M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The deep water goes away
8 Then God thought of Noah, and all the wild animals and the farm animals that were with him in the ship. He caused a wind to blow over the earth. As a result, the water began to go down. 2 Streams of water stopped coming up from below the earth. Rain stopped coming down from the sky. 3 The deep water continued to go down for 150 days. 4 On the 17th day of the seventh month, the ship stopped on the ground. It was sitting on the top of Ararat mountains. 5 The water continued to go down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of the mountains appeared above the water.
6 After 40 more days, Noah opened a window in the ship. 7 He sent a raven to fly away. The raven flew away from the ship and then it returned. It continued to do this until the earth was dry.
8 Then Noah sent out a dove. He wanted to see if the water had gone away from the top of the ground. 9 But the dove could not find anywhere to stand. Water still covered all the ground. So it returned to Noah in the ship. Noah put out his hand and took the dove back into the ship. 10 He waited for seven days. Then he sent the dove out of the ship again. 11 The dove returned to Noah in the evening. It carried a fresh leaf from an olive tree in its mouth. Then Noah knew that the water had gone down. 12 He waited for seven more days. Then he sent the dove out again. This time, it did not return to Noah.[a]
13 Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the first month, the water that had covered the earth was now gone. The ground had become dry. Noah made a hole in the roof of the ship and he looked around. He saw that the top of the ground was dry. 14 By the 27th day of the second month, the earth had become completely dry.
15 God said to Noah, 16 ‘Come out of the ship. Bring your wife, your sons and their wives with you. 17 Bring every different kind of living animal out of the ship. Bring out the birds, the animals, and the living things that move across the ground. Now they may give birth to young ones again. They can grow in number all over the earth.’
18 Noah went out of the ship, together with his wife, his sons and their wives. 19 All the living animals also went out of the ship. The birds and the living things that move across the ground all went out. Every different kind of animal came out of the ship, each of them in its own group.
God makes a promise to Noah
20 Then Noah built an altar to make sacrifices to the Lord. He took one from each kind of clean animal and clean bird. He offered them to the Lord as sacrifices which he burned on the altar.[b]
21 The Lord smelled the sacrifice and it made him happy. The Lord said to himself, ‘I will never curse the ground again because of the bad things that people do. From the time that they are children, they want to do bad things. But I will never again destroy everything that breathes, as I have done this time.
22 As long as the earth continues to be here,
the time for people to plant seeds will come each year.
The time for harvest will come each year.
Times of cold and heat will always come.
Summer and winter will always come.
Day and night will never stop.’[c]
A man who had a disease of the skin comes to meet Jesus
8 Jesus came down from the hill and a large crowd followed him. 2 A man with a bad disease of the skin came to meet him. He went down on his knees in front of Jesus and he said, ‘Sir, if you want, you can make me well again. Please do it.’
3 Jesus put out his hand towards him and he touched him. ‘I do want to help you. Be clean again,’ Jesus said. Immediately, the man's skin was clean again. 4 Jesus said to the man, ‘Listen. You must not tell anyone about this. Instead, go and show yourself to the priest. Take a gift to him for God. Moses taught the people what gift to take to God after this kind of disease. This will show everyone that you are now well again.’
An officer in the army believes that Jesus can help him
5 Jesus went into Capernaum. An officer in the Roman army came to meet him. He asked Jesus to help him.[a] 6 ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘My servant is lying in bed at home. He cannot move his legs and he has a lot of pain.’
7 Jesus said to the officer, ‘I will go with you to your house and I will make your servant well again.’
8 But the officer answered, ‘Sir, I am not good enough for you to come into my house. Instead, just say that my servant will get better. I know that he will then be well again. 9 In my work, someone has authority over me. I also have authority over other soldiers. I say to one soldier, “Go!” and he goes. I say to another one, “Come!” and he comes. I say to my servant, “Do this!” and he does it.’
10 Jesus heard what the officer said. He was very surprised. He spoke to the crowd that was following him. ‘I tell you this: I have never found anyone like this man in all of Israel. Nobody else believes in me as well as he does. 11 I tell you, many people will come from all over the world to take their place in the kingdom of heaven. There they will sit down to eat with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. 12 But other people who think that God's kingdom belongs to them will not be there. God's angels will throw them into the dark places that are far away from God. There those people will weep very much. They will bite their teeth together.’[b]
13 Then Jesus said to the officer, ‘Go home. You believed that I would make your servant well again. So I will do it for you.’ At that moment, the servant did become well again.
