M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
7 So men came from Kiriath-Jearim to fetch the Lord's Covenant Box. They took it to Abinadab's house. His house was on a hill. They chose his son, Eleazar, to take care of the Lord's Covenant Box as his special job.
Samuel rules in Israel
2 The Covenant Box stayed at Kiriath-Jearim for a long time. It was there for 20 years. During this time, the Israelites were sad. They prayed for the Lord to help them again.
3 Then Samuel said to all the Israelite people, ‘If you truly want to turn back to the Lord, you must show that you mean it. You must remove all your foreign gods and the images of Ashtoreth.[a] You must give your lives completely to the Lord. You must worship only the Lord. If you do that, he will save you from the power of the Philistines.’
4 So the Israelites removed all their idols of the false gods called Baal and Ashtoreth. They only worshipped the Lord.
5 Then Samuel told all the Israelites, ‘Meet together at Mizpah. I will pray to the Lord for you there.’
6 So they all met together at Mizpah. They got water from a well and they poured it out for the Lord. They did not eat food that day. They prayed and they said, ‘We have done bad things against the Lord.’
Samuel became leader of the Israelite people at Mizpah.
7 The Philistines heard the news that the Israelites had met together at Mizpah. So the Philistine rulers led their people to attack the Israelites. When the Israelites heard about this, they became very afraid of the Philistines. 8 They said to Samuel, ‘Pray to the Lord our God. Do not stop. Ask him to help us. Ask him to save us from the Philistines.’ 9 So Samuel took a baby lamb. He gave it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Samuel asked the Lord to help the Israelites. The Lord answered his prayer in this way:
10 While Samuel was giving the burnt offerings to the Lord, the Philistines moved nearer to attack the Israelites. But the Lord caused a very loud noise of thunder to frighten the Philistines. They became very confused and they started to run away from the Israelites. 11 Then the Israelite men came out from Mizpah. They chased the Philistines as far as a place near Beth-Kar. They killed the Philistines as they chased them.
12 After that, Samuel took a stone. He fixed it in the ground between Mizpah and Shen. He called the stone Ebenezer.[b] He said, ‘The Lord has helped us all this way.’
13 That is how the Israelites won the fight against the Philistines. The Philistines did not attack Israel land again. All the time that Samuel was alive, the Lord stopped the Philistines from attacking Israel.
14 The Israelites took back the towns and the land that the Philistines had taken from them. These towns were between Ekron and Gath. Also, the Israelites and the Amorites did not fight against each other.
15 Samuel continued to be the leader of the Israelites while he was alive. 16 Every year, he travelled to Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpah. In all those towns he was a judge for the Israelite people. 17 But he always returned to his home at Ramah. He was a judge for the Israelite people there too. He built an altar in Ramah to worship the Lord there.
The Israelites ask for a king
8 When Samuel was old, he made his sons judges for the Israelites.[c] 2 The name of his firstborn son was Joel. The name of his second son was Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba town. 3 But Samuel's sons did not live in a good way, as Samuel had done. They took money from people in ways that were not honest. They accepted bribes so that they did not judge in a fair way.
4 So all of Israel's leaders went together to meet Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, ‘You are old. Your sons do not live in the way that you have done. All the other nations have kings to lead them. So choose a king to rule over us, like they have.’
6 When Israel's leaders said, ‘Choose a king who will lead us,’ Samuel was not happy. So he prayed to the Lord. 7 The Lord said to Samuel, ‘Listen to everything that the people are saying to you. I myself should be their king. So it is not you that they refuse to accept. It is me that they do not accept to be their king. 8 They are doing what they have always done. Since I brought them out of Egypt they have continued to turn away from me. They have chosen to serve other gods. Now they are turning against you in the same way. 9 So do what they are asking you to do. But warn them about what will happen. Tell them how their kings will rule over them.’
