M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

2 Hannah prayed, and said,

¹¹ Elkanah went to Ramah to his house. The child served Yahweh before Eli the priest.

¹² Now the sons of Eli were wicked men. They didn’t know Yahweh. ¹³ The custom of the priests with the people was that when anyone offered a sacrifice, the priest’s servant came while the meat was boiling, with a fork of three teeth in his hand; ¹⁴ and he stabbed it into the pan, or kettle, or cauldron, or pot. The priest took all that the fork brought up for himself. They did this to all the Israelites who came there to Shiloh. ¹⁵ Yes, before they burned the fat, the priest’s servant came, and said to the man who sacrificed, “Give meat to roast for the priest; for he will not accept boiled meat from you, but raw.”

¹⁶ If the man said to him, “Let the fat be burned first, and then take as much as your soul desires;” then he would say, “No, but you shall give it to me now; and if not, I will take it by force.” ¹⁷ The sin of the young men was very great before Yahweh; for the men despised Yahweh’s offering. ¹⁸ But Samuel ministered before Yahweh, being a child, clothed with a linen ephod. ¹⁹ Moreover his mother made him a little robe, and brought it to him from year to year when she came up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. ²⁰ Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, and said, “May Yahweh give you offspring^[b] from this woman for the petition which was asked of Yahweh.” Then they went to their own home. ²¹ Yahweh visited Hannah, and she conceived and bore three sons and two daughters. The child Samuel grew before Yahweh.

²² Now Eli was very old; and he heard all that his sons did to all Israel, and how that they slept with the women who served at the door of the Tent of Meeting. ²³ He said to them, “Why do you do such things? For I hear of your evil dealings from all these people. ²⁴ No, my sons; for it is not a good report that I hear! You make Yahweh’s people disobey. ²⁵ If one man sins against another, God will judge him; but if a man sins against Yahweh, who will intercede for him?” Notwithstanding, they didn’t listen to the voice of their father, because Yahweh intended to kill them.

²⁶ The child Samuel grew on, and increased in favor both with Yahweh and also with men.

²⁷ A man of God came to Eli and said to him, “Yahweh says, ‘Did I reveal myself to the house of your father when they were in Egypt in bondage to Pharaoh’s house? ²⁸ Didn’t I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? Didn’t I give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? ²⁹ Why do you kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in my habitation, and honor your sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people?’ ³⁰ “Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, ‘I said indeed that your house and the house of your father should walk before me forever.’ But now Yahweh says, ‘Far be it from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me will be cursed. ³¹ Behold,^[c] the days come that I will cut off your arm and the arm of your father’s house, that there will not be an old man in your house. ³² You will see the affliction of my habitation, in all the wealth which I will give Israel. There shall not be an old man in your house forever. ³³ The man of yours whom I don’t cut off from my altar will consume your eyes^[d] and grieve your heart. All the increase of your house will die in the flower of their age. ³⁴ This will be the sign to you that will come on your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they will both die. ³⁵ I will raise up a faithful priest for myself who will do according to that which is in my heart and in my mind. I will build him a sure house. He will walk before my anointed forever. ³⁶ It will happen that everyone who is left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and will say, “Please put me into one of the priests’ offices, that I may eat a morsel of bread.”’”

2 Therefore you are without excuse, O man, whoever you are who judge. For in that which you judge another, you condemn yourself. For you who judge practice the same things. ² We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against those who practice such things. ³ Do you think this, O man who judges those who practice such things, and do the same, that you will escape the judgment of God? ⁴ Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? ⁵ But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God, ⁶ who “will pay back to everyone according to their works:”^{(A) 7} to those who by perseverance in well-doing seek for glory, honor, and incorruptibility, eternal life; ⁸ but to those who are self-seeking and don’t obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath, indignation, ⁹ oppression, and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

¹⁰ But glory, honor, and peace go to every man who does good, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. ¹¹ For there is no partiality with God. ¹² For as many as have sinned without the law will also perish without the law. As many as have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. ¹³ For it isn’t the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law will be justified ¹⁴ (for when Gentiles who don’t have the law do by nature the things of the law, these, not having the law, are a law to themselves, ¹⁵ in that they show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience testifying with them, and their thoughts among themselves accusing or else excusing them) ¹⁶ in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.

