M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

40 years in the desert

2 Then we turned back to travel towards the desert. We went along the road to the Red Sea, as the Lord had told me. For many days, we walked around the region of Mount Seir.^[a]

² Then the Lord said to me, ³ ‘You have walked round this mountain for a long time. Now turn to the north. ⁴ Give this message to the Israelites: “You will soon go through the country that belongs to Esau's descendants. They have the same ancestors that you have. They live in Seir. They will be afraid of you, so be very careful.^{[b] 5} Do not attack them at all. I will not give any of their land to you, not even enough ground to put your foot on. I have given the hills around Mount Seir to Esau, for his descendants to live there. ⁶ When you eat their food and you drink their water, you must pay them for it. ⁷ I, the Lord your God, have blessed you in everything that you have done. I have taken care of you as you travelled through this great desert. I have been with you for 40 years. You have received everything that you needed.” ’

⁸ So we went on. We passed the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They have the same ancestors that we have. We left the road through the Jordan Valley that goes from Elath and Ezion-Geber. Instead, we travelled on the road through the Moab desert.

⁹ Then the Lord said to me, ‘Do not make the people of Moab angry. Do not start a fight against them. I will not give any part of their land to you. I have given Ar to Lot's descendants to be their city.’^[c]

¹⁰ (Some people called the Emites once lived there. There were many of them and they were as strong and tall as the Anakites. ¹¹ Some people called the Emites and the Anakites, ‘Rephaites’. But the people from Moab called them ‘Emites’. ¹² Before this time, the Horites lived in Seir, but the descendants of Esau chased them away. They destroyed the Horites and they lived in their country. The Israelites did the same thing to the people who had lived in the land that the Lord gave to them.)

¹³ Then the Lord said, ‘Get up now and cross the Zered valley.’ So we went across the stream.

¹⁴ 38 years had passed since we left Kadesh-Barnea. By the time we crossed the Zered valley, all the men who had been old enough to fight had now died. The Lord had said that this would happen.^{[d] 15} The Lord himself removed them so that they all died, one by one.

¹⁶ Finally, the last one of these men died and no longer lived among the people. ¹⁷ Then the Lord said to me, ¹⁸ ‘Today you will cross the border of Moab at Ar. ¹⁹ You will go into the land of the Ammonites. Do not make them angry so that they fight against you. I will not give any of their land to you. I have already given it to Lot's descendants so that they can live there.’

²⁰ (People also call this region the land of the Rephaites, who had once lived there. The Ammonites called them Zamzummites. ²¹ There were many Zamzummites and they were as tall and strong as the Anakites. The Lord destroyed the Rephaites when the Ammonites moved in. Then the Ammonites lived there instead of the Rephaites. ²² The Lord had done the same thing for Esau's descendants who lived in Seir. The Lord destroyed the Horites when Esau's descendants moved in and chased them out. Esau's descendants still live in their country today. ²³ The same thing happened to the Avvites.^[e] They had lived in villages as far west as Gaza. But Philistines came from Crete island and they killed the Avvites. The Philistines lived there instead.)

²⁴ Then God said, ‘Now go across Arnon valley. Look, I have given you the land of King Sihon, the Amorite. He is the king of Heshbon. You must go and fight against him. Attack him and take his land for yourselves. ²⁵ Today I will begin to make all the people in the world afraid of you. They will hear reports about you. That will cause them to be very frightened. They will shake with fear!’

Sihon, king of Heshbon

²⁶ When we were in Kedemoth desert, I sent a message to Sihon, king of Heshbon. We wanted to agree that we would not fight against each other. ²⁷ I said to him, ‘Please let us go through your country. We will only travel along the road. We will not turn away from the road, to the right side or to the left side. ²⁸ Please sell us food to eat and water to drink. We will pay you with silver coins. We only want to walk through your country. ²⁹ The descendants of Esau who live in Seir let us do this. So did the descendants of Moab who live in Ar. We will go through your country and then we will cross the Jordan River. We will go into the land that the Lord our God is giving to us.’

