M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Great Things Israel Saw
11 Love the Lord your God and always obey his orders, rules, laws, and commands. 2 Remember today it was not your children who saw and felt the correction of the Lord your God. They did not see his majesty, his power, his strength, 3 or his signs and the things he did in Egypt to the king and his whole country. 4 They did not see what he did to the Egyptian army, its horses and chariots, when he drowned them in the Red Sea as they were chasing you. The Lord ruined them forever. 5 They did not see what he did for you in the desert until you arrived here. 6 They did not see what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab the Reubenite, when the ground opened up and swallowed them, their families, their tents, and everyone who stood with them in Israel. 7 It was you who saw all these great things the Lord has done.
8 So obey all the commands I am giving you today so that you will be strong and can go in and take the land you are going to take as your own. 9 Then you will live a long time in the land that the Lord promised to give to your ancestors and their descendants, a fertile land. 10 The land you are going to take is not like Egypt, where you were. There you had to plant your seed and water it, like a vegetable garden, by using your feet. 11 But the land that you will soon cross the Jordan River to take is a land of hills and valleys, a land that drinks rain from heaven. 12 It is a land the Lord your God cares for. His eyes are on it continually, and he watches it from the beginning of the year to the end.
13 If you carefully obey the commands I am giving you today and love the Lord your God and serve him with your whole being, 14 then he will send rain on your land at the right time, in the fall and spring, and you will be able to gather your grain, new wine, and oil. 15 He will put grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will have plenty to eat.
16 Be careful, or you will be fooled and will turn away to serve and worship other gods. 17 If you do, the Lord will become angry with you and will shut the heavens so it will not rain. Then the land will not grow crops, and you will soon die in the good land the Lord is giving you. 18 Remember my words with your whole being. Write them down and tie them to your hands as a sign; tie them on your foreheads to remind you. 19 Teach them well to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 20 Write them on your doors and gates 21 so that both you and your children will live a long time in the land the Lord promised your ancestors, as long as the skies are above the earth.
22 If you are careful to obey every command I am giving you to follow, and love the Lord your God, and do what he has told you to do, and are loyal to him, 23 then the Lord will force all those nations out of the land ahead of you, and you will take the land from nations that are bigger and stronger than you. 24 Everywhere you step will be yours. Your land will go from the desert to Lebanon and from the Euphrates River to the Mediterranean Sea. 25 No one will be able to stop you. The Lord your God will do what he promised and will make the people afraid everywhere you go.
26 See, today I am letting you choose a blessing or a curse. 27 You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. 28 But you will be cursed if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God. So do not disobey the commands I am giving you today, and do not worship other gods you do not know. 29 When the Lord your God brings you into the land you will take as your own, you are to announce the blessings from Mount Gerizim and the curses from Mount Ebal. 30 (These mountains are on the other side of the Jordan River, to the west, toward the sunset. They are near the great trees of Moreh in the land of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley opposite Gilgal.) 31 You will soon cross the Jordan River to enter and take the land the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it over and live there, 32 be careful to obey all the commands and laws I am giving you today.
A Call to Praise and Obedience
95 Come, let’s sing for joy to the Lord.
Let’s shout praises to the Rock who saves us.
2 Let’s come to him with thanksgiving.
Let’s sing songs to him,
3 because the Lord is the great God,
the great King over all gods.
4 The deepest places on earth are his,
and the highest mountains belong to him.
5 The sea is his because he made it,
and he created the land with his own hands.
6 Come, let’s worship him and bow down.
Let’s kneel before the Lord who made us,
7 because he is our God
and we are the people he takes care of,
the sheep that he tends.
Today listen to what he says:
8 “Do not be stubborn, as your ancestors were at Meribah,
as they were that day at Massah in the desert.
9 There your ancestors tested me
and tried me even though they saw what I did.
10 I was angry with those people for forty years.
I said, ‘They are not loyal to me
and have not understood my ways.’
11 I was angry and made a promise,
‘They will never enter my rest.’”
Praise for the Lord’s Glory
96 Sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Lord and praise his name;
every day tell how he saves us.