Jesus makes many people well
14 Jesus went into Peter's house. There, he saw the mother of Peter's wife. She was lying in bed. She was ill and her body was very hot. 15 Jesus touched her hand and immediately she was well again. So she got up and she prepared food for Jesus.
16 That evening, people brought to Jesus many people who were ill. Many of them had bad spirits in them. Jesus spoke a word so that the bad spirits left them. He made everybody who was ill well again. 17 Jesus did this so that the words of the prophet Isaiah would become true:
‘He took away everything that makes us weak.
He carried away everything that makes us ill.’
18 One day, Jesus saw a large crowd of people around him. So he told his disciples, ‘We should go across the lake to the other side.’ 19 A teacher of God's Law came to Jesus and said to him, ‘Teacher, I will go with you everywhere that you go.’ 20 Jesus replied, ‘Wild animals and birds have their own places to live. But I, the Son of Man, have no place of my own to lie down and rest.’
21 Another man who was one of Jesus' disciples said to him, ‘Sir, I want to come with you. But first, let me go home and bury my father. Then I will come with you.’ 22 Jesus said to him, ‘No! You must come with me now. Let those people who are dead themselves bury their own dead people.’[c]
Jesus stops a storm
23 Then Jesus got into a boat. His disciples also went with him. 24 Immediately a great storm began to blow across the lake. Water began to go into the boat and fill it. Jesus was sleeping. 25 The disciples went to him and they woke him. ‘Master, save us!’ they said. ‘We will die here in the water!’ 26 Jesus said to them, ‘You should not be so afraid. You should trust me more than you do!’ Then he stood up and he spoke strongly to the wind and the water. ‘Stop!’ he said. Then the wind and the water became quiet again.
27 The disciples were very surprised. They asked each other, ‘What kind of man is this? Even the wind and the water obey him!’
Jesus makes two men well again
28 Jesus arrived at the other side of Lake Galilee. He came to a place where the Gadarene people lived.[d] Two men who had bad spirits in them came to meet him. These men lived outside, among some graves. They were very strong and dangerous. People were too afraid to walk that way because of them. 29 When the two men saw Jesus, they immediately shouted at him, ‘You are the Son of God! What are you doing here? Have you come to punish us before the right time comes?’[e]
30 A large group of pigs was eating there, not very far away. 31 The bad spirits said to Jesus, ‘If you make us leave these men, please send us to those pigs. Let us go into them.’ 32 Jesus said to the bad spirits, ‘Go!’ So the bad spirits came out of the men and they went into the pigs. All the pigs rushed together down the hill into the lake. They all died there in the water. 33 When this happened, the men who took care of the pigs ran away. They went into the town. They told people there everything that had happened to the men with the bad spirits in them. 34 So everybody came out of the town to meet Jesus. When they saw him, they said, ‘Please go away. Leave our part of the country.’
The family leaders who returned with Ezra
8 We came from Babylon during the time that Artaxerxes was king. These are the leaders of clans who came with me, and the names of their families:
2 Gershom, from Phinehas's clan.
Daniel, from Ithamar's clan.
3 Shecaniah's son, Hattush, from David's clan.
Zechariah and 150 other men, from Parosh's clan.
4 Zerahiah's son, Eliehoenai, and 200 other men, from Pahath-Moab's clan.
5 Jahaziel's son, Shecaniah, and 300 other men, from Zattu's clan.
6 Jonathan's son, Ebed, and 50 other men, from Adin's clan.
7 Athaliah's son, Jeshaiah, and 70 other men, from Elam's clan.
8 Michael's son, Zebadiah, and 80 other men, from Shephatiah's clan.
9 Jehiel's son, Obadiah, and 218 other men, from Joab's clan.
10 Josiphiah's son, Shelomith, and 160 other men, from Bani's clan.
11 Bebai's son, Zechariah, and 28 other men, from Bebai's clan.
12 Hakkatan's son, Johanan, and 110 other men, from Azgad's clan.
13 Eliphelet, Jeuel, Shemaiah, and 60 other men, from Adonikam's clan. They came later.
14 Uthai, Zaccur, and 70 other men, from Bigvai's clan.
The journey to Jerusalem
15 I told all the people to come together at the river that runs towards Ahava. We stayed there for three days. I saw that there were Jewish people and priests, but I did not see any Levites. 16 So I asked them to send some of their leaders: Eliezer, Ariel, Shemaiah, Elnathan, Jarib, Elnathan, Nathan, Zechariah and Meshullam. I also asked for Joiarib and Elnathan, who were wise teachers. 17 I sent them all to Iddo, the leader in Casiphia. Iddo and his family were servants in the temple who were living in Casiphia. I told them what to say to Iddo. I wanted them to bring people who would serve God in his house.
