M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

What would happen if the people did not obey the rules

20 The Lord said to Moses, ² ‘Talk to Israel's people. Say, “If any Israelite or foreign person gives his children to the god called Molech, he must die.” The people must throw stones at him to kill him. ³ I, the Lord, will turn away from that person. I will make him separate from his people. That person did not respect the Lord. He did not respect the Lord's holy name. ⁴ Israel's people may not think that his sin was important. So they might not kill him. ⁵ But the Lord himself will become an enemy of the man and of his family. The Lord will send him away with all the people who worship the god called Molech.

⁶ A person must not ask someone who does magic for help. They are turning away from the Lord. He will send them away from his people.

⁷ The people must be holy. I am the Lord your God. ⁸ They must always obey all my rules. I am the Lord who makes them holy.

⁹ If a person says bad things about his mother or his father, you must kill him. He has destroyed their honour. His sin will cause his death.

¹⁰ If a man has sex with another man's wife you must kill him and the woman.

¹¹ A man is sinning if he has sex with his father's wife. You must kill the man and the woman. They have destroyed the father's honour. Their sin causes their death.

¹² A man is sinning if he has sex with his son's wife. You must kill them both. They have done a strange thing. Their own sin causes their death.

¹³ A man is sinning if he has sex with another man. You must kill both of the men. They should be ashamed. Their sin causes their death.

¹⁴ A man is sinning if he marries a woman and her mother. You must burn the man and both the women in the fire. Then their sin will not make my people unclean.

¹⁵ A man is sinning if he has sex with an animal. You must kill the man and the animal.

¹⁶ A woman is sinning if she has sex with an animal. You must kill the woman and the animal. Their sin causes their death.

¹⁷ It is a sin if a man marries his sister. She may be the daughter of his father or of his mother. It is a sin if he has sex with her. The people must send them away. He has taken away his sister's honour. He must carry the punishment for his sin.

¹⁸ A man must not have sex with a woman when she is bleeding. If he does, it is a sin. They have not obeyed the rules of the Lord. The people must send them away.

¹⁹ A man must not have sex with his mother's sister or with his father's sister. They are both doing a wrong thing. They are taking away the family's honour. Their sin causes their punishment.

²⁰ A man is sinning if he has sex with his aunt. He is taking away his father's brother's honour. They will have no children.

²¹ It makes the people unclean if a man marries his brother's wife. He has taken away his brother's honour. They will not have any children.

²² If the people want to remain in the land that I am giving to them, they must obey my laws and my rules. ²³ The people who are living in Canaan now are doing bad things. I, the Lord, hate them because they do these things. I will send them out of Canaan. ²⁴ I, the Lord, will give their land to Israel's people. I will give it to you and to your children to keep for all time. In that land, there is plenty of food and drink, enough for everyone. I am the Lord your God. I want you to be separate from other people.

²⁵ The people must know which animals are clean. And they must know which animals are unclean. They must know which birds are clean. And they must know which birds are unclean. They must not eat any animal or bird that is unclean. ²⁶ I am the Lord and I am holy. So my people must be holy for me. I have made them separate from other people. They belong to me.

²⁷ A man or a woman who uses magic is doing a wrong thing. People must throw stones at that person until they die. Their sin will cause their death.’

This is a song that David wrote.

A prayer for help in trouble^[a]

A right time for everything

⁹ People work very hard, but what do they receive in return? ¹⁰ I have seen the difficult work that God has given people to do. He has caused them to be very busy. ¹¹ God has chosen a good time for all things to happen. He has caused people to think about things that will continue for ever. But nobody can completely understand everything that God has done, from the beginning of their lives to the end.

¹² So I realized that people should be happy. They should enjoy good things as long as they live. There is nothing better for people to do than that. ¹³ People should be happy to eat and to drink. They should enjoy the work that they do. All these things are gifts from God.

¹⁴ I know that everything that God does continues for ever. Nobody can add anything to it. Nobody can take anything away from it. God does these things so that people will respect his authority.

Are people like animals?

¹⁶ I saw something else that happens on the earth.

