M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Ruth Meets Boaz

2 There was a rich man named Boaz living in Bethlehem. Boaz was one of Naomi’s close relatives^[a] from Elimelech’s family.

² One day Ruth, the Moabite, said to Naomi, “I think I will go to the fields. Maybe I can find someone who will be kind to me and let me gather the grain they leave in their field.”

Naomi said, “Fine, daughter, go ahead.”

³ So Ruth went to the fields. She followed the workers who were cutting the grain and gathered the grain that was left.^[b] It happened that part of the field belonged to Boaz, the man from Elimelech’s family.

⁴ Later, Boaz came to the field from Bethlehem and greeted his workers. He said, “The Lord be with you!”

And the workers answered, “And may the Lord bless you!”

⁵ Then Boaz spoke to his servant who was in charge of the workers. He asked, “Whose girl is that?”

⁶ The servant answered, “She is the Moabite woman who came with Naomi from the country of Moab. ⁷ She came early this morning and asked me if she could follow the workers and gather the grain that was left on the ground. She rested only a short time in that shelter.”^[c]

⁸ Then Boaz said to Ruth, “Listen, child. Stay here in my field to gather grain for yourself. There is no need for you to go to any other field. Continue following behind my women workers. ⁹ Watch to see which fields they go into to cut the grain and follow them. I have warned the young men not to bother you. When you are thirsty, go and drink from the same water jug my men drink from.”

¹⁰ Then Ruth bowed very low to the ground. She said to Boaz, “I am a foreigner, so I am surprised you even noticed me.”

¹¹ Boaz answered her, “I know about all the help you have given to your mother-in-law Naomi. I know you helped her even after your husband died. And I know that you left your father and mother and your own country and came here to this country. You did not know anyone from this country, but you came here with Naomi. ¹² The Lord will reward you for all the good things you have done. The Lord, the God of Israel, will pay you in full. You have come to him for safety,^[d] and he will protect you.”

¹³ Then Ruth said, “I hope I can continue to please you, sir. You are very kind. I am only a servant and not even one of your own servants. But you have said kind words to me and comforted me.”

¹⁴ At mealtime, Boaz told Ruth, “Come and eat some of our bread. Here, dip your bread in our vinegar.”

So Ruth sat down with the workers. Boaz gave her some roasted grain. Ruth ate until she was full, and there was some food left. ¹⁵ Then Ruth got up and went back to work.

Then Boaz told his servants, “Let Ruth gather even around the piles of grain. Don’t stop her. ¹⁶ And make her work easier by dropping some full heads of grain for her. Let her gather that grain. Don’t tell her to stop.”

Naomi Hears About Boaz

¹⁷ Ruth worked in the fields until evening. Then she separated the grain from the chaff. There was about one-half bushel^[e] of barley. ¹⁸ Ruth carried the grain into town to show her mother-in-law what she had gathered. She also gave her the food that was left from lunch.

¹⁹ Her mother-in-law asked her, “Where did you gather all this grain? Where did you work? Bless the man who noticed you.”

Then Ruth told her who she had worked with. She said, “The man I worked with today is a man named Boaz.”

²⁰ Naomi told her daughter-in-law, “The Lord bless him! He has continued showing his kindness to the living as well as the dead.” Then Naomi told her daughter-in-law, “Boaz is one of our relatives. He is one of our protectors.^[f]”

²¹ Then Ruth said, “Boaz also told me to come back and continue working. He said that I should work closely with his servants until the harvest is finished.”

²² Then Naomi said to her daughter-in-law Ruth, “It is good for you to continue working with his women servants. If you work in another field, some man might hurt you.” ²³ So Ruth continued working closely with the women servants of Boaz. She gathered grain until the barley harvest was finished. She also worked there through the end of the wheat harvest. Ruth continued living with her mother-in-law Naomi.

Paul Sails for Rome

27 It was decided that we would sail for Italy. An army officer named Julius, who served in the emperor’s special army, was put in charge of guarding Paul and some other prisoners on the trip. ² We got on a ship from the city of Adramyttium that was ready to sail to different places in Asia. Aristarchus, a man from Thessalonica in Macedonia, went with us.

³ The next day we came to the city of Sidon. Julius was very good to Paul and gave him freedom to go visit his friends there, who gave him whatever he needed. ⁴ We left that city and sailed close to the island of Cyprus because the wind was blowing against us. ⁵ We went across the sea by Cilicia and Pamphylia. Then we came to the city of Myra in Lycia. ⁶ There the army officer found a ship from the city of Alexandria that was going to Italy. So he put us on it.