18 God was kind to us and he helped us. So they brought Sherebiah to us. He was a worker who had special skills to make things. He was a descendant of Israel's son Levi. He belonged to the clan of Levi's son, Mahli. Sherebiah came with his sons and brothers. Together they were 18 men. 19 Hashabiah and Jeshaiah also came. They belonged to the clan of Levi's son, Merari. 20 men from their family came with them. 20 220 temple servants also came. King David had first chosen this group to help the Levites with their work. We made a list of all their names.
21 We were all waiting by the Ahava river. I told the people not to eat any food, so that we could pray to God for help. We asked him to keep us safe on the journey, with our children and all our things. 22 I was ashamed to ask the king to send his soldiers with us to keep us safe. He could have sent soldiers who rode on horses with us, or other soldiers. But we had said to the king, ‘Our God helps people who trust him and he keeps them safe. But he is very angry with people who turn away from him and he punishes them.’
23 So we ate no food and we prayed to our God about this. He answered our prayers.
24 I chose 12 of the most important priests to do an important job, as well as Sherebiah, Hashabiah and ten of their brothers. 25 I told them to take care of the valuable things that we had received for the temple of our God. These were silver and gold things and other special things that the king, his helpers and his officers had given to us. Israelite people who were living in Babylonia had also given us valuable things for the temple. I weighed all these things. 26 I weighed 20,000 kilograms of silver and 3,500 kilograms of things made from silver. I weighed 3,500 kilograms of gold 27 and 20 gold bowls that weighed 8.5 kilograms. I also gave to them two beautiful bowls made from bronze. They shone brightly and they were as valuable as gold.
28 I said to the men, ‘Like these special things, you people are also special. You all belong to the Lord. People have chosen to give the silver and gold to the Lord, the God that your ancestors served. 29 So you must be careful to keep them safe until you reach Jerusalem. When you get there, you must weigh them again. Do that in front of the leaders of the priests, the Levites and the leaders of Israelite families. Then they should store them in the rooms of the temple.’
30 Then they gave the silver, the gold and the other valuable things to the priests and the Levites. They would take them to the temple of our God in Jerusalem.
31 We began our journey from the Ahava river on the 12th day of the first month. We left there to go to Jerusalem. Our God kept us safe on the journey. No enemies attacked us and nobody robbed us on the way. 32 So we arrived safely in Jerusalem. We rested there for three days.
33 On the fourth day, we went to the house of our God. Then we weighed the silver, the gold and the other valuable things there. We gave them to Meremoth, the son of Uriah the priest. Phinehas's son, Eleazar was with him. Jeshua's son, Jozabad, and Binnui's son, Noadiah, were also there. They were Levites. 34 They weighed and counted everything carefully. They wrote everything in a list as they weighed it.
35 All the people who had returned from Babylon made burnt offerings as sacrifices to Israel's God. They offered to the Lord 12 bulls on behalf of all Israel. They also offered 96 male sheep and 77 lambs. They killed 12 male goats as a sin offering. They gave all these to the Lord as burnt offerings. 36 They also gave the king's letter with its commands to his officers and rulers in the region west of the Euphrates river. The king's officers helped the Israelite people and the work of God's temple.
8 Saul was standing there while the Jewish leaders killed Stephen. He agreed with what they did.
Saul puts many believers in prison
On the same day that Stephen died, the group of believers who lived in Jerusalem began to have great trouble. People did bad things to them. All the believers left Jerusalem and went to other places in Judea and Samaria. Only Jesus' 12 apostles stayed in Jerusalem.
2 Some good men who loved God buried Stephen's dead body. They were very sad and they cried with loud voices. 3 But Saul brought great trouble to the believers. He wanted to destroy their whole group. So he went to all their houses. He took hold of the believers and he put them into prison. He did that to both men and women.
People in Samaria hear God's good news
4 The believers who had left Jerusalem went to many different towns. In each place, they told the people the message about Jesus. 5 One of them who was called Philip went to a city in Samaria. There he told the people the message about Jesus Christ, God's Messiah.
6 Crowds of people came together to hear Philip speak. They saw him do many miracles which showed that God was with him. So they listened carefully to his message.[a] 7 Many people there had bad spirits, which were living in them. Philip sent the bad spirits out of those people. As the spirits came out, they shouted loudly. Some other people had weak arms or legs, and some people could not walk well. Philip caused many of them to become well again. 8 As a result, the people in that city were very happy.
