M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

7 The men of Kiriath Jearim came and took Yahweh’s ark, and brought it into Abinadab’s house on the hill, and consecrated Eleazar his son to keep Yahweh’s ark. ² From the day that the ark stayed in Kiriath Jearim, the time was long—for it was twenty years; and all the house of Israel lamented after Yahweh. ³ Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, “If you are returning to Yahweh with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you, and direct your hearts to Yahweh, and serve him only; and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.” ⁴ Then the children of Israel removed the Baals and the Ashtaroth, and served Yahweh only. ⁵ Samuel said, “Gather all Israel to Mizpah, and I will pray to Yahweh for you.” ⁶ They gathered together to Mizpah, and drew water, and poured it out before Yahweh, and fasted on that day, and said there, “We have sinned against Yahweh.” Samuel judged the children of Israel in Mizpah.

⁷ When the Philistines heard that the children of Israel were gathered together at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up against Israel. When the children of Israel heard it, they were afraid of the Philistines. ⁸ The children of Israel said to Samuel, “Don’t stop crying to Yahweh our God for us, that he will save us out of the hand of the Philistines.” ⁹ Samuel took a suckling lamb, and offered it for a whole burnt offering to Yahweh. Samuel cried to Yahweh for Israel, and Yahweh answered him. ¹⁰ As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines came near to battle against Israel; but Yahweh thundered with a great thunder on that day on the Philistines and confused them; and they were struck down before Israel. ¹¹ The men of Israel went out of Mizpah and pursued the Philistines, and struck them until they came under Beth Kar.

¹² Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpah and Shen, and called its name Ebenezer,^[a] saying, “Yahweh helped us until now.” ¹³ So the Philistines were subdued, and they stopped coming within the border of Israel. Yahweh’s hand was against the Philistines all the days of Samuel.

¹⁴ The cities which the Philistines had taken from Israel were restored to Israel, from Ekron even to Gath; and Israel recovered its border out of the hand of the Philistines. There was peace between Israel and the Amorites.

¹⁵ Samuel judged Israel all the days of his life. ¹⁶ He went from year to year in a circuit to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah; and he judged Israel in all those places. ¹⁷ His return was to Ramah, for his house was there, and he judged Israel there; and he built an altar to Yahweh there.

8 When Samuel was old, he made his sons judges over Israel. ² Now the name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah. They were judges in Beersheba. ³ His sons didn’t walk in his ways, but turned away after dishonest gain, took bribes, and perverted justice.

⁴ Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together and came to Samuel to Ramah. ⁵ They said to him, “Behold, you are old, and your sons don’t walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.” ⁶ But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.”

Samuel prayed to Yahweh. ⁷ Yahweh said to Samuel, “Listen to the voice of the people in all that they tell you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me as the king over them. ⁸ According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even to this day, in that they have forsaken me and served other gods, so they also do to you. ⁹ Now therefore, listen to their voice. However, you shall protest solemnly to them, and shall show them the way of the king who will reign over them.”

¹⁰ Samuel told all Yahweh’s words to the people who asked him for a king. ¹¹ He said, “This will be the way of the king who shall reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them as his servants, for his chariots and to be his horsemen; and they will run before his chariots. ¹² He will appoint them to him for captains of thousands and captains of fifties; and he will assign some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest; and to make his instruments of war and the instruments of his chariots. ¹³ He will take your daughters to be perfumers, to be cooks, and to be bakers. ¹⁴ He will take your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, even your best, and give them to his servants. ¹⁵ He will take one tenth of your seed and of your vineyards, and give it to his officers and to his servants. ¹⁶ He will take your male servants, your female servants, your best young men, and your donkeys, and assign them to his own work. ¹⁷ He will take one tenth of your flocks; and you will be his servants. ¹⁸ You will cry out in that day because of your king whom you will have chosen for yourselves; and Yahweh will not answer you in that day.”

¹⁹ But the people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No, but we will have a king over us, ²⁰ that we also may be like all the nations; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles.”

²¹ Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of Yahweh. ²² Yahweh said to Samuel, “Listen to their voice, and make them a king.”

Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Everyone go to your own city.”

6 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? ² May it never be! We who died to sin, how could we live in it any longer? ³ Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will also be part of his resurrection; ⁶ knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin. ⁷ For he who has died has been freed from sin. ⁸ But if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him, ⁹ knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him! ¹⁰ For the death that he died, he died to sin one time; but the life that he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹ Thus consider yourselves also to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹² Therefore don’t let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. ¹³ Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. ¹⁴ For sin will not have dominion over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

¹⁵ What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that when you present yourselves as servants and obey someone, you are the servants of whomever you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. ¹⁸ Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness.