⁷ We sailed slowly for many days. It was hard for us to reach the city of Cnidus because the wind was blowing against us. We could not go any farther that way, so we sailed by the south side of the island of Crete near Salmone. ⁸ We sailed along the coast, but the sailing was hard. Then we came to a place called Safe Harbors, near the city of Lasea.

⁹ We had lost much time, and it was now dangerous to sail, because it was already after the Jewish day of fasting.^[a] So Paul warned them, ¹⁰ “Men, I can see that there will be a lot of trouble on this trip. The ship, everything in it, and even our lives may be lost!” ¹¹ But the captain and the owner of the ship did not agree with Paul. So the army officer accepted what they said instead of believing Paul. ¹² Also, that harbor was not a good place for the ship to stay for the winter, so most of the men decided that we should leave there. They hoped we could reach Phoenix, where the ship could stay for the winter. Phoenix was a city on the island of Crete. It had a harbor that faced southwest and northwest.

The Storm

¹³ Then a good wind began to blow from the south. The men on the ship thought, “This is the wind we wanted, and now we have it!” So they pulled up the anchor. We sailed very close to the island of Crete. ¹⁴ But then a very strong wind called the “Northeaster” came from across the island. ¹⁵ This wind took the ship and carried it away. The ship could not sail against the wind, so we stopped trying and let the wind blow us.

¹⁶ We went below a small island named Cauda. With the island protecting us from the wind, we were able to bring in the lifeboat, but it was very hard to do. ¹⁷ After the men brought the lifeboat in, they tied ropes around the ship to hold it together. The men were afraid that the ship would hit the sandbanks of Syrtis. So they lowered the sail and let the wind carry the ship.

¹⁸ The next day the storm was blowing against us so hard that the men threw some things out of the ship.^{[b] 19} A day later they threw out the ship’s equipment. ²⁰ For many days we could not see the sun or the stars. The storm was very bad. We lost all hope of staying alive—we thought we would die.

²¹ The men did not eat for a long time. Then one day Paul stood up before them and said, “Men, I told you not to leave Crete. You should have listened to me. Then you would not have all this trouble and loss. ²² But now I tell you to be happy. None of you will die, but the ship will be lost. ²³ Last night an angel came to me from God—the God I worship and belong to. ²⁴ The angel said, ‘Paul, don’t be afraid! You must stand before Caesar. And God has given you this promise: He will save the lives of all those sailing with you.’ ²⁵ So men, there is nothing to worry about. I trust God, and I am sure everything will happen just as his angel told me. ²⁶ But we will crash on an island.”

²⁷ On the fourteenth night we were still being blown around in the Adriatic Sea. The sailors thought we were close to land. ²⁸ They threw a rope into the water with a weight on the end of it. They found that the water was 120 feet^[c] deep. They went a little farther and threw the rope in again. It was 90 feet^[d] deep. ²⁹ The sailors were afraid that we would hit the rocks, so they threw four anchors into the water. Then they prayed for daylight to come. ³⁰ Some of the sailors wanted to leave the ship, and they lowered the lifeboat to the water. They wanted the other men to think that they were throwing more anchors from the front of the ship. ³¹ But Paul told the army officer and the other soldiers, “If these men do not stay in the ship, you will lose all hope of survival.” ³² So the soldiers cut the ropes and let the lifeboat fall into the water.

³³ Just before dawn Paul began persuading all the people to eat something. He said, “For the past two weeks you have been waiting and watching. You have not eaten for 14 days. ³⁴ Now I beg you to eat something. You need it to stay alive. None of you will lose even one hair off your heads.” ³⁵ After he said this, Paul took some bread and thanked God for it before all of them. He broke off a piece and began eating. ³⁶ All the men felt better and started eating too. ³⁷ (There were 276 people on the ship.) ³⁸ We ate all we wanted. Then we began making the ship lighter by throwing the grain into the sea.

The Ship Is Destroyed

³⁹ When daylight came, the sailors saw land, but they did not know what land it was. They saw a bay with a beach and wanted to sail the ship to the beach if they could. ⁴⁰ So they cut the ropes to the anchors and left the anchors in the sea. At the same time, they untied the ropes that were holding the rudders. Then they raised the front sail into the wind and sailed toward the beach. ⁴¹ But the ship hit a sandbank. The front of the ship stuck there and could not move. Then the big waves began to break the back of the ship to pieces.

