M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

David and Ziba

16 When David had passed beyond the top of the Mount of Olives, he met Mephibosheth's servant Ziba.^[a] Ziba was waiting there for him with two donkeys. The donkeys were ready for people to ride them. They also carried 200 loaves of bread, 100 blocks of raisins, 100 blocks of figs and a leather bag of wine.

² The king asked Ziba, ‘Why have you brought all these things?’

Ziba answered, ‘The donkeys are for the king's family to ride. The bread and the fruit are for the young men to eat. The wine will help people who become weak when you travel through the desert.’

³ The king asked, ‘Where is your master's grandson?’^[b]

Ziba answered, ‘He is staying in Jerusalem. He thinks that the Israelites will now give back to him his grandfather Saul's kingdom.’

⁴ Then the king said to Ziba, ‘Everything that Mephibosheth had will now belong to you.’

Ziba said, ‘Thank you, sir. I hope that you will always be pleased with me.’

Shimei curses David

⁵ King David and his people arrived near Bahurim town.^[c] Gera's son Shimei came out to meet David. He was a relative of Saul. Shimei cursed David in a loud voice as he came towards him. ⁶ He threw stones at David and at the king's officers. There was a big group of people and brave soldiers all around David. ⁷ Shimei said, ‘Go away! Get out of here! You are a murderer, a wicked man! ⁸ The Lord has punished you because of all the people that you killed from Saul's family. You made yourself king, instead of Saul. But now the Lord has given the kingdom to your son, Absalom. All this trouble has come to you because you are a murderer!’

⁹ Then Zeruiah's son, Abishai, said to the king, ‘This man is only a useless dog! He must not curse you, my lord the king. I should go and cut off his head!’

¹⁰ The king said, ‘No! You sons of Zeruiah should not tell me what to do! Perhaps he is cursing me because the Lord has said to him, “Curse David.” Then we cannot say that he is wrong to curse me.’

¹¹ Then David said to Abishai and to all his officers, ‘My own son is trying to kill me. Now this man from Benjamin's tribe wants to do the same thing. The Lord has told him to do this, so do not stop him cursing me. ¹² Perhaps the Lord will understand my trouble. He may see how Shimei is cursing me and he may bless me instead.’

¹³ David and his men continued to walk along the road. Shimei walked along the side of the hill, near the road. As he went, he cursed David and he threw stones and dirt at David and his people. ¹⁴ When King David and all the people who were with him reached the Jordan River, they were tired and weak. So they rested there.

Ahithophel gives advice to Absalom

¹⁵ So Absalom and all the Israelites who were with him arrived in Jerusalem. Ahithophel came with him. ¹⁶ David's friend, Hushai the Arkite, had also come there. He went to Absalom and he said to him, ‘May the king live for ever! May the king live for ever!’

¹⁷ Absalom asked Hushai, ‘Why have you not been faithful to your friend David? Why did you not go with him?’

¹⁸ Hushai replied, ‘No, I will serve you. You are the king that the Lord has chosen. And all these people and the men of Israel have chosen you too. So I will stay with you. ¹⁹ I served your father when he was king. So now it is surely right for me to serve you, his son.’

²⁰ Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, ‘What do you think that we should do now? What is your advice?’

²¹ Ahithophel answered, ‘Sleep with your father's slave wives that are here. He left them to take care of his palace. Then all the people in Israel will know that you have insulted your father. They will know that he must now hate you. That will help your own men to be strong.’

²² So they put up a tent for Absalom on the roof of the palace. There he had sex with his father's slave wives, and all the Israelites could see him.

²³ In those days, people thought that Ahithophel's words were as good as a message from God. So Absalom trusted Ahithophel as his advisor, as David had done too.

9 I do not need to write to you about the money that you want to send to God's people in Jerusalem. ² I know that you want to help very much. I have told the believers in Macedonia how good you are. I tell them that you believers in Achaia have been ready to give your money since last year. Because you are so ready to help, most of them now also want to help. ³ But I do not want the way that I have praised you not to be true. So I am sending these men, our Christian friends, to come to you. I want to be sure that you will be ready to give your money. That is what I have told people about you.

⁴ Perhaps some believers from Macedonia might come with me. If you are not ready when we come, we would be ashamed. We would be ashamed because we trusted you. And I think that you would be ashamed as well! ⁵ So I decided to tell these men to visit you before I come myself. They will help you to prepare the gift that you promised. Then it will be ready when I arrive. Everyone will know that you really wanted to give this gift. Nobody has made you give it.