³⁰ But Sihon, the king of Heshbon, refused to let us travel through his country. He was too proud to agree with us. The Lord our God had caused him to be like that. He wanted to put King Sihon under your power and give his land to you. You still live in his land today.

³¹ The Lord said to me, ‘Look! I have begun to give King Sihon and his country to you. Now you must begin to fight against him and take his land for yourselves.’

³² Then Sihon and all his army came out to fight a battle against us at Jahaz. ³³ The Lord our God put him under our power. We won the battle against him. We killed King Sihon and his sons and all his soldiers. ³⁴ At that time we took all his towns and we gave everything as a gift to the Lord. We killed the men, women and children. We left no one alive. ³⁵ But we kept the farm animals and other valuable things in the cities for ourselves. ³⁶ The Lord our God gave us all their towns. That included Aroer, on the edge of the Arnon valley, the city in the valley and other towns all the way to Gilead. No town was too strong for us to take.

³⁷ But we did not go into the Ammonites' country. We did not go into the Jabbok valley. We did not go near the towns in the hill country. The Lord our God had commanded us not to attack those places.

This psalm is a song that Asaph wrote.

Israel's enemies

Korah's sons wrote this song for the music leader. Use special music.

The journey to Zion

Do not trust in Egypt's power

30 The Lord says, ‘It will be very bad for you, my children who have turned against me. You have decided what to do, but you did not ask me about it. You have made an agreement with Egypt, but without my Spirit's help. In that way, you continue to do more and more sins.

² Your leaders travel to Egypt to ask for Pharaoh's help to keep them safe. But they did not ask me what I think about it. They think that Egypt has the power to protect them. ³ But Pharaoh's help will only make you ashamed. If you trust in Egypt's power, that will bring you down low.

⁴ Judah's officers have arrived in Zoan, and some of them have gone to Hanes.^{[a] 5} But the people of Egypt will not be able to help you. So everyone in Judah will become ashamed. If you trust in Egypt, they will give you shame instead of help.’

⁶ Here is a message about the animals that travel in the Negev desert: It is a place where there is trouble and danger. There are dangerous lions there, both male and female. There are different kinds of dangerous snakes. People are carrying their valuable things on the backs of donkeys and camels. They are taking their riches as gifts to a nation that cannot help them! ⁷ Help from Egypt is useless! So I call Egypt ‘Rahab who does nothing.’^[b]

⁸ Go and write this message down for them to see. Yes, write it in a book so that it will always be there to read. In the future, it will always show what is true.

⁹ These people have turned against the Lord. They are his children but they love to tell lies. They do not want to obey his law. ¹⁰ They say to the seers, ‘Do not see any more visions!’ They say to the prophets, ‘Do not tell us messages about what is right! Tell us nice things, even if they are not true. ¹¹ Leave this path. Get out of our way! Stop telling us about the Holy God of Israel.’

¹² Because of that, this is what the Holy God of Israel says:

‘You have not accepted my message. Instead, you like to be cruel and to deceive people. You believe that it will help you.

¹³ So your sin will cause you to fall down. You will be like a high wall that has a weak place. It is not safe and it will bend and fall down. Very suddenly it will fall with a great bang!

¹⁴ That wall will break into pieces, like the pieces of a pot. It will be completely broken so that it is all useless. There will be no piece that is big enough to carry coal from a fire, or water from a well.’

¹⁵ The Almighty Lord, Israel's Holy God says this:

‘Turn back to me and wait for me to help you. Be quiet and trust in me. Then you will be safe and you will be strong again.’

But you do not want to trust in God. ¹⁶ Instead, you say, ‘No! We will run away on horses and we will escape.’ Yes, you will run away! You say, ‘Our horses will run very fast!’ But your enemies who chase you will also be very fast!

¹⁷ When one soldier from your enemy chases after you, one thousand of your men will run away from him! Five of them will chase away your whole army! Only a few of you will remain, like a stick with a flag on the top of a hill.

God will take care of his people

¹⁸ So the Lord is waiting for the right time to be kind to you. He is ready to show his great love for you. The Lord God does what is right and fair. Everyone who waits for him to come and help them is a happy person!

