M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

God gives promises to David

7 The king was living in his palace. The Lord kept him safe from all his enemies everywhere. ² One day, the king said to Nathan the prophet, ‘I am living in a beautiful palace that is made of cedar wood. But God's Covenant Box still has a tent for its home!’

³ Nathan replied to the king, ‘Do what you think is right. The Lord will help you.’

⁴ But that night the Lord said to Nathan, ⁵ ‘Go and tell my servant David,

“The Lord says this: Do not think that you are the right man to build a house for me to live in. ⁶ From the time that I brought Israel's people out of Egypt until now, I have never lived in a house. While my people moved from place to place, I travelled with them. I lived in a tent as my home. ⁷ I have moved about to many different places with the Israelite people. I chose leaders to take care of Israel's tribes, like shepherds for them. But in all that time, I never said to any of the leaders, ‘You should have built a beautiful house of cedar wood for me.’

⁸ So tell my servant David that the Lord Almighty says this: I took you from the fields where you were taking care of sheep. I took you from there to become the ruler of my people Israel. ⁹ I have been with you everywhere that you have gone. I destroyed all your enemies that were attacking you. Now I will make you famous. Your name will be as great as the names of the earth's greatest men.

¹⁰ I have chosen a place where my people Israel will live. I have put them in that place, where they can be safe. They will not be afraid of trouble from any enemy. Wicked people will not hurt them any more. That happened in the past, ¹¹ from the time that I chose leaders to rule my people Israel. But now I will keep you safe from all your enemies.

I, the Lord, say to you, David: I will give you descendants who will rule as kings after you. That will be the royal house that I build for you! ¹² When you die, people will bury you in the grave of your ancestors. Then I will choose your descendant, one of your own sons, to become king. I will make his kingdom strong. ¹³ He is the man who will build a house for me. People will give honour to my name there. I will cause his descendants to rule as kings for ever. ¹⁴ I will be his father and he will be my son. When he does something wrong, I will punish him, so that he learns to do what is right. I will punish him in the way that human fathers punish their sons. ¹⁵ I removed my faithful love from Saul, and I removed him as king before you. But I will always continue to faithfully love your son. ¹⁶ The kingdom that your descendants rule will continue for ever. Someone from your family will always be king.” ’

¹⁷ Nathan told David the whole message that God had shown to him.

David prays

¹⁸ Then King David went into the Lord's tent.^[a] He sat down and he prayed to the Lord.

He said, ‘Almighty Lord, I am not a special person and my family is not special. You have helped me very much and I do not deserve it. ¹⁹ You have also made a promise about the descendants in my family, Almighty Lord. You have promised to help them in the future, as well as me. I am only a man but you have shown this to me, Almighty Lord.

²⁰ I am your servant, Almighty Lord, and you know me completely. There is nothing more that I can say. ²¹ Because of your covenant you have chosen to do all these great things. You have told me, your servant, what you promise to do. ²² Almighty Lord, you are very great. There is nobody like you. You alone are God. What we have heard about you is true! ²³ There is no other nation on earth like your people, Israel. We are the only nation that you have rescued so that we would belong to you. You did that to show that your name is great. You did great miracles to rescue your people from Egypt where they were slaves. Then you chased out other nations and their gods from the land that you were giving to your people. ²⁴ You chose Israel to be your own people for all time. You, Lord, became our God.

²⁵ Lord God, please do the things that you have promised to do for me, your servant, and for my family. Continue to do for ever what you have promised to do. ²⁶ Then people will always give honour to your great name. They will say, “The Lord Almighty is the God who rules over Israel!” And David's descendants will continue to serve you as kings.

²⁷ Lord Almighty, Israel's God, you have made this promise to me, your servant. You have said to me, “You will always have descendants who will rule. That is the house that I will build for you.” That is why I am not afraid to pray to you like this.

²⁸ Almighty Lord, you are the true God. We trust your promises. You have promised these good things to me, your servant. ²⁹ I pray that you will be pleased to bless my family and my descendants. Then we will serve you faithfully for ever. Almighty Lord, you have promised to do this. So I know that you will continue to bless my descendants for ever.’

Paul says ‘Hello’

1 This letter is from me, Paul. God chose me to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. Our Christian friend Timothy is here with me as I write.

I am sending this letter to you, the people of the church in Corinth city. I am sending it also to all of God's people who live in other places in Achaia.

² I pray that God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ will continue to help you. I pray that they will give you peace in your minds.