It is good to give as much as you can

⁶ Remember this: If a farmer plants only a few seeds, he will not get much as a result. But if he plants plenty of seeds, he will get a big harvest. ⁷ Each of you should think carefully and then decide how much you can give. Then you will not be sad to give that money. Nobody has made you give it. God loves someone who is happy to give help to other people.

⁸ Since God loves you, he is able to give you more than you need. You will always have every good thing that you need for yourselves. And you will have enough to do many good things to help other people. ⁹ The Bible says this about someone who helps other people:

¹⁰ It is God who supplies seeds for the farmer to plant. It is God who supplies bread for food. God will help you in the same way. He will give you plenty of things so that you can help other people. You will be like a farmer who plants many seeds. And God will cause those seeds to grow. There will be many good results from the help that you give to other people. That will be like a great harvest. ¹¹ God will make you rich with many good things. As a result, you will always be able to give plenty to other people. Many people will thank God because of your gifts that we take to them.

¹² This good work that you are doing is helping God's people. It is helping to supply what they need. And it is not only doing that. It is also causing many people to thank God very much. ¹³ Your gift of money will show people that you really want to help. People will say that God is great. They will see that you want to obey God. They will see that you are happy to give to them, and to everyone else. They will see that you really believe the good news about Christ, as you say you do. ¹⁴ They will want to thank you. They will pray to God for you. They will do that because they see how very kind God has been to you.

¹⁵ Yes, we should all thank God for his very great gift.^[b] That gift is too great to describe it with words!

A story about two bad sisters

23 The Lord gave this message to me: ² ‘Son of man, there were two sisters who had the same mother. ³ They were prostitutes in Egypt, from the time that they were both young women. Men touched their breasts and made love to them. ⁴ The older sister was called Oholah. The younger one was called Oholibah. In this story, Oholah is Samaria. Oholibah is Jerusalem. They became my wives, and later they gave birth to sons and daughters for me.^[a]

⁵ Oholah was my wife but she continued to live as a prostitute. She wanted men from Assyria to be her lovers. ⁶ Her lovers were soldiers who wore blue clothes. Some of them were army officers and leaders. They were all strong young men. Some of them rode on horses. ⁷ Oholah gave herself to them as a prostitute. She had sex with all the important young men of Assyria. She did these disgusting things with anyone that she wanted. She worshipped their idols and she made herself unclean. ⁸ She had lived as a prostitute in Egypt when she was young. Men had sex with her. They touched her breasts and they enjoyed her body for themselves. She continued to do that with the Assyrian men.

⁹ She wanted the Assyrian men to be her lovers. Because of that I put her under their power. ¹⁰ They removed her clothes to make her ashamed. They took away her sons and daughters. They attacked her and they killed her. Because of her punishment, women everywhere talked about her.

¹¹ Ohalah's sister, Oholibah, saw this, but she did even worse things than her sister. She wanted other lovers even more than her sister did. ¹² She, too, wanted Assyrian men to be her lovers. They were army officers and leaders. They were brave soldiers in beautiful clothes. Some of them rode on horses. They were all strong young men. ¹³ I saw that she was living in the same way that her sister had done. Like her sister, she made herself unclean.

¹⁴ But Oholibah did even worse things, as a prostitute does. She saw pictures of men on the walls. They were bright red pictures that people had made of Babylonian men. ¹⁵ The men wore belts around their bodies. They wore large cloths around their heads. They looked like Babylonian army officers who came from Chaldea. ¹⁶ When Oholibah saw these pictures, she wanted the men to be her lovers. She sent messages to them in Babylonia. ¹⁷ The Babylonian soldiers came to have sex with her. They did many disgusting things with her so that she was unclean. After they had done this to her, she became upset. She turned away from them.

¹⁸ She was not ashamed to have sex with many other men. Everyone knew that she lived as a prostitute. So I was very upset. I turned away from her, as I had turned away from her sister. ¹⁹ But she wanted more and more men to be her lovers. She remembered how she had lived as a prostitute in Egypt when she was a young woman. ²⁰ She wanted those strong men to be her lovers. They had sex in a strong way, like donkeys or horses. ²¹ Yes, Oholibah, you thought about the disgusting ways that you had sex when you were young. You wanted men to touch your breasts and make love to you as the Egyptian men had done.

