M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

²⁰ Yahweh will send you curses, panic, and frustration in everything you do until you’re destroyed and quickly disappear for the evil you will do by abandoning Yahweh. ²¹ Yahweh will send one plague after another on you until he wipes you out of the land you’re about to enter and take possession of. ²² Yahweh will strike you with disease, fever, and inflammation; heat waves,^[a] drought,^[b] scorching winds,^[c] and ruined crops. They will pursue you until you die. ²³ The sky above will look like bronze, and the ground below will be as hard as iron. ²⁴ Yahweh will send dust storms and sandstorms on you from the sky until you’re destroyed.

²⁵ Yahweh will let your enemies defeat you. You will attack them from one direction but run away from them in seven directions. You will become a thing of horror to all the kingdoms in the world. ²⁶ Your dead bodies will be food for all the birds and wild animals. There will be no one to scare them away. ²⁷ Yahweh will strike you with the same boils that plagued the Egyptians. He will strike you with hemorrhoids,^[d] sores,^[e] and itching^[f] that won’t go away. ²⁸ Yahweh will strike you with madness, blindness, and panic. ²⁹ You will grope in broad daylight as blind people grope in their blindness. You won’t be successful in anything you do.^[g] As long as you live, you will be oppressed and robbed with no one to rescue you.

³⁰ You will be engaged to a woman, but another man will have sex with her. You will build a house, but you won’t live in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you won’t enjoy the grapes. ³¹ Your ox will be butchered as you watch, but you won’t eat any of its meat. You will watch as your donkey is stolen from you, but you’ll never get it back. Your flock will be given to your enemies, and no one will rescue it. ³² You will watch with your own eyes as your sons and daughters are given to another nation. You will strain your eyes looking for them all day long, but there will be nothing you can do. ³³ People you never knew will eat what your land and your hard work have produced. As long as you live, you will know nothing but oppression and abuse. ³⁴ The things you see will drive you mad. ³⁵ Yahweh will afflict your knees and legs with severe boils that can’t be cured. The boils will cover your whole body from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.

³⁶ Yahweh will lead you and the king you choose to a nation that you and your ancestors never knew. There you will worship gods made of wood and stone. ³⁷ You will become a thing of horror. All the nations where Yahweh will send you will make an example of you and ridicule you.

³⁸ You will plant many crops in your fields, but harvest little because locusts will destroy your crops. ³⁹ You will plant vineyards and take care of them, but you won’t drink any wine or gather any grapes, because worms will eat them. ⁴⁰ You will have olive trees everywhere in your country but no olive oil to rub on your skin, because the olives will fall off the trees. ⁴¹ You will have sons and daughters, but you won’t be able to keep them because they will be taken as prisoners of war. ⁴² Crickets will swarm all over your trees and the crops in your fields.

⁴³ The standard of living for the foreigners who live among you will rise higher and higher, while your standard of living will sink lower and lower. ⁴⁴ They will be able to make loans to you, but you won’t be able to make loans to them. They will be the head, and you will be the tail.

⁴⁵ All these curses will come to you. They will pursue you and stay close to you until you’re destroyed, because you didn’t obey Yahweh your Elohim or follow his commands and laws, which I’m giving you. ⁴⁶ These curses will be a sign and an amazing thing to warn you and your descendants forever. ⁴⁷ You didn’t serve Yahweh your Elohim with a joyful and happy heart when you had so much. ⁴⁸ So you will serve your enemies, whom Yahweh will send against you. You will serve them even though you are already hungry, thirsty, naked, and in need of everything. Yahweh will put a heavy burden of hard work on you until he destroys you.

⁴⁹ Yahweh will bring against you a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth. The nation will swoop down on you like an eagle. It will be a nation whose language you won’t understand. ⁵⁰ Its people will be fierce-looking. They will show no respect for the old and no pity for the young. ⁵¹ They’ll eat the offspring of your animals and the crops from your fields until you’re destroyed. They’ll leave you no grain, no new wine, no olive oil, no calves from your herds, and no lambs or kids from your flocks. They’ll continue to do this until they’ve completely ruined you. ⁵² They will blockade all your cities until the high, fortified walls in which you trust come down everywhere in your land. They’ll blockade all the cities everywhere in the land that Yahweh your Elohim is giving you.