¹⁷ Indeed you bear the name of a Jew, rest on the law, glory in God, ¹⁸ know his will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, ¹⁹ and are confident that you yourself are a guide of the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, ²⁰ a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babies, having in the law the form of knowledge and of the truth. ²¹ You therefore who teach another, don’t you teach yourself? You who preach that a man shouldn’t steal, do you steal? ²² You who say a man shouldn’t commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? ²³ You who glory in the law, do you dishonor God by disobeying the law? ²⁴ For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” ^(B) just as it is written. ²⁵ For circumcision indeed profits, if you are a doer of the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. ²⁶ If therefore the uncircumcised keep the ordinances of the law, won’t his uncircumcision be accounted as circumcision? ²⁷ Won’t those who are physically uncircumcised, but fulfill the law, judge you, who with the letter and circumcision are a transgressor of the law? ²⁸ For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; ²⁹ but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.

40 The word which came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, after Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard had let him go from Ramah, when he had taken him being bound in chains among all the captives of Jerusalem and Judah who were carried away captive to Babylon. ² The captain of the guard took Jeremiah and said to him, “Yahweh your God pronounced this evil on this place; ³ and Yahweh has brought it, and done according as he spoke. Because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed his voice, therefore this thing has come on you. ⁴ Now, behold, I release you today from the chains which are on your hand. If it seems good to you to come with me into Babylon, come, and I will take care of you; but if it seems bad to you to come with me into Babylon, don’t. Behold, all the land is before you. Where it seems good and right to you to go, go there.” ⁵ Now while he had not yet gone back, “Go back then,” he said, “to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, whom the king of Babylon has made governor over the cities of Judah, and dwell with him among the people; or go wherever it seems right to you to go.”

So the captain of the guard gave him food and a present, and let him go. ⁶ Then Jeremiah went to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam to Mizpah, and lived with him among the people who were left in the land.

⁷ Now when all the captains of the forces who were in the fields, even they and their men, heard that the king of Babylon had made Gedaliah the son of Ahikam governor in the land, and had committed to him men, women, children, and of the poorest of the land, of those who were not carried away captive to Babylon, ⁸ then Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and Johanan and Jonathan the sons of Kareah, and Seraiah the son of Tanhumeth, and the sons of Ephai the Netophathite, and Jezaniah the son of the Maacathite, they and their men came to Gedaliah to Mizpah. ⁹ Gedaliah the son of Ahikam the son of Shaphan swore to them and to their men, saying, “Don’t be afraid to serve the Chaldeans. Dwell in the land, and serve the king of Babylon, and it will be well with you. ¹⁰ As for me, behold, I will dwell at Mizpah, to stand before the Chaldeans who will come to us; but you, gather wine and summer fruits and oil, and put them in your vessels, and dwell in your cities that you have taken.”

¹¹ Likewise when all the Jews who were in Moab, and among the children of Ammon, and in Edom, and who were in all the countries, heard that the king of Babylon had left a remnant of Judah, and that he had set over them Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the son of Shaphan, ¹² then all the Jews returned out of all places where they were driven, and came to the land of Judah, to Gedaliah, to Mizpah, and gathered very much wine and summer fruits.

¹³ Moreover Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the captains of the forces who were in the fields, came to Gedaliah to Mizpah, ¹⁴ and said to him, “Do you know that Baalis the king of the children of Ammon has sent Ishmael the son of Nethaniah to take your life?”

But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam didn’t believe them.

¹⁵ Then Johanan the son of Kareah spoke to Gedaliah in Mizpah secretly, saying, “Please let me go, and I will kill Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, and no man will know it. Why should he take your life, that all the Jews who are gathered to you should be scattered, and the remnant of Judah perish?”

¹⁶ But Gedaliah the son of Ahikam said to Johanan the son of Kareah, “You shall not do this thing, for you speak falsely of Ishmael.”

A Psalm by David.

A Poem by David.