²² So this is what the Almighty Lord says to you, Oholibah: “Listen to me! I will cause your lovers to become angry with you. The lovers that you turned away from will come to attack you. I will bring them from every direction to attack you. ²³ The soldiers from Babylon and from Chaldea will come. Men from Pekod, Shoa and Koa will come. All the Assyrian soldiers will come with them. They will be beautiful young men, army officers, leaders and important men. They will all ride on horses. ²⁴ They will attack you with their weapons, their chariots and with a large army of soldiers. They will come together all around you, on every side. They will have different kinds of shields. They will wear helmets on their heads. I will give them authority to judge you. They will punish you in the way that they choose.

²⁵ You have not been faithful to me, so I am very angry with you. I will cause these men to punish you in cruel ways. They will cut off your noses and your ears. They will use their swords to kill any men who remain. They will take away your sons and daughters. Fire will destroy any of your people who remain. ²⁶ They will pull off your clothes. They will take away your beautiful jewels. ²⁷ That is how I will stop you living in a disgusting way. You will no longer live as a prostitute, in the way that you lived in Egypt. You will not want to live in that way again. You will not think about how you lived in Egypt any more.”

²⁸ This is what the Almighty Lord says: “Listen! I will put you under the power of people that you hate. Those were the people that you turned away from because you were upset. ²⁹ They will be cruel to you. They will take away everything that you worked hard to get. When they leave you, you will have no clothes to wear. You will be ashamed. Everyone will see that you have lived as a prostitute and you have done disgusting things. ³⁰ I am punishing you in this way because you were not faithful to me. You wanted other nations to be your lovers. You became unclean because you worshipped their idols. ³¹ You have lived in the same bad way that your sister lived. So I will punish you as I punished her.”

³² This is what the Lord God says:

I, the Almighty Lord, have said this.”

³⁵ This is what the Almighty Lord says: “You have forgotten me. You have not been faithful to me. You have lived as a prostitute and you have done disgusting things. So now you must receive the punishment that you deserve.” ’

³⁶ The Lord said to me, ‘Son of man, you must judge Oholah and Oholibah. Warn them that they have done disgusting things. ³⁷ They have not been faithful to me. They have murdered people. They have worshipped idols. They have not been faithful to me as their husband. They have even offered their children as food to their idols. Those were my children that they burned with fire.

³⁸ Also, they have done these things against me: They made my holy place unclean. At the same time, they did not obey my rules for Sabbath days. ³⁹ They offered their sons as sacrifices to their idols. Then, on the same day, they came into my temple! That is how they made my own special house unclean.

⁴⁰ The two sisters sent messages to men in places far away. When the men came to visit them, the sisters washed themselves. Yes, you made your eyes beautiful with paint. You wore beautiful jewels. ⁴¹ You sat on a beautiful bed with a table in front of it. On the table you put incense and olive oil that I had given to you.

⁴² There was a crowd of happy men around them. They included men who came from the desert and who were drunk. They put rings on the sisters' hands and beautiful crowns on their heads. ⁴³ I said this about the woman who had become tired of having sex with so many men: “They will continue to have sex with her, as she is a prostitute.” ⁴⁴ So the men had sex with her, as men have sex with prostitutes. That is how they had sex with Oholah and Oholibah, those two prostitutes. ⁴⁵ But good men will say that those women are guilty. They will punish them as they deserve, because they have not been faithful to me. They have also murdered people.

⁴⁶ This is what the Almighty Lord says: Bring an army to attack those women. Make them very afraid. Take away their valuable things. ⁴⁷ The army will throw stones at them and cut them with their swords. They will kill their sons and daughters. They will destroy their houses with fire.

⁴⁸ That is how I will stop the people of this land from doing disgusting things. All the women will see what has happened to Oholah and Oholibah. They will not do the same disgusting things themselves. ⁴⁹ And you, Oholah and Oholibah, will receive the punishment that you deserve. You have lived as prostitutes, and you have not been faithful to me. Instead, you have worshipped idols. So I will punish you. Then you will know that I am the Almighty Lord. ’

David wrote this song for the music leader, to ask God to help him.

A prayer for help^[a]

A song for old age