⁵³ Because of the hardships your enemies will make you suffer during the blockade, you will eat the flesh of your own children, the sons and daughters, whom Yahweh your Elohim has given you. ⁵⁴ Even the most tender and sensitive man among you will become stingy toward his brother, the wife he loves, and the children he still has left. ⁵⁵ He will give none of them any of the flesh of his children that he is eating. It will be all that he has left, because of the hardships your enemies will make you suffer during the blockade of all your cities. ⁵⁶ The most tender and sensitive woman among you—so sensitive and tender that she wouldn’t even step on an ant—will become stingy toward the husband she loves or toward her own son or daughter. ⁵⁷ She won’t share with them the afterbirth from her body and the children she gives birth to. She will secretly eat them out of dire necessity, because of the hardships your enemies will make you suffer during the blockade of your cities.

⁵⁸ You might not faithfully obey every word of the teachings that are written in this book. You might not fear this glorious and awe-inspiring name: Yahweh your Elohim. ⁵⁹ If so, Yahweh will strike you and your descendants with unimaginable plagues. They will be terrible and continuing plagues and severe and lingering diseases. ⁶⁰ He will again bring all the diseases of Egypt that you dreaded, and they will cling to you. ⁶¹ Yahweh will also bring you every kind of sickness and plague not written in this Book of Teachings. They will continue until you’re dead. ⁶² At one time you were as numerous as the stars in the sky. But only a few of you will be left, because you didn’t obey Yahweh your Elohim. ⁶³ At one time Yahweh was more than glad to make you prosperous and numerous. Now Yahweh will be more than glad to destroy you and wipe you out. You will be torn out of the land you’re about to enter and take possession of.

⁶⁴ Then Yahweh will scatter you among all the people of the world, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve gods made of wood and stone that neither you nor your ancestors ever knew. ⁶⁵ Among those nations you will find no peace, no place to call your own. There Yahweh will give you an unsettled mind, failing eyesight, and despair. ⁶⁶ Your life will always be hanging by a thread. You will live in terror day and night. You will never feel sure of your life. ⁶⁷ In the morning you’ll say, “If only it were evening!” And in the evening you’ll say, “If only it were morning!” You’ll talk this way because of the things that will terrify you and because of the things you’ll see. ⁶⁸ Yahweh will bring you back to Egypt in ships^[h] on a journey that I said you would never take again. There you will try to sell yourselves as slaves to your enemies, but no one will buy you.

The Lord’s Word Will Accomplish Its Task

John Prepares the Way^(A)

3 Later, John the Baptizer appeared in the desert of Judea. His message was, ² “Turn to God and change the way you think and act, because the kingdom of heaven is near.” ³ Isaiah the prophet spoke about this man when he said,

⁴ John wore clothes made from camel’s hair and had a leather belt around his waist. His diet consisted of locusts and wild honey.

⁵ Jerusalem, all Judea, and the whole Jordan Valley went to him. ⁶ As they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River.

⁷ But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he said to them, “You poisonous snakes! Who showed you how to flee from God’s coming anger? ⁸ Do those things that prove you have turned to God and have changed the way you think and act. ⁹ Don’t think you can say, ‘Abraham is our ancestor.’ I can guarantee that God can raise up descendants for Abraham from these stones. ¹⁰ The ax is now ready to cut the roots of the trees. Any tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into a fire. ¹¹ I baptize you with water so that you will change the way you think and act. But the one who comes after me is more powerful than I. I am not worthy to remove his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing^[a] shovel is in his hand, and he will clean up his threshing floor.^[b] He will gather his wheat into a barn, but he will burn the husks in a fire that can never be put out.”

John Baptizes Jesus^(B)

¹³ Then Yeshua appeared. He came from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. ¹⁴ But John tried to stop him and said, “I need to be baptized by you. Why are you coming to me?”

¹⁵ Yeshua answered him, “This is the way it has to be now. This is the proper way to do everything that God requires of us.”

Then John gave in to him. ¹⁶ After Yeshua was baptized, he immediately came up from the water. Suddenly, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God coming down as a dove to him. ¹⁷ Then a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love—my Son with whom I am pleased.”