10 Samuel spoke to the people who had asked him to give them a king. He told them everything that the Lord had said to him. 11 Samuel said to them, ‘This is how the king will rule over you: He will take your sons to be his soldiers. They will ride his horses and they will drive his chariots. They will have to run in front of his own chariot. 12 The king will choose some of your sons to be officers in his army. Some will be leaders of 1,000 soldiers. Others will be leaders of 50 soldiers. Some of your sons will have to plough the king's fields. They will have to cut his crops at harvest time. They will have to make weapons for the king to fight wars. They will have to fix his chariots. 13 The king will take your daughters to serve him. They will have to make perfume for him. They will also have to cook and bake bread for him. 14 The king will take your best fields, vines and olive trees away from you. He will give all these to his own officers. 15 He will take a tenth part of all your seeds and grapes. He will give them to his officers and servants. 16 He will take your male and female servants for himself. He will take your best cows and your donkeys. He will use them for his own work. 17 He will take a tenth of all your sheep and your goats. You yourselves will become his servants too. 18 Then you will complain loudly to the Lord about your king that you have chosen to lead you. But the Lord will not answer you when you do that.’
19 But the people would not listen to Samuel. They said, ‘No! We want a king to rule us. 20 We want to be like all the other nations! We want a king to rule us. He will be our leader when we go to fight our enemies.’
21 Samuel listened to everything that the people said. Then he told the Lord about it all. 22 The Lord said to Samuel, ‘You must do what they want. You must give a king to them.’
Then Samuel told Israel's people, ‘Return to your own towns, each of you.’
Sin does not rule us any longer
6 Someone might say, ‘Perhaps we should continue to do wrong things. Then God can be kind to us in more and more ways.’ 2 No! Certainly we should not do that! Sin does not rule our lives any longer. That old life is dead! So it is not right that we should continue to do wrong things. 3 Remember what your baptism shows: When they baptized you, it shows that you are united with Christ Jesus. It also shows that, because Christ died, your old life also died.[a] 4 Your baptism shows that they buried you, just like they buried Christ after his death. It is like you died with him and they buried you with him. Because of that, God will also raise us, just as he raised Christ from death. God, the Father, is so great and powerful that he raised Christ to a new life. That means that we also can live our lives in a new way.
5 We have become united with Christ, and we have died like he died. Because of that, we will also be united with him in his new life. Just like Christ rose, we also will rise to a new life. 6 We know that God has caused our old nature to die with Christ on the cross. This happened so that God could make us free from the power of sin in our lives. We are no longer like slaves who have sin as their master. 7 Sin no longer has any authority over someone who has died.
8 So, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 God raised Christ, so that he became alive again after his death. Because of that, we know that he will never die again. Death has no authority over him any more. 10 When Christ died, he died once to destroy the power of sin for ever. Now that he is alive again, he lives to serve God. 11 So you also should think about yourselves in the same way. Sin has no power over you, as if you were dead. In your new life, you live to serve God, because you belong to Christ Jesus.
12 So do not let sin rule your life in this world. Do not do the wrong things that your body wants to do. 13 Sin can use your body to do things that are wrong. So do not let any parts of your body serve sin as their master. Instead, be ready to serve God as your Master. You can do that because you now have a new life. Your old life is dead. So give every part of your body to God. Then he will use you to do right things. 14 Sin will no longer have authority over you. You do not have a new life because you obey the Law which God gave to Moses. You have a new life because God is very kind to you.
Be careful to do what is right
15 Someone might say: ‘So we have a new life because God is kind to us. God's Law that he gave to Moses does not rule us any more. Then maybe we should continue to do wrong things. It will not make any difference.’ No, that is not true! 16 Remember this: When you agree to serve someone as a slave, you have to obey that person as your master. You may choose to serve sin as your master. If you do that, you will die.[b] Or you may choose to obey God. If you do that, you will live in a way that is right. 17 At one time, you were slaves to sin. But then you received God's true message, and you were happy to obey it. I thank God because of that! 18 As a result, God has made you free from the power of sin. You are now like slaves who serve everything that is right and good.
