M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Solomon Builds the Temple

6 Solomon began to build the Temple four hundred eighty years after the people of Israel had left Egypt. This was during the fourth year of King Solomon’s rule over Israel. It was the second month, the month of Ziv.

² The Temple was ninety feet long, thirty feet wide, and forty-five feet high. ³ The porch in front of the main room of the Temple was fifteen feet deep and thirty feet wide. This room ran along the front of the Temple itself. Its width was equal to that of the Temple. ⁴ The Temple also had windows that opened and closed. ⁵ Solomon also built some side rooms against the walls of the main room and the inner room of the Temple. He built rooms all around. ⁶ The rooms on the bottom floor were seven and one-half feet wide. Those on the middle floor were nine feet wide, and the rooms above them were ten and one-half feet wide. The Temple wall that formed the side of each room was thinner than the wall in the room below. These rooms were pushed against the Temple wall, but they did not have their main beams built into this wall.

⁷ The stones were prepared at the same place where they were cut from the ground. Since these stones were the only ones used to build the Temple, there was no noise of hammers, axes, or any other iron tools at the Temple.

⁸ The entrance to the lower rooms beside the Temple was on the south side. From there, stairs went up to the second-floor rooms. And from there, stairs went on to the third-floor rooms. ⁹ Solomon put a roof made from beams and cedar boards on the Temple. So he finished building the Temple ¹⁰ as well as the bottom floor that was beside the Temple. This bottom floor was seven and one-half feet high and was attached to the Temple by cedar beams.

¹¹ The Lord said to Solomon: ¹² “If you obey all my laws and commands, I will do for you what I promised your father David. ¹³ I will live among the Israelites in this Temple, and I will never leave my people Israel.”

¹⁴ So Solomon finished building the Temple. ¹⁵ The inside walls were covered from floor to ceiling with cedar boards. The floor was made from pine boards. ¹⁶ A room thirty feet long was built in the back part of the Temple. This room, called the Most Holy Place, was separated from the rest of the Temple by cedar boards which reached from floor to ceiling. ¹⁷ The main room, the one in front of the Most Holy Place, was sixty feet long. ¹⁸ Everything inside the Temple was covered with cedar, which was carved with pictures of flowers and plants. A person could not see the stones of the wall, only the cedar.

¹⁹ Solomon prepared the inner room at the back of the Temple to keep the Ark of the Agreement with the Lord. ²⁰ This inner room was thirty feet long, thirty feet wide, and thirty feet high. He covered this room with pure gold, and he also covered the altar of cedar. ²¹ He covered the inside of the Temple with pure gold, placing gold chains across the front of the inner room, which was also covered with gold. ²² So all the inside of the Temple, as well as the altar of the Most Holy Place, was covered with gold.

²³ Solomon made two creatures from olive wood and placed them in the Most Holy Place. Each creature was fifteen feet tall ²⁴ and had two wings. Each wing was seven and one-half feet long, so it was fifteen feet from the end of one wing to the end of the other. ²⁵ The creatures were the same size and shape; ²⁶ each was fifteen feet tall. ²⁷ These creatures were put beside each other in the Most Holy Place with their wings spread out. One creature’s wing touched one wall, and the other creature’s wing touched the other wall with their wings touching each other in the middle of the room. ²⁸ These two creatures were covered with gold.

²⁹ All the walls around the Temple were carved with pictures of creatures with wings, as well as palm trees and flowers. This was true for both the main room and the inner room. ³⁰ The floors of both rooms were covered with gold.

³¹ Doors made from olive wood were placed at the entrance to the Most Holy Place. These doors had five-sided frames. ³² Creatures with wings, as well as palm trees and flowers, were also carved on the two olive wood doors that were covered with gold. The creatures and the palm trees on the doors were covered with gold as well. ³³ At the entrance to the main room there was a square door frame made of olive wood. ³⁴ Two doors were made from pine. Each door had two parts so the doors folded. ³⁵ The doors were covered with pictures of creatures with wings, as well as palm trees and flowers. All of the carvings were covered with gold, which was evenly spread over them.

³⁶ The inner courtyard was enclosed by walls, which were made of three rows of cut stones and one row of cedar boards.

³⁷ Work began on the Temple in Ziv, the second month, during the fourth year Solomon was king over Israel. ³⁸ The Temple was finished during the eleventh year he was king, in the eighth month, the month of Bul. It was built exactly as it was planned. Solomon had spent seven years building it.

Paul’s Work in Telling the Good News

3 So I, Paul, am a prisoner of Christ Jesus for you who are not Jews. ² Surely you have heard that God gave me this work to tell you about his grace. ³ He let me know his secret by showing it to me. I have already written a little about this. ⁴ If you read what I wrote then, you can see that I truly understand the secret about the Christ. ⁵ People who lived in other times were not told that secret. But now, through the Spirit, God has shown that secret to his holy apostles and prophets. ⁶ This is that secret: that through the Good News those who are not Jews will share with the Jews in God’s blessing. They belong to the same body, and they share together in the promise that God made in Christ Jesus.

⁷ By God’s special gift of grace given to me through his power, I became a servant to tell that Good News. ⁸ I am the least important of all God’s people, but God gave me this gift—to tell those who are not Jews the Good News about the riches of Christ, which are too great to understand fully. ⁹ And God gave me the work of telling all people about the plan for his secret, which has been hidden in him since the beginning of time. He is the One who created everything. ¹⁰ His purpose was that through the church all the rulers and powers in the heavenly world will now know God’s wisdom, which has so many forms. ¹¹ This agrees with the purpose God had since the beginning of time, and he carried out his plan through Christ Jesus our Lord. ¹² In Christ we can come before God with freedom and without fear. We can do this through faith in Christ. ¹³ So I ask you not to become discouraged because of the sufferings I am having for you. My sufferings are for your glory.