¹⁹ People will live in Zion again. You people who live in Jerusalem will not weep any longer. When you call to the Lord for help, he will be kind to you. When he hears you, he will answer you.

²⁰ The Lord God has given trouble to you, like bread that you must eat. He has given pain to you, as water that you must drink. But he will no longer hide himself from you. He will be with you, to teach you and to be your guide. ²¹ You will hear his voice behind you. When you turn off the path, to the right or to the left, it will say, ‘This is the right way. Walk in it.’ ²² Then you will destroy your idols and your images of false gods. You used silver or gold to make them beautiful. But now you will throw them away like a piece of dirty cloth. You will tell them, ‘Go away!’

²³ The Lord will send rain for the seeds that you have planted. The ground will give you plenty of good food. At that time, your cows will have lots of grass to eat in wide fields. ²⁴ The bulls and the donkeys that work on your farms will eat the best food. They will eat the same grain that people eat. ²⁵ Streams of water will pour down from every tall mountain and every high hill. That will happen at the time when your enemies are destroyed. Their strong towers will fall down. ²⁶ At that time, the moon will shine as bright as the sun. Light from the sun will be seven times brighter. It will be like the light of seven days at the same time! At that time, the Lord will make the wounds of his people better. He has hurt them, but now he will make them better.

²⁷ Look! The Lord is coming with his great power from a place that is far away. He is very angry. Thick clouds of smoke are all round him. He speaks angry words that destroy like fire. ²⁸ His breath is like a flood of water that pours out over his enemies. The water reaches as high as their necks. He shakes the nations in a sieve to destroy the bad parts. He leads them away from their bad ways, like a man who leads a horse with a rope.

²⁹ Then you, the Lord's people, will sing! It will be like the happy songs that you sing in the evening at your special feasts. You will be very happy. It will seem like you are making music as you go up to Mount Zion to worship the Lord there. He is the Rock where Israel can be safe.

³⁰ Then the Lord will shout with royal authority. People will know that he has come with great power to punish his enemies. His anger will be like a fire that burns everything. He will come with a great storm of rain, thunder and hail that destroys everything.

³¹ When the Lord shouts, his command will destroy the Assyrian army. He will knock them down with his heavy stick. ³² He will punish them with a big stick. He will use his weapons to attack them. As he does that, there will be happy music from harps and tambourines!

³³ The Lord has already prepared a place to burn the bodies of the dead people. It is ready for the king of Assyria! There is a place for him that is deep and wide. There is plenty of wood for the fire. The Lord's breath will be like a stream of hot sulphur. He will breathe out on the heap of wood and the fire will burn!

False teachers are trying to turn people away from God

¹ This letter is from me, Jude. I am Jesus Christ's servant and I am James's brother.^[a] I am writing to you people that God, the Father, loves. God has chosen you to be his own people. He is keeping you safe until the time when Jesus Christ returns.

² I pray that God will be kind to you and that he will give you peace in your minds more and more. I want you to know more and more how much God loves you.

³ My friends, I wanted very much to write to you about how God has saved us from sin. That is what he has done for you and for us. But instead of that, I now know that I must write to you about something else. I must tell you to be strong and brave. You must do everything that you can to keep God's true message safe. God has given this message to his special people and his message will never change. Do not let anyone teach you a different message.

⁴ I say this because certain bad people have secretly come among you. They have turned away from God. They are trying to change God's true message. They teach that we can do any evil things that we want to do. They say that God will be kind and he will forgive us for all those things. They do not accept the authority of Jesus Christ, who is our only Master and our Lord. God will certainly punish those wicked people. A long time ago God said that he would punish people like them.

⁵ Remember that the Lord brought Israel's people out of Egypt where they had been slaves. But later he destroyed all those same people who did not trust him.^[b] I want you to remember these important things. You should already know all about them, but you must never forget them. ⁶ Also remember that some angels refused to obey God. They took more authority for themselves than God had given them. They left their own proper place with God in heaven.^[c] So God has tied them up as prisoners for ever in a completely dark place. He will keep them there until that great day when he will judge everyone.

