M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Solomon Builds the Temple

6 So Solomon began to build the Temple. This was 480 years after the people of Israel had left Egypt. (This was the fourth year of King Solomon’s rule over Israel.) It was the second month, the month of Ziv.

² The Temple was 90 feet long and 30 feet wide. It was 45 feet high. ³ The porch in front of the main room of the Temple was 15 feet deep and 30 feet wide. The room ran along the front of the Temple itself. Its width was equal to the width of the Temple. ⁴ There were narrow windows in the Temple. These windows were narrow on the outside and larger on the inside. ⁵ Then Solomon built some side rooms against the walls of the main room of the Temple. These rooms were built on top of each other. ⁶ The rooms on the bottom floor were 7½ feet wide. The rooms on the middle floor were 9 feet wide. The rooms above that were 10½ feet wide. The Temple wall which made the side of each room was thinner than the wall in the room below. The rooms were pushed against the wall but did not have their main beams built into the wall.

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

⁸ The entrance to the bottom rooms built beside the Temple was on the south side. From there, stairs went up to the second floor rooms. And from there, they 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 He also finished building the bottom floor that was beside the Temple. It was 7½ feet high. It was attached to the Temple by cedar beams.

¹¹ The Lord spoke his word to Solomon: ¹² “Obey all my laws and commands. If you do, I will do for you what I promised your father David. ¹³ And I will live among the children of Israel in this Temple you are building. I will never leave the people of 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 30 feet long was built in the back part of the Temple. It was divided from the rest of the Temple by cedar boards reaching from floor to ceiling. It was called the Most Holy Place. ¹⁷ The main room, the room in front of the Most Holy Place, was 60 feet long. ¹⁸ Inside the Temple was cedar. It was carved with pictures of flowers and plants. Everything inside was covered with cedar. So a person could not see the stones of the wall.

¹⁹ He prepared the inner room at the back of the Temple to keep the Ark of the Covenant with the Lord. ²⁰ This inner room was 30 feet long, 30 feet wide and 30 feet high. Solomon covered this room with pure gold. He built an altar of cedar and covered it also. ²¹ He covered the inside of the Temple with pure gold. And he placed gold chains across the front of the inner room. It was covered with gold. ²² So all the inside of the Temple was covered with gold. Also the altar in the Most Holy Place was covered with gold.

²³ Solomon made two creatures with wings from olive wood. Each creature was 15 feet tall. They were put in the Most Holy Place. ²⁴ Each creature had two wings. Each wing was 7½ feet long. So it was 15 feet from the end of one wing to the end of the other wing. ²⁵ The creatures were the same size and shape. ²⁶ And each was 15 feet tall. ²⁷ These creatures were put beside each other in the Most Holy Place. Their wings were spread out. So one creature’s wing touched one wall. The other creature’s wing touched the other wall. And their wings touched each other in the middle of the room. ²⁸ The two creatures were covered with gold.

²⁹ All the walls around the Temple were carved. They were carved with pictures of creatures with wings, 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 put at the entrance to the Most Holy Place. The doors were made to fit into an area with five sides. ³² Creatures with wings, palm trees and flowers were carved on the two olive wood doors. Then the doors were covered with gold. And the creatures and the palm trees were covered with gold. ³³ At the entrance to the main room there was a door frame. It was square and was made of olive wood. ³⁴ Two doors were made from pine. Each door had two parts so that the doors folded. ³⁵ The doors were covered with pictures of creatures with wings, palm trees and flowers. And all of the carvings were covered with gold. The gold was smoothed over the carvings.

³⁶ The inner courtyard was built and enclosed with walls. The walls 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. This was during the fourth year Solomon ruled over Israel. ³⁸ The Temple was finished during the eleventh year Solomon ruled. It was finished in the eighth month, the month of Bul. It was finished exactly as it was planned. Solomon had worked seven years to build the Temple.