3 Tell the nations of his glory;
tell all peoples the miracles he does,
4 because the Lord is great; he should be praised at all times.
He should be honored more than all the gods,
5 because all the gods of the nations are only idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
6 The Lord has glory and majesty;
he has power and beauty in his Temple.
7 Praise the Lord, all nations on earth;
praise the Lord’s glory and power.
8 Praise the glory of the Lord’s name.
Bring an offering and come into his Temple courtyards.
9 Worship the Lord because he is holy.
Tremble before him, everyone on earth.
10 Tell the nations, “The Lord is king.”
The earth is set, and it cannot be moved.
He will judge the people fairly.
11 Let the skies rejoice and the earth be glad;
let the sea and everything in it shout.
12 Let the fields and everything in them rejoice.
Then all the trees of the forest will sing for joy
13 before the Lord, because he is coming.
He is coming to judge the world;
he will judge the world with fairness
and the peoples with truth.
Messengers from Babylon
39 At that time Merodach-Baladan son of Baladan was king of Babylon. He sent letters and a gift to Hezekiah, because he had heard that Hezekiah had been sick and was now well. 2 Hezekiah was pleased and showed the messengers what was in his storehouses: the silver, gold, spices, expensive perfumes, his swords and shields, and all his wealth. He showed them everything in his palace and in his kingdom.
3 Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did these men say? Where did they come from?”
Hezekiah said, “They came from a faraway country—from Babylon.”
4 So Isaiah asked him, “What did they see in your palace?”
Hezekiah said, “They saw everything in my palace. I showed them all my wealth.”
5 Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah: “Listen to the words of the Lord All-Powerful: 6 ‘In the future everything in your palace and everything your ancestors have stored up until this day will be taken away to Babylon. Nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. 7 Some of your own children, those who will be born to you, will be taken away, and they will become servants in the palace of the king of Babylon.”
8 Hezekiah told Isaiah, “These words from the Lord are good.” He said this because he thought, “There will be peace and security in my lifetime.”
9 Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fall from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the deep hole that leads to the bottomless pit. 2 Then it opened up the hole that leads to the bottomless pit, and smoke came up from the hole like smoke from a big furnace. Then the sun and sky became dark because of the smoke from the hole. 3 Then locusts came down to the earth out of the smoke, and they were given the power to sting like scorpions.[a] 4 They were told not to harm the grass on the earth or any plant or tree. They could harm only the people who did not have the sign of God on their foreheads. 5 These locusts were not given the power to kill anyone, but to cause pain to the people for five months. And the pain they felt was like the pain a scorpion gives when it stings someone. 6 During those days people will look for a way to die, but they will not find it. They will want to die, but death will run away from them.
7 The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. On their heads they wore what looked like crowns of gold, and their faces looked like human faces. 8 Their hair was like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth. 9 Their chests looked like iron breastplates, and the sound of their wings was like the noise of many horses and chariots hurrying into battle. 10 The locusts had tails with stingers like scorpions, and in their tails was their power to hurt people for five months. 11 The locusts had a king who was the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in the Hebrew language is Abaddon and in the Greek language is Apollyon.[b]
12 The first trouble is past; there are still two other troubles that will come.
13 Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from the horns on the golden altar that is before God. 14 The voice said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Free the four angels who are tied at the great river Euphrates.” 15 And they let loose the four angels who had been kept ready for this hour and day and month and year so they could kill a third of all people on the earth. 16 I heard how many troops on horses were in their army—two hundred million.
17 The horses and their riders I saw in the vision looked like this: They had breastplates that were fiery red, dark blue, and yellow like sulfur. The heads of the horses looked like heads of lions, with fire, smoke, and sulfur coming out of their mouths. 18 A third of all the people on earth were killed by these three terrible disasters coming out of the horses’ mouths: the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur. 19 The horses’ power was in their mouths and in their tails; their tails were like snakes with heads, and with them they hurt people.
20 The other people who were not killed by these terrible disasters still did not change their hearts and turn away from what they had made with their own hands. They did not stop worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—things that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 These people did not change their hearts and turn away from murder or evil magic, from their sexual sins or stealing.
The Holy Bible, New Century Version®. Copyright © 2005 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.