19 It is difficult for you to understand these things, because you are still weak. So I am using a human picture of slaves to help you to understand better. At one time, you agreed to serve bad things as your master. You let your body do wrong and disgusting things. You continued to do more and more bad things. So now, you must use your body to serve what is right and good. Then you will do more and more good things which show that you belong to God.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you did not even have to think about what was right and good. 21 You did things that you are ashamed about now. Nothing good came from them. In the end, the result of those things is death. 22 But now God has made you free from the power of sin. You have become God's slaves. Many good things come from that, because God is helping you to live in a good way. In the end, the result will be that you will live with him for ever.
23 If you serve sin as your master, it will pay you with death. But if you belong to our Lord Jesus Christ, God gives you a gift! That gift is life with God for ever.
God will punish the people of Judah
44 The Lord spoke to Jeremiah about the people of Judah who were now living in Egypt. They were living in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Memphis and places in the south part of Egypt. 2 This was the Lord's message to them:
‘The Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says, “You saw the great trouble that I sent to the people of Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah. Their towns have become heaps of stones and nobody lives in them. 3 That happened because of the wicked things that the people did in those places. They offered sacrifices to other gods. They worshipped gods that they never knew before. You and your ancestors did not know those gods either. That made me very angry. 4 Many times I sent my servants the prophets to speak to them. They warned them, ‘Do not do this disgusting thing that the Lord hates!’ 5 But the people there did not listen to my message. They refused to obey me. They did not stop doing wicked things. They did not stop offering sacrifices to other gods. 6 So I became very angry with the people of Judah and Jerusalem. I sent them terrible trouble, like a fire that burned their towns and their streets. That is why their towns have become heaps of stones, as they still are today.”
7 Now the Lord God Almighty, Israel's God, says, “You are causing more trouble for yourselves. Why are you doing that? All the men, women, children and babies will disappear from Judah. None of your people will remain alive. 8 You continue to make me angry because of the things that you are doing. You are offering sacrifices to the gods of Egypt, where you now live. As a result, you will destroy yourselves. The people of all the other nations will use your name as a curse. They will all laugh at you. 9 Do not forget about all the wicked things that your ancestors did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. I punished them, as well as their kings and their kings' wives. And I punished you and your wives too. 10 Even now your people are still proud. They have not respected my authority. They have not obeyed the laws and commands that I gave to you and to your ancestors.”
11 So the Lord Almighty, Israel's God, says, “Listen to me! I will certainly cause you to have great trouble. I will destroy all Judah's people. 12 I will remove the people who remained in Judah and who decided to come here to live in Egypt. They will all die here. War or famine will kill them. All of them will die here in Egypt, important people and ordinary people. Other people will think that they are disgusting. They will insult them. They will use their name as a curse, because God has cursed them. 13 I will punish the people who have come to live in Egypt. War, famine or disease will kill them, in the way that I punished the people of Jerusalem. 14 None of the people who remained in Judah and who came to live here in Egypt will escape. They will not remain alive to return to Judah. They may want very much to return, but only a few will be able to run away and go home.” ’
15 A large crowd of Judah's people listened to Jeremiah. They came from the places where they now lived in the north and the south of Egypt. Some men were there who knew that their wives were offering sacrifices to other gods. Those men and their wives said to Jeremiah, 16 ‘We do not believe that your message really comes from the Lord. 17 So we will continue to do what we have promised to do. We will make sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven. We will pour out drink offerings to her.[a] That is what our ancestors, our kings and our leaders did when we lived in Jerusalem and in the other towns of Judah. When we did that, we had plenty of food to eat. We enjoyed a good life and we had no troubles. 18 But since we stopped offering sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven, we have not had those good things. War and famine have been killing our people.’
19 The women said, ‘It is true that we offered sacrifices and drink offerings to the Queen of Heaven. We also made cakes that were like her image. But our husbands knew what we were doing and they helped us.’