Paul’s Work for the Non-Jews

3 So I, Paul, am a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am a prisoner for you who are not Jews. ² Surely you know that God gave me this work to tell you about his grace. ³ God let me know his secret plan. He showed it to me. I have already written a little about this. ⁴ And if you read what I wrote, then you can see that I truly understand the secret truth about the Christ. ⁵ People who lived in other times were not told that secret truth. But now, through the Spirit, God has shown that secret truth to his holy apostles and prophets. ⁶ This is that secret truth: that the non-Jews will receive what God has for his people, just as the Jews will. The non-Jews are together with the Jews as part of the same body. And they share together in the promise that God made in Christ Jesus. The non-Jews have all of this because of the Good News.

⁷ By God’s special gift of grace, I became a servant to tell that Good News. God gave me that grace through his power. ⁸ I am the least important of all God’s people. But God gave me this gift—to tell the non-Jewish people the Good News about the riches of Christ. Those riches are too great to understand fully. ⁹ And God gave me the work of telling all people about the plan for God’s secret truth. That secret truth has been hidden in God since the beginning of time. God 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 God 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 bring honor to you.

The Love of Christ

¹⁴ So I bow in prayer before the Father. ¹⁵ Every family in heaven and on earth gets its true name from him. ¹⁶ I ask the Father in his great glory to give you the power to be strong in spirit. He will give you that strength through his Spirit. ¹⁷ I pray that Christ will live in your hearts because of your faith. I pray 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. I pray that you can understand how wide and how long and how high and how deep that love is. ¹⁹ Christ’s love is greater than any person 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 think of. 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 being, 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 this against you: “Now the old places to worship false gods have become ours.”’ ³ So prophesy and say: ‘This is what the Lord God says: They have made you an empty ruin. They have crushed you from all around. You belonged to the other nations. People 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. And he speaks 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 have spoken in hot anger against the other nations. I have spoken against Edom. The Edomites took my land for themselves. They did this 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. Say to the mountains, hills, ravines and valleys: ‘This is what the Lord God says: I speak in my jealous anger. This is 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, you will grow branches and fruit for my people. My people will soon come home. ⁹ I am concerned about you. I am for you. You will be plowed, and seed will be planted in you. ¹⁰ I will multiply the people who live on you. All the people of Israel will come. The cities will have people living in them. The ruins will be rebuilt. ¹¹ I will make the people and animals living on you increase in number. They will grow and be fruitful. You will have people living on you as you did before. 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. Then they will take 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 You will not destroy people anymore. You will not make your nation stumble anymore, 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, says the Lord God.’”

The Lord Acts for Himself

¹⁶ The Lord spoke his word to me again. He said: ¹⁷ “Human being, the nation of Israel was living in their own land. But 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. I did it because of the murders they did in the land. And I did it because they made the land unclean with their idols. ¹⁹ I scattered them among the nations. And they were spread through all the countries. I punished them for how they lived and the things 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 felt bad about my holy name. The nation of Israel had dishonored it 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. Israel, I will do something to help my holy name. You have dishonored it among the nations where you went. ²³ I will prove the holiness of my great name. It has been dishonored among the nations. You have dishonored it among these nations. But the nations will know that I am the Lord. I will prove myself holy before their eyes, says the Lord God.

²⁴ “‘I will take you from the nations. I will gather you out of all the lands. And I will 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. I will put a new way to think inside you. I will take out the stubborn heart like stone from your bodies. And I will give you an obedient heart of flesh. ²⁷ I will put my Spirit inside you. And I will help you live by my rules. You will be careful to obey my laws. ²⁸ Then you will live in the land I gave to your ancestors. So you will be my people, and I will be your God. ²⁹ Also, 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 multiply the harvest of the field. You will never again suffer shame among the nations because of hunger. ³¹ And you will remember your evil ways and the things you did that were not good. Then you will hate yourselves because of your sins and terrible acts that I hate. ³² I want you to know that I am not doing 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. It will no longer be a ruin for everyone who passes by to see. ³⁵ They will say: “This land was ruined. Now it has become like the garden of Eden. The cities were destroyed. They were empty and ruined. But now they are protected and have people living in them.” ³⁶ Then those nations still around you will know. They will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt what was destroyed. And I 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 again be asked by the people of Israel to do this thing for them. I will make their people grow to be as many as a flock of sheep. ³⁸ They will be like 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.