God himself comforts us

³ We thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, because he is so good to us. As our Father, he is very kind to us. He is our God who comforts us in every way. ⁴ Whenever we have trouble, he comforts us. Because of that, we ourselves can comfort other people. When they have any kind of trouble, we can comfort them, in the same way that God has comforted us. ⁵ Christ himself received much pain, and God comforted him. As Christ's servants, we also receive the same kind of pain. But, God also comforts us very much, because we belong to Christ.

⁶ So, when we receive trouble, the result is that we can comfort you. And then also, God saves you. When God comforts us, that helps us to comfort you too. As a result, when you receive the same kinds of trouble that we receive, you learn to be patient and strong. ⁷ So we continue to be sure that you will remain strong. You receive many troubles, as we do too. But we know that God will also comfort you, as he comforts us.

⁸ Our Christian friends, we want you to know about the trouble that we had in Asia. Those troubles were very painful. We ourselves were not strong enough to continue. We even thought that we would die. ⁹ We ourselves thought that we would certainly die. We knew that we could not trust our own strength. We had to trust God. He is the one who causes dead people to rise up to new life. So we could trust him to make us strong. ¹⁰ We nearly died, but God saved us from that great danger. We know that we can continue to trust him. He will save us from any future danger. ¹¹ We also know that you continue to help us as you pray for us. As many people pray for us, they will thank God when he answers their prayers. They will see that God is very kind to us, and they will thank him.

Paul explains why he did not visit Corinth earlier

¹² We can be proud of how we have lived in this world. We have been careful to be honest and good with everyone. And we have been like that with you even more. We are sure in our own minds that this is true. We have not tried to be clever in a human way. But we have lived in the way that God has helped us to live. ¹³ We are writing to you only about things that you yourselves can read and understand. And I hope that you will understand completely one day. ¹⁴ You do not understand us completely yet. But I hope that you will understand completely on the day when our Lord Jesus returns. Then you can be proud of us in the same way that we will be proud of you.

^15-16 So, because I was sure that you trusted me, I wanted to visit you twice. Then I could bring God's help to you twice. I decided to visit you first on my way to Macedonia.^[a] Then I would visit you again on my way back from Macedonia. After that, you could help to send me on my journey to Judea.^{[b] 17} I did not decide this in a careless way. I really wanted to do it. I do not decide to do things only to please myself, like someone who does not know God. I do not say ‘Yes,’ and then I immediately say ‘No’.

¹⁸ God always does what he says he will do. In the same way, my promise to you was not both ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. ¹⁹ Silas, Timothy and I told you the message about God's Son, Jesus Christ. Christ is not someone who changes his message between ‘Yes’ and ‘No’. Instead, he always says ‘Yes,’ and he does what he says. ²⁰ Christ says ‘Yes’ to all of God's promises, so that they become true. So when we pray, we say ‘Yes, amen!,’ because we know that Christ has done it. And when we do that, we are saying that God is great.

²¹ It is God that causes us to continue to trust Christ. He does that for us and for you, because we belong to Christ. God has chosen us to serve him. ²² He has also put his mark on us, to show that we belong to him. He has given his Spirit to us, to live in us. Because of that, we know that we will receive all the good things that God has promised.

²³ God will show that what I say is true! He knows my thoughts. Why did I decide not to come back to Corinth at this time? I did not come because I did not want to be angry with you. ²⁴ We are not trying to tell you what you must believe, like masters would do. You are already strong in your spirits because you trust God. So we want to help you to be really happy.

Jerusalem is like a useless vine

15 The Lord gave this message to me: ² ‘Son of man, the wood of a vine is no better than the wood of any other tree that grows in the forest.^{[a] 3} Nobody can use its wood to make anything that is useful. They cannot even make pegs to hang clothes on! ⁴ You can throw it on a fire to make the fire burn. But after the fire has finished, only a useless black piece of vine remains. ⁵ It was useless before you put it on the fire. It is even more useless after the fire has burnt it. You cannot make anything with it.

⁶ So this is what the Almighty Lord says: Among the trees of the forest, I have provided the wood of vines to burn on a fire. In the same way, I will take the people of Jerusalem to punish them. ⁷ I will become their enemy. They may have escaped from the fire once, but soon the fire will destroy them. When I punish them like that, then you will know that I am the Lord. ⁸ They have not served me faithfully. So I will destroy their land. That is what the Almighty Lord says.’

This is for the music leader, and he should use special music.

David wrote this prayer when the Philistines took hold of him in Gath.

Trust in God^[a]

This is for the music leader, and he should use special music.

David wrote this prayer when he ran away from King Saul to hide in a cave.

A prayer for help^[d]