7 Then, it was as if their eyes were opened. They realized they were naked, so they sewed fig leaves together and made something to cover themselves.
8 Then they heard the Lord God walking in the garden during the cool part of the day, and the man and his wife hid from the Lord God among the trees in the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man and said, “Where are you?”
10 The man answered, “I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
11 God asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?”
12 The man said, “You gave this woman to me and she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “How could you have done such a thing?”
She answered, “The snake tricked me, so I ate the fruit.”
14 The Lord God said to the snake,
“Because you did this,
a curse will be put on you.
You will be cursed as no other animal, tame or wild, will ever be.
You will crawl on your stomach,
and you will eat dust all the days of your life.
15 I will make you and the woman
enemies to each other.
Your descendants and her descendants
will be enemies.
One of her descendants will crush your head,
and you will bite his heel.”
16 Then God said to the woman,
“I will cause you to have much trouble
when you are pregnant,
and when you give birth to children,
you will have great pain.
You will greatly desire your husband,
but he will rule over you.”
17 Then God said to the man, “You listened to what your wife said, and you ate fruit from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat.
“So I will put a curse on the ground,
and you will have to work very hard for your food.
In pain you will eat its food
all the days of your life.
18 The ground will produce thorns and weeds for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 You will sweat and work hard for your food.
Later you will return to the ground,
because you were taken from it.
You are dust,
and when you die, you will return to the dust.”
20 The man named his wife Eve,[a] because she was the mother of all the living.
21 The Lord God made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them. 22 Then the Lord God said, “Humans have become like one of us; they know good and evil. We must keep them from eating some of the fruit from the tree of life, or they will live forever.” 23 So the Lord God forced Adam out of the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 After God forced humans out of the garden, he placed angels and a sword of fire that flashed around in every direction on its eastern border. This kept people from getting to the tree of life.
The Work of John the Baptist
3 About that time John the Baptist began preaching in the desert area of Judea. 2 John said, “Change your hearts and lives because the kingdom of heaven is near.” 3 John the Baptist is the one Isaiah the prophet was talking about when he said:
“This is a voice of one
who calls out in the desert:
‘Prepare the way for the Lord.
Make the road straight for him.’” Isaiah 40:3
4 John’s clothes were made from camel’s hair, and he wore a leather belt around his waist. For food, he ate locusts and wild honey. 5 Many people came from Jerusalem and Judea and all the area around the Jordan River to hear John. 6 They confessed their sins, and he baptized them in the Jordan River.
7 Many of the Pharisees and Sadducees came to the place where John was baptizing people. When John saw them, he said, “You are snakes! Who warned you to run away from God’s coming punishment? 8 Do the things that show you really have changed your hearts and lives. 9 And don’t think you can say to yourselves, ‘Abraham is our father.’ I tell you that God could make children for Abraham from these rocks. 10 The ax is now ready to cut down the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.[a]
11 “I baptize you with water to show that your hearts and lives have changed. But there is one coming after me who is greater than I am, whose sandals I am not good enough to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 He will come ready to clean the grain, separating the good grain from the chaff. He will put the good part of the grain into his barn, but he will burn the chaff with a fire that cannot be put out.”[b]
Jesus Is Baptized by John
13 At that time Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River and wanted John to baptize him. 14 But John tried to stop him, saying, “Why do you come to me to be baptized? I need to be baptized by you!”
15 Jesus answered, “Let it be this way for now. We should do all things that are God’s will.” So John agreed to baptize Jesus.
16 As soon as Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water. Then heaven opened, and he saw God’s Spirit coming down on him like a dove. 17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love, and I am very pleased with him.”
Rebuilding the Altar
3 In the seventh month, after the Israelites were settled in their hometowns, they met together in Jerusalem. 2 Then Jeshua son of Jozadak and his fellow priests joined Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and began to build the altar of the God of Israel where they could offer burnt offerings, just as it is written in the Teachings of Moses, the man of God. 3 Even though they were afraid of the people living around them, they built the altar where it had been before. And they offered burnt offerings on it to the Lord morning and evening. 4 Then, to obey what was written, they celebrated the Feast of Shelters. They offered the right number of sacrifices for each day of the festival. 5 After the Feast of Shelters, they had regular sacrifices every day, as well as sacrifices for the New Moon and all the festivals commanded by the Lord. Also there were special offerings brought as gifts to the Lord. 6 On the first day of the seventh month they began to bring burnt offerings to the Lord, but the foundation of the Lord’s Temple had not yet been laid.