20 Then Jeremiah said this to all those men and women who had answered him:
21 ‘The Lord saw everything that you were doing. You must surely realize that! He knew about the things that you, your ancestors, your kings, your leaders and all the people were doing. He remembered all the sacrifices that you offered to other gods in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. 22 Finally, he had to punish you for the wicked and disgusting things that you were doing. Because of that, your land has become an empty place, like a desert. Its towns are heaps of stones where nobody lives. People use its name as a curse. 23 That happened because you have offered sacrifices to other gods. You have done many sins against the Lord. You have refused to obey him. You have not obeyed his laws, his teaching or his commands. That is why all this trouble has happened to you now.’
24 Then Jeremiah said this to all the people, including the women:
‘Listen to the Lord's message, all you people of Judah who are now living in Egypt. 25 The Lord God Almighty, Israel's God, says, “You and your wives have certainly done the things that you said you would do. You said, ‘We will continue to do what we have promised to do. We will make sacrifices to the Queen of Heaven. We will pour out drink offerings to her.’ So do all those things that you promised to do!”
26 But listen to the Lord's message to all you people of Judah who are living in Egypt. The Lord says, “I now promise this to you, with the authority of my own name. None of you who live in Egypt will ever use my name again when you make a promise. You will not say, ‘I promise you I will do this, as surely as the Lord God lives.’ 27 Listen to me! I will choose to hurt you and not to help you. War or famine will kill all the people of Judah who are living in Egypt. None of them will remain alive. 28 But a few of them will escape death and return to Judah from Egypt. They will be very few people. Then all the people of Judah who came to live in Egypt will know who speaks the truth. Do I speak the truth, or do they speak the truth? I do!”
29 The Lord also says, “I will show you that I will surely punish you in this place. I will tell you something that will soon happen. Then you will know that my promise to punish you will certainly become true. 30 I tell you now that I will put Hophra, king of Egypt, under the power of his enemies, who want to kill him. That is the same thing that I did to King Zedekiah of Judah. I put him under the power of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who wanted to kill him.” ’
This is a song that David wrote for the music leader.
We trust God to help us[a]
20 May the Lord answer you
when you are in trouble and you call to him for help.
May Israel's great God keep you safe.
2 He will send help to you from his holy place,
from his temple in Zion.
3 He will remember the gifts that you have offered to him.
He will accept your burnt offerings
Selah
4 May God give to you
all the things that you really want.
He will help you to do everything that you want to do.
5 Then we will be happy and we will shout aloud
when you win against your enemies.
We will wave our flags to praise our God.
Yes, I pray that the Lord will do for you
everything that you ask him to do.
6 Now I know that the Lord will save
the king that he has chosen.
God will agree to help him from his holy place in heaven.
God will use his great power to make his king safe.
7 Some people hope that their chariots will keep them safe.
Other people trust their horses to save them.
But we will trust in the name of the Lord our God.
8 Those people will fall down,
and they will not get up again.
But we will get up and stand again,
and we will be strong.
9 Lord, help the king to win against his enemies!
Please answer us when we ask you for help.
This is a song that David wrote for the music leader.
We thank God for his help[b]
21 Lord, the king is happy,
because you help him with your great strength.
You have helped him to win against his enemies,
so he is very happy.[c]
2 You have given to him all the things
that he really wanted.
When he asked for them,
you have not refused to give them to him.
Selah.
3 You came to him,
and you blessed him with many good things:
You put a crown on his head.
It was made from the best gold.
4 He asked you to keep his life safe,
and you gave to him a long life.
His descendants will continue for ever.
5 People praise him,
because you have helped him to win against his enemies.
You have caused him to rule as a great king.
6 You will continue to bless him for ever.
Because you are very near to him,
he is very happy.
7 The king trusts in the Lord.
Because of the Most High God's faithful love,
the king will never fail.
8 You will use your strong power
to take hold of your enemies.[d]
You will catch everybody that hates you.
9 When you come out to fight against them,
you will destroy them like a hot fire.
The Lord destroys them,
because you are angry with them.
10 You will remove your enemies' children from the earth.
They will no longer have any descendants.
11 They decided to hurt you.
They thought how they would do that.
But they could not do anything bad against you.
12 No! You shoot your arrows at them,
so that they turn round and they run away!
13 Get up, Lord, and show your strength!
We will sing to praise you
because you have great power.
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