The Love of Christ

¹⁴ So I bow in prayer before the Father ¹⁵ from whom every family in heaven and on earth gets its true name. ¹⁶ I ask the Father in his great glory to give you the power to be strong inwardly through his Spirit. ¹⁷ I pray that Christ will live in your hearts by faith and that your life will be strong in love and be built on love. ¹⁸ And I pray that you and all God’s holy people will have the power to understand the greatness of Christ’s love—how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is. ¹⁹ Christ’s love is greater than anyone can ever know, but I pray that you will be able to know that love. Then you can be filled with the fullness of God.

²⁰ With God’s power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or imagine. ²¹ To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus for all time, forever and ever. Amen.

Israel to Come Home

36 “Human, prophesy to the mountains of Israel and say: ‘Mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord. ² This is what the Lord God says: The enemy has said about you, “Now the old places to worship gods have become ours.”’ ³ So prophesy and say: ‘This is what the Lord God says: They have made you an empty ruin and have crushed you from all around. So you became a possession of the other nations. People have talked and whispered against you. ⁴ So, mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord God. The Lord God speaks to the mountains, hills, ravines, and valleys, to the empty ruins and abandoned cities that have been robbed and laughed at by the other nations. ⁵ This is what the Lord God says: I speak in hot anger against the other nations. I speak against the people of Edom, who took my land for themselves with joy and with hate in their hearts. They forced out the people and took their pastureland.’ ⁶ So prophesy about the land of Israel and say to the mountains, hills, ravines, and valleys: ‘This is what the Lord God says: I speak in my jealous anger, because you have suffered the insults of the nations. ⁷ So this is what the Lord God says: I promise that the nations around you will also have to suffer insults.

⁸ “‘But you, mountains of Israel, will grow branches and fruit for my people, who will soon come home. ⁹ I am concerned about you; I am on your side. You will be plowed, and seed will be planted in you. ¹⁰ I will increase the number of people who live on you, all the people of Israel. The cities will have people living in them, and the ruins will be rebuilt. ¹¹ I will increase the number of people and animals living on you. They will grow and have many young. You will have people living on you as you did before, and I will make you better off than at the beginning. Then you will know that I am the Lord. ¹² I will cause my people Israel to walk on you and own you, and you will belong to them. You will never again take their children away from them.

¹³ “‘This is what the Lord God says: People say about you, “You eat people and take children from your nation.” ¹⁴ But you will not eat people anymore or take away the children, says the Lord God. ¹⁵ I will not make you listen to insults from the nations anymore; you will not suffer shame from them anymore. You will not cause your nation to fall anymore, says the Lord God.’”

The Lord Acts for Himself

¹⁶ The Lord spoke his word to me again, saying: ¹⁷ “Human, when the nation of Israel was living in their own land, they made it unclean by their ways and the things they did. Their ways were like a woman’s uncleanness in her time of monthly bleeding. ¹⁸ So I poured out my anger against them, because they murdered in the land and because they made the land unclean with their idols. ¹⁹ I scattered them among the nations, and they were spread through the countries. I punished them for how they lived and what they did. ²⁰ They dishonored my holy name in the nations where they went. The nations said about them, ‘These are the people of the Lord, but they had to leave the land which he gave them.’ ²¹ But I had concern for my holy name, which the nation of Israel had dishonored among the nations where they went.

²² “So say to the people of Israel, ‘This is what the Lord God says: Israel, I am going to act, but not for your sake. I will do something to help my holy name, which you have dishonored among the nations where you went. ²³ I will prove the holiness of my great name, which has been dishonored among the nations. You have dishonored it among these nations, but the nations will know that I am the Lord when I prove myself holy before their eyes, says the Lord God.

²⁴ “‘I will take you from the nations and gather you out of all the lands and bring you back into your own land. ²⁵ Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness and your idols. ²⁶ Also, I will teach you to respect me completely, and I will put a new way of thinking inside you. I will take out the stubborn hearts of stone from your bodies, and I will give you obedient hearts of flesh. ²⁷ I will put my Spirit inside you and help you live by my rules and carefully obey my laws. ²⁸ You will live in the land I gave to your ancestors, and you will be my people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ So I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will command the grain to come and grow; I will not allow a time of hunger to hurt you. ³⁰ I will increase the harvest of the field so you will never again suffer shame among the nations because of hunger. ³¹ Then you will remember your evil ways and actions that were not good, and you will hate yourselves because of your sins and your terrible acts that I hate. ³² I want you to know that I am not going to do this for your sake, says the Lord God. Be ashamed and embarrassed about your ways, Israel.

³³ “‘This is what the Lord God says: This is what will happen on the day I cleanse you from all your sins: I will cause the cities to have people living in them again, and the destroyed places will be rebuilt. ³⁴ The empty land will be plowed so it will no longer be a ruin for everyone who passes by to see. ³⁵ They will say, “This land was ruined, but now it has become like the garden of Eden. The cities were destroyed, empty, and ruined, but now they are protected and have people living in them.” ³⁶ Then those nations still around you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt what was destroyed and have planted what was empty. I, the Lord, have spoken, and I will do it.’

³⁷ “This is what the Lord God says: I will let myself be asked by the people of Israel to do this for them again: I will make their people grow in number like a flock. ³⁸ They will be as many as the flocks brought to Jerusalem during her holy feasts. Her ruined cities will be filled with flocks of people. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”

A Cry for Help

A prayer of David.