¹⁹ I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh; for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification. ²⁰ For when you were servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. ²¹ What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²² But now, being made free from sin and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification and the result of eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

44 The word that came to Jeremiah concerning all the Jews who lived in the land of Egypt, who lived at Migdol, and at Tahpanhes, and at Memphis, and in the country of Pathros, saying, ² “Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘You have seen all the evil that I have brought on Jerusalem, and on all the cities of Judah. Behold, today they are a desolation, and no man dwells in them, ³ because of their wickedness which they have committed to provoke me to anger, in that they went to burn incense, to serve other gods that they didn’t know, neither they, nor you, nor your fathers. ⁴ However I sent to you all my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them, saying, “Oh, don’t do this abominable thing that I hate.” ⁵ But they didn’t listen and didn’t incline their ear. They didn’t turn from their wickedness, to stop burning incense to other gods. ⁶ Therefore my wrath and my anger was poured out, and was kindled in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; and they are wasted and desolate, as it is today.’

⁷ “Therefore now Yahweh, the God of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Why do you commit great evil against your own souls, to cut off from yourselves man and woman, infant and nursing child out of the middle of Judah, to leave yourselves no one remaining, ⁸ in that you provoke me to anger with the works of your hands, burning incense to other gods in the land of Egypt where you have gone to live, that you may be cut off, and that you may be a curse and a reproach among all the nations of the earth? ⁹ Have you forgotten the wickedness of your fathers, the wickedness of the kings of Judah, the wickedness of their wives, your own wickedness, and the wickedness of your wives which they committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰ They are not humbled even to this day, neither have they feared, nor walked in my law, nor in my statutes, that I set before you and before your fathers.’

¹¹ “Therefore Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says: ‘Behold, I will set my face against you for evil, even to cut off all Judah. ¹² I will take the remnant of Judah that have set their faces to go into the land of Egypt to live there, and they will all be consumed. They will fall in the land of Egypt. They will be consumed by the sword and by the famine. They will die, from the least even to the greatest, by the sword and by the famine. They will be an object of horror, an astonishment, a curse, and a reproach. ¹³ For I will punish those who dwell in the land of Egypt, as I have punished Jerusalem, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; ¹⁴ so that none of the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, will escape or be left to return into the land of Judah, to which they have a desire to return to dwell there; for no one will return except those who will escape.’”

¹⁵ Then all the men who knew that their wives burned incense to other gods, and all the women who stood by, a great assembly, even all the people who lived in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, ¹⁶ “As for the word that you have spoken to us in Yahweh’s name, we will not listen to you. ¹⁷ But we will certainly perform every word that has gone out of our mouth, to burn incense to the queen of the sky and to pour out drink offerings to her, as we have done, we and our fathers, our kings and our princes, in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for then we had plenty of food, and were well, and saw no evil. ¹⁸ But since we stopped burning incense to the queen of the sky, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”

¹⁹ The women said, “When we burned incense to the queen of the sky and poured out drink offerings to her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings to her, without our husbands?”

²⁰ Then Jeremiah said to all the people—to the men and to the women, even to all the people who had given him an answer, saying, ²¹ “The incense that you burned in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, you and your fathers, your kings and your princes, and the people of the land, didn’t Yahweh remember them, and didn’t it come into his mind? ²² Thus Yahweh could no longer bear it, because of the evil of your doings and because of the abominations which you have committed. Therefore your land has become a desolation, an astonishment, and a curse, without inhabitant, as it is today. ²³ Because you have burned incense and because you have sinned against Yahweh, and have not obeyed Yahweh’s voice, nor walked in his law, nor in his statutes, nor in his testimonies; therefore this evil has happened to you, as it is today.”

²⁴ Moreover Jeremiah said to all the people, including all the women, “Hear Yahweh’s word, all Judah who are in the land of Egypt! ²⁵ Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, says, ‘You and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and with your hands have fulfilled it, saying, “We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of the sky, and to pour out drink offerings to her.”

“‘Establish then your vows, and perform your vows.’

²⁶ “Therefore hear Yahweh’s word, all Judah who dwell in the land of Egypt: ‘Behold, I have sworn by my great name,’ says Yahweh, ‘that my name will no more be named in the mouth of any man of Judah in all the land of Egypt, saying, “As the Lord Yahweh lives.” ²⁷ Behold, I watch over them for evil, and not for good; and all the men of Judah who are in the land of Egypt will be consumed by the sword and by the famine, until they are all gone. ²⁸ Those who escape the sword will return out of the land of Egypt into the land of Judah few in number. All the remnant of Judah, who have gone into the land of Egypt to live there, will know whose word will stand, mine or theirs.

²⁹ “‘This will be the sign to you,’ says Yahweh, ‘that I will punish you in this place, that you may know that my words will surely stand against you for evil.’ ³⁰ Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I will give Pharaoh Hophra king of Egypt into the hand of his enemies and into the hand of those who seek his life, just as I gave Zedekiah king of Judah into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, who was his enemy and sought his life.’”

For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David.

For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David.