9 A man called Simon lived in that city. For a long time, he had used magic to do great things. All the people who lived in Samaria were very surprised at what he did. Simon told everyone that he was a very important person. 10 All the people in the city watched Simon carefully. This included the people who were important and all the other people too. Everyone said, ‘This man has great power that comes from God.’ 11 Simon had used his magic for a long time and he had surprised them all very much. Because of that, they listened to him carefully. 12 But then Philip told them the good news about the kingdom of God. He told them the message about God's Messiah, Jesus. Many men and women believed Philip's message, so he baptized them. 13 Simon also believed and Philip baptized him too. After this, Simon stayed near to Philip. He was very surprised at the powerful miracles which Philip did.
14 The apostles who were in Jerusalem heard about all this. They heard that many people in Samaria had believed God's word. So they sent Peter and John to Samaria. 15 When these two apostles arrived in Samaria, they prayed for the people who now believed in Jesus. They asked God to give the new believers the Holy Spirit. 16 The Holy Spirit had not yet come to any of these people. When Philip had baptized them, he had just used the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 So Peter and John put their hands on the head of each believer, and they each received the Holy Spirit.
18 Simon saw that God gave the Holy Spirit to people when the apostles put their hands on them. So he said to Peter and John, ‘Here is some money for you. 19 Please give me this same power. I want to put my hands on other people, so that they will receive the Holy Spirit.’
20 Peter answered Simon, ‘I pray that God will destroy you and your money! You think that you can buy this gift with your money! It is very wrong for you to think that. It is God who gives that gift. 21 You cannot do the work which we are doing. God knows that you are not thinking the right things. 22 You must turn away from those very bad thoughts. Turn to the Lord and pray that he will forgive you. Then perhaps he will forgive you for these bad thoughts. 23 You are very upset because you are jealous. I can see that sin rules your life.’
24 Then Simon said to Peter and John, ‘Please, pray to the Lord God for me. Then none of these bad things that you have spoken about will happen to me.’
25 Peter and John told the people about the Lord Jesus and they spoke God's message to them. Then they returned to Jerusalem. On their way, they went through many villages in Samaria and they told the people the good news about Jesus.
Philip meets a man from Ethiopia
26 Then an angel of the Lord God came to Philip. He said, ‘Philip, go south to the road between Jerusalem and Gaza which goes through the wilderness.’[b]
27 So Philip started on his journey. While he was going along this road, he met an important officer from Ethiopia. This man had authority over the queen of Ethiopia's money. The queen was called Candace. The officer was travelling home from Jerusalem. He had been there to worship God.[c]
28 Now the man was travelling home again in his chariot. He was reading something from the book that God's prophet Isaiah wrote. 29 The Holy Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and walk beside it.’
30 So Philip ran to the cart as it went along. The officer was reading aloud from the prophet Isaiah's book and Philip heard him. So Philip asked the man, ‘Do you understand the things that you are reading about?’
31 The man answered, ‘I cannot understand it. I need someone to explain it to me.’ Then he said to Philip, ‘Come up here and sit with me in the cart.’
32 The officer was reading these words from the book of Isaiah:
‘He was like a sheep that people were leading away to kill.
He was like a lamb when they are cutting off its wool,
but it makes no noise.
In the same way, he did not say anything.
33 People did not respect him at all.
They refused to judge him in a fair way.
Nobody can say anything about his descendants,
because his life on earth came to an end.’[d]
34 The officer said to Philip, ‘Please tell me who the prophet Isaiah wrote about. Was he writing about himself or about another person?’ 35 Then Philip explained to the man the words that Isaiah had written. Then he went on to tell him the good news about Jesus. 36 As they were travelling along the road, they came to a place with some water. The man said to Philip, ‘Look! There is some water here. Please will you baptize me? Is there anything to stop you?’
[37 Philip said to him, ‘I can baptize you if you really believe in Jesus.’ The man said to Philip, ‘I do believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’][e]
38 The officer said to the man who was driving the chariot, ‘Stop the chariot!’ Then he went down with Philip into the water, and Philip baptized him. 39 They both came up out of the water again. Immediately the Lord's Holy Spirit took Philip away from that place. The officer did not see Philip again. He continued his journey and he was very happy.
40 Philip saw that he was now in Azotus.[f] From there, he visited many towns and he told people the good news about Jesus. He did this as he went all the way to Caesarea.[g]
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