M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
You Are God’s People
7 The Lord your God will bring you into the land that you are entering and that you will have as your own. As you go in, he will force out these nations: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites—seven nations that are stronger than you. 2 The Lord your God will hand these nations over to you, and when you defeat them, you must destroy them completely. Do not make a peace treaty with them or show them any mercy. 3 Do not marry any of them, or let your daughters marry their sons, or let your sons marry their daughters. 4 If you do, those people will turn your children away from me, to begin serving other gods. Then the Lord will be very angry with you, and he will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you must do to those people: Tear down their altars, smash their holy stone pillars, cut down their Asherah idols, and burn their idols in the fire. 6 You are holy people who belong to the Lord your God. He has chosen you from all the people on earth to be his very own.
7 The Lord did not care for you and choose you because there were many of you—you are the smallest nation of all. 8 But the Lord chose you because he loved you, and he kept his promise to your ancestors. So he brought you out of Egypt by his great power and freed you from the land of slavery, from the power of the king of Egypt. 9 So know that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God. He will keep his agreement of love for a thousand lifetimes for people who love him and obey his commands. 10 But he will pay back those people who hate him. He will destroy them, and he will not be slow to pay back those who hate him. 11 So be careful to obey the commands, rules, and laws I give you today.
12 If you pay attention to these laws and obey them carefully, the Lord your God will keep his agreement and show his love to you, as he promised your ancestors. 13 He will love and bless you. He will make the number of your people grow; he will bless you with children. He will bless your fields with good crops and will give you grain, new wine, and oil. He will bless your herds with calves and your flocks with lambs in the land he promised your ancestors he would give you. 14 You will be blessed more than any other people. Every husband and wife will have children, and all your cattle will have calves. 15 The Lord will take away all disease from you; you will not have the terrible diseases that were in Egypt, but he will give them to all the people who hate you. 16 You must destroy all the people the Lord your God hands over to you. Do not feel sorry for them, and do not worship their gods, or they will trap you.
17 You might say to yourselves, “Because these nations are stronger than we are, we can’t force them out.” 18 But don’t be afraid of them. Remember what the Lord your God did to all of Egypt and its king. 19 You saw for yourselves the troubles, signs, and miracles he did, how the Lord’s great power and strength brought you out of Egypt. The Lord your God will do the same thing to all the nations you now fear. 20 The Lord your God will also send terror among them so that even those who are alive and hiding from you will die. 21 Don’t be afraid of them, because the Lord your God is with you; he is a great God and people are afraid of him. 22 When the Lord your God forces those nations out of the land, he will do it little by little ahead of you. You won’t be able to destroy them all at once; otherwise, the wild animals will grow too many in number. 23 But the Lord your God will hand those nations over to you, confusing them until they are destroyed. 24 The Lord will help you defeat their kings, and the world will forget who they were. No one will be able to stop you; you will destroy them all. 25 Burn up their idols in the fire. Do not wish for the silver and gold they have, and don’t take it for yourselves, or you will be trapped by it. The Lord your God hates it. 26 Do not bring one of those hateful things into your house, or you will be completely destroyed along with it. Hate and reject those things; they must be completely destroyed.
God Is Eternal, and We Are Not
A prayer of Moses, the man of God.
90 Lord, you have been our home
since the beginning.
2 Before the mountains were born
and before you created the earth and the world,
you are God.
You have always been, and you will always be.
3 You turn people back into dust.
You say, “Go back into dust, human beings.”
4 To you, a thousand years
is like the passing of a day,
or like a few hours in the night.
5 While people sleep, you take their lives.
They are like grass that grows up in the morning.
6 In the morning they are fresh and new,
but by evening they dry up and die.
7 We are destroyed by your anger;
we are terrified by your hot anger.
8 You have put the evil we have done right in front of you;
you clearly see our secret sins.
9 All our days pass while you are angry.
Our years end with a moan.
10 Our lifetime is seventy years
or, if we are strong, eighty years.
But the years are full of hard work and pain.
They pass quickly, and then we are gone.
11 Who knows the full power of your anger?
Your anger is as great as our fear of you should be.
12 Teach us how short our lives really are
so that we may be wise.
13 Lord, how long before you return
and show kindness to your servants?
14 Fill us with your love every morning.
Then we will sing and rejoice all our lives.
15 We have seen years of trouble.
Now give us as much joy as you gave us sorrow.
16 Show your servants the wonderful things you do;
show your greatness to their children.
17 Lord our God, treat us well.
Give us success in what we do;
yes, give us success in what we do.
God Will Comfort His People
35 The desert and dry land will become happy;
the desert will be glad and will produce flowers.
Like a flower, 2 it will have many blooms.
It will show its happiness, as if it were shouting with joy.
It will be beautiful like the forest of Lebanon,
as beautiful as the hill of Carmel and the Plain of Sharon.
Everyone will see the glory of the Lord
and the splendor of our God.
3 Make the weak hands strong
and the weak knees steady.
4 Say to people who are frightened,
“Be strong. Don’t be afraid.
Look, your God will come,
and he will punish your enemies.
He will make them pay for the wrongs they did,
but he will save you.”
5 Then the blind people will see again,
and the deaf will hear.
6 Crippled people will jump like deer,
and those who can’t talk now will shout with joy.
Water will flow in the desert,
and streams will flow in the dry land.
7 The burning desert will have pools of water,
and the dry ground will have springs.
Where wild dogs once lived,
grass and water plants will grow.
8 A road will be there;
this highway will be called “The Road to Being Holy.”
Evil people will not be allowed to walk on that road;
only good people will walk on it.
No fools will go on it.
9 No lions will be there,
nor will dangerous animals be on that road.
They will not be found there.
That road will be for the people God saves;
10 the people the Lord has freed will return there.
They will enter Jerusalem with joy,
and their happiness will last forever.
Their gladness and joy will fill them completely,
and sorrow and sadness will go far away.
5 Then I saw a scroll in the right hand of the One sitting on the throne. The scroll had writing on both sides and was kept closed with seven seals. 2 And I saw a powerful angel calling in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” 3 But there was no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth who could open the scroll or look inside it. 4 I cried bitterly because there was no one who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. 5 But one of the elders said to me, “Do not cry! The Lion[a] from the tribe of Judah, David’s descendant, has won the victory so that he is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”
6 Then I saw a Lamb standing in the center of the throne and in the middle of the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb looked as if he had been killed. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God that were sent into all the world. 7 The Lamb came and took the scroll from the right hand of the One sitting on the throne. 8 When he took the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders bowed down before the Lamb. Each one of them had a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s holy people. 9 And they all sang a new song to the Lamb:
“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were killed,
and with the blood of your death you bought people for God
from every tribe, language, people, and nation.
10 You made them to be a kingdom of priests for our God,
and they will rule on the earth.”
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels around the throne, and the four living creatures, and the elders. There were thousands and thousands of angels, 12 saying in a loud voice:
“The Lamb who was killed is worthy
to receive power, wealth, wisdom, and strength,
honor, glory, and praise!”
13 Then I heard all creatures in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea saying:
“To the One who sits on the throne
and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power
forever and ever.”
14 The four living creatures said, “Amen,” and the elders bowed down and worshiped.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.