Rebuilding the Temple
7 Then they gave money to the bricklayers and carpenters. They also gave food, wine, and oil to the cities of Sidon and Tyre so they would float cedar logs from Lebanon to the seacoast town of Joppa. Cyrus king of Persia had given permission for this.
8 In the second month of the second year after their arrival at the Temple of God in Jerusalem, Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, Jeshua son of Jozadak, their fellow priests and Levites, and all who had returned from captivity to Jerusalem began to work. They chose Levites twenty years old and older to be in charge of the building of the Temple of the Lord. 9 These men were in charge of the work of building the Temple of God: Jeshua and his sons and brothers; Kadmiel and his sons who were the descendants of Hodaviah; and the sons of Henadad and their sons and brothers. They were all Levites.
10 The builders finished laying the foundation of the Temple of the Lord. Then the priests, dressed in their robes, stood with their trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, stood with their cymbals. They all took their places and praised the Lord just as David king of Israel had said to do. 11 With praise and thanksgiving, they sang to the Lord:
“He is good;
his love for Israel continues forever.”
And then all the people shouted loudly, “Praise the Lord! The foundation of his Temple has been laid.” 12 But many of the older priests, Levites, and family leaders who had seen the first Temple cried when they saw the foundation of this Temple. Most of the other people were shouting with joy. 13 The people made so much noise it could be heard far away, and no one could tell the difference between the joyful shouting and the sad crying.
Peter Heals a Crippled Man
3 One day Peter and John went to the Temple at three o’clock, the time set each day for the afternoon prayer service. 2 There, at the Temple gate called Beautiful Gate, was a man who had been crippled all his life. Every day he was carried to this gate to beg for money from the people going into the Temple. 3 The man saw Peter and John going into the Temple and asked them for money. 4 Peter and John looked straight at him and said, “Look at us!” 5 The man looked at them, thinking they were going to give him some money. 6 But Peter said, “I don’t have any silver or gold, but I do have something else I can give you. By the power of Jesus Christ from Nazareth, stand up and walk!” 7 Then Peter took the man’s right hand and lifted him up. Immediately the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped up, stood on his feet, and began to walk. He went into the Temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God. 9-10 All the people recognized him as the crippled man who always sat by the Beautiful Gate begging for money. Now they saw this same man walking and praising God, and they were amazed. They wondered how this could happen.
Peter Speaks to the People
11 While the man was holding on to Peter and John, all the people were amazed and ran to them at Solomon’s Porch. 12 When Peter saw this, he said to them, “People of Israel, why are you surprised? You are looking at us as if it were our own power or goodness that made this man walk. 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, gave glory to Jesus, his servant. But you handed him over to be killed. Pilate decided to let him go free, but you told Pilate you did not want Jesus. 14 You did not want the One who is holy and good but asked Pilate to give you a murderer[a] instead. 15 And so you killed the One who gives life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses to this. 16 It was faith in Jesus that made this crippled man well. You can see this man, and you know him. He was made completely well because of trust in Jesus, and you all saw it happen!
17 “Brothers and sisters, I know you did those things to Jesus because neither you nor your leaders understood what you were doing. 18 God said through the prophets that his Christ would suffer and die. And now God has made these things come true in this way. 19 So you must change your hearts and lives! Come back to God, and he will forgive your sins. Then the Lord will send the time of rest. 20 And he will send Jesus, the One he chose to be the Christ. 21 But Jesus must stay in heaven until the time comes when all things will be made right again. God told about this time long ago when he spoke through his holy prophets. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will give you a prophet like me, who is one of your own people. You must listen to everything he tells you. 23 Anyone who does not listen to that prophet will die, cut off from God’s people.’[b] 24 Samuel, and all the other prophets who spoke for God after Samuel, told about this time now. 25 You are descendants of the prophets. You have received the agreement God made with your ancestors. He said to your father Abraham, ‘Through your descendants all the nations on the earth will be blessed.’[c] 26 God has raised up his servant Jesus and sent him to you first to bless you by turning each of you away from doing evil.”
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.