M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

21 Then David came to Nob to Ahimelech the priest. Ahimelech came to meet David trembling, and said to him, “Why are you alone, and no man with you?” ² David said to Ahimelech the priest, “The king has commanded me to do something, and has said to me, ‘Let no one know anything about the business about which I send you, and what I have commanded you. I have sent the young men to a certain place.’ ³ Now therefore what is under your hand? Please give me five loaves of bread in my hand, or whatever is available.”

⁴ The priest answered David, and said, “I have no common bread, but there is holy bread; if only the young men have kept themselves from women.”

⁵ David answered the priest, and said to him, “Truly, women have been kept from us as usual these three days. When I came out, the vessels of the young men were holy, though it was only a common journey. How much more then today shall their vessels be holy?” ⁶ So the priest gave him holy bread; for there was no bread there but the show bread that was taken from before Yahweh, to be replaced with hot bread in the day when it was taken away.

⁷ Now a certain man of the servants of Saul was there that day, detained before Yahweh; and his name was Doeg the Edomite, the best of the herdsmen who