⁴² The soldiers decided to kill the prisoners so that none of the prisoners could swim away and escape. ⁴³ But Julius the army officer wanted to let Paul live. So he did not allow the soldiers to kill the prisoners. He told the people who could swim to jump into the water and swim to land. ⁴⁴ The others used wooden boards or pieces of the ship. And this is how all the people went safely to land.

Jeremiah Is Put Into Prison

37 Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon. He appointed Zedekiah son of Josiah to be the king of Judah in the place of Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim. ² But Zedekiah, his servants, and the people of Judah did not pay attention to the messages the Lord had given to Jeremiah the prophet.

³ King Zedekiah sent Jehucal son of Shelemiah and the priest Zephaniah son of Maaseiah to Jeremiah the prophet with a message. This was the message they brought to Jeremiah: “Jeremiah, pray to the Lord our God for us.”

⁴ At that time Jeremiah had not yet been put into prison, so he was free to go anywhere he wanted. ⁵ Also at that time Pharaoh’s army had marched from Egypt toward Judah. The Babylonian army had surrounded the city of Jerusalem in order to defeat it. Then they had heard about the army from Egypt marching toward them. So the army from Babylon left Jerusalem to fight with the army from Egypt.

⁶ This message from the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet: ⁷ “This is what the Lord, the God of the people of Israel, says: ‘Jehucal and Zephaniah, I know that King Zedekiah of Judah sent you to me to ask questions. Tell King Zedekiah this: Pharaoh’s army marched out of Egypt to come here to help you against the army of Babylon. But Pharaoh’s army will go back to Egypt. ⁸ After that the army from Babylon will come back here and attack Jerusalem. Then they will capture and burn it.’ ⁹ This is what the Lord says: ‘People of Jerusalem, don’t fool yourselves. Don’t say to yourselves, “The army of Babylon will surely leave us alone.” They will not. ¹⁰ People of Jerusalem, even if you could defeat all the Babylonian army that is attacking you, there would still be a few wounded men left in their tents. Even those few wounded men would come out of their tents and burn Jerusalem down.’”

¹¹ When the Babylonian army left Jerusalem to fight the army of the Pharaoh of Egypt, ¹² Jeremiah wanted to travel from Jerusalem to the land of Benjamin.^[a] He wanted to be there for a division of some property that belonged to his family. ¹³ But when Jeremiah got to the Benjamin Gate of Jerusalem,^[b] the captain in charge of the guards arrested him. The captain’s name was Irijah son of Shelemiah. Shelemiah was the son of Hananiah. So Irijah the captain arrested Jeremiah and said, “Jeremiah, you are leaving us to join the Babylonian side.”

¹⁴ Jeremiah said to Irijah, “That is not true! I am not leaving to join the Babylonians.” But Irijah refused to listen to Jeremiah. And Irijah arrested Jeremiah and took him to the royal officials of Jerusalem. ¹⁵ Those officials were very angry with Jeremiah. They gave an order for Jeremiah to be beaten. Then they put him in a prison. The prison was in the house of Jonathan, a scribe for the king of Judah. His house had been made into a prison. ¹⁶ They put Jeremiah into a cell under the house of Jonathan. The cell was in a dungeon under the ground. Jeremiah was there for a long time.

¹⁷ Then King Zedekiah sent for Jeremiah and had him brought to the palace. Zedekiah talked to Jeremiah in private. He asked Jeremiah, “Is there any message from the Lord?”

Jeremiah answered, “Yes, he said that you will be given to the king of Babylon.” ¹⁸ Then Jeremiah said to King Zedekiah, “What have I done wrong? What crime have I done against you or your officials or the people of Jerusalem? Why have you thrown me into prison? ¹⁹ King Zedekiah, where are your prophets now? They told you a false message. They said, ‘The king of Babylon will not attack you or this land of Judah.’ ²⁰ But now, my lord, king of Judah, please listen to me. Please let me bring my request to you. This is what I ask: Don’t send me back to the house of Jonathan the scribe. If you send me back, I will die there.”

²¹ So King Zedekiah gave orders for Jeremiah to be put under guard in the courtyard. And he ordered that Jeremiah should be given bread from the street bakers. He was given bread until there was no more bread in the city. So Jeremiah stayed under guard in the courtyard.