¹⁷ I said to myself,

¹⁸ I also thought, ‘God wants people to know that they are like animals. That is why he tests us. ¹⁹ The same thing happens to humans as happens to animals. We all breathe for a time and then we die. Humans are no different to animals. Life has no purpose. ²⁰ All living things finally go to the same place. We all come from the dust of the ground. And we all go back to the dust when we die.^{[b] 21} Do the spirits of humans go up into the sky when we die? Do the spirits of animals go down into the ground? Nobody really knows.’^[c]

²² So I realized that people should enjoy the work that they do. That is the best thing for us to do. It is what God has provided for us. I think that is best, because nobody can show us what will finally happen to us.

How to help people in the church

5 Do not speak strongly to an older man and tell him what he must do. Instead, ask him in a kind way, as you would speak to your father. Speak to younger men as you would speak to your brothers. ² Speak to older women as you would speak to your mother. Speak to younger women as you would speak to your sisters. Always respect them properly.

Widows

³ Respect those widows in the church who are really alone. ⁴ If a widow has children or grandchildren, then they should take care of her. The children must help their parents or grandparents because they belong to the same family. Their parents helped them, so they need to give them something in return. The children need to learn that important lesson. It is what God's message teaches them to do and it makes God happy. ⁵ Some widows are really alone and they have nobody to take care of them. A widow like that trusts God that he will help her. As a result, she prays a lot, at night and during the day, and she asks God to help her. ⁶ But some widows only want to enjoy themselves. For a widow like that, her spirit is already dead, even while she is still alive.

⁷ Teach everyone clearly to do these things. Then nobody can say that the believers are doing anything wrong. ⁸ Every believer must take care of his own family. Certainly, he must do that for the people who live with him in his home. If anyone does not do that, it shows that he has refused God's true message. That person is worse than someone who does not believe in Christ.

⁹ If you want to put a widow's name on the list of widows, this is what she must be like. She must be more than 60 years old. She must have been the wife of one husband. ¹⁰ People should know that she has done good things. For example, she must have been a good mother to her children. She must have received visitors into her home. She must have helped God's people as their servant. She must have taken care of people who had problems. She must have continued to do all kinds of good things like that.

¹¹ But do not put the names of younger widows on the list. They may decide to marry again, because they strongly want to have sex. Then they will no longer choose to serve Christ. ¹² As a result, they will stop doing what they had earlier promised to do for the church. That will make them guilty.^[a]

¹³ Young widows may learn to be lazy. They may go around from house to house. Not only do they become lazy, but they talk too much about silly things. They talk wrongly about other people and what they are doing. They say things that they ought not to say. ¹⁴ So I think that widows who are still young women should marry again. Then they can have children and they can take care of their own homes. If they live well like that, the enemy of God's people will not have a chance to say bad things against us. ¹⁵ Some of the younger widows have already turned away from Christ, so that they can obey Satan.

¹⁶ A woman who believes in Christ should take care of any widows in her own family. Then the church will not have to do that work. Instead, the church will be able to help those widows who are really alone.

Leaders in the church

¹⁷ Everyone should respect leaders of the believers who lead the church well.^[b] The church should also pay them properly for their work. That is certainly true for leaders who teach God's people and speak God's message to them. ¹⁸ The Bible says: ‘Do not tie shut the mouth of a bull while it walks on your wheat seeds.’^[c] The Bible also says: ‘You must pay a worker what his work is worth.’

¹⁹ Somebody may tell you that a leader of the believers has done something wrong. But do not accept that as true, unless two or three people say the same thing. ²⁰ If a leader is really guilty and continues to do wrong things, you must warn him. Do that when everyone in the church is there. They will hear what you say, and they will be afraid to do wrong things themselves.

²¹ I say this to you very strongly: Obey what I am telling you to do. Remember that God himself and Christ Jesus, together with their special angels, are all watching what you do. Do not quickly decide if someone has done right or wrong. Be fair and judge everyone in the same way. ²² Do not hurry to put your hands on anyone to choose him as a leader of the church. Perhaps that man has done something wrong. Then people might think that you agree with his sins. You yourself must always be careful to do what is right and good.

²³ I know that you often become ill. So do not drink only water, but drink a little wine. This will help your stomach to keep well.

²⁴ Some people do wrong things that everyone can see clearly. When someone judges those people, everyone already knows that they are guilty. So everybody already knows that it is right to punish those people. But for other people, nobody knows about their sins until later. ²⁵ It is the same with the good things that people do. Many good things are clear for everyone to see. And even the good things that people do secretly will not remain a secret for ever.