⁷ Also, remember what happened to the cities called Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other cities that were near them.^[d] Like those bad angels, the people who lived in those places were also doing evil things. They were having sex with people who were not their husbands or their wives. They liked to have sex in other ways that are not right. God destroyed their cities. He has punished them with fire that never stops burning. That is an example of what will happen to wicked people like them.

⁸ These false teachers who have come among you do the same kind of bad things. Their dreams deceive them so that they use their bodies to do disgusting things. They refuse to obey God's authority. They insult God's powerful angels. ⁹ Even the leader of God's angels, Michael, did not speak bad words like that against the Devil. Long ago, Michael argued with the Devil about who should have Moses' dead body.^[e] But even when the Devil said bad words against God, Michael himself did not speak against the Devil. He did not think that he should do that. Instead, Michael said, ‘The Lord himself will show that you are wrong.’ ¹⁰ But these false teachers speak bad things against anything that they do not understand. They are like animals that cannot think properly. They just do the things that their nature causes them to do. Those are the things that are destroying them.

¹¹ It will be terrible for them! They have lived in the way that Cain lived.^[f] They have made the same mistake that Balaam made, because they wanted to get money for themselves.^[g] Like Korah, they have refused to obey God.^[h] So God will destroy them.

The false teachers are very dangerous

¹² When you eat special meals together as believers, those false teachers meet with you. But they are dangerous! They will stop you showing your love for one another. They come only because they want to eat too much. They do not respect God or other people. They only think about themselves and they are not ashamed. They are like clouds that you think will bring rain. But the wind blows those clouds along and there is no rain. They are like trees that have no fruit, even at the time for harvest. People pull trees like that out of the ground. They are completely dead and can give no fruit. ¹³ Those false teachers are like water in the sea that the wind blows during a storm. The dirt that comes to the top of the water is like the disgusting things that those people do. They are like stars that have moved away from their proper places in the sky. God has prepared a completely dark place for them. God will keep them there for ever.

¹⁴ Long ago, Enoch also spoke about those false teachers.^[i] Enoch belonged to the seventh family that was born, starting with Adam. He said, ‘Look, the Lord will come with many thousands of his own angels. ¹⁵ He will judge all people. He will punish everyone who lives in a way that does not please him. He will punish them because of all the wicked things that they have done. He will punish them because of all the bad words that they have spoken against him.’^{[j] 16} Those people are always complaining. They like to accuse other people. They do any bad things that will make themselves happy. They speak great things about themselves, to show how important they are. They praise other people only so that they can get something good for themselves.

Christians must continue to trust God

¹⁷ But as for you, my friends, remember the message that the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ have taught you. They spoke about what would happen in future times. ¹⁸ They said to you, ‘In the last days of this world, some people will laugh at God's message.^[k] They will say that it is silly to obey God. Instead, they will do the bad things that they want to do. Those things do not please God.’

¹⁹ It is people like this who cause you to argue with one another, so that you belong to separate groups. Their thoughts belong to this world. They do not have God's Spirit in them.

²⁰ But you, my friends, have believed the message that comes from God himself. So you must help one another to trust God more and more. Pray to God with the help of the Holy Spirit. ²¹ Continue to live in a way that shows God's love. As you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to come, remember that he is very kind. Because of that, you will have life with God for ever.

²² Help those people who do not know whether to trust God. Be kind to them. ²³ Some people are in great danger. You must save them from the fire of God's punishment.^[l] Also be kind to people who have done wicked and disgusting things. But be careful! Do not let their sins make you bad too.

Jude thanks God

²⁴ God is able to keep you safe so that you continue to trust him. One day you will stand in front of him and you will be very happy. God will bring you to that place and you will be completely good. You will be able to stand near to God, who shines with beautiful light. ²⁵ He is the only God. He is the one who saves us because of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we praise him! We say that he is very great! He rules with power and authority. This has always been true. It is true now, and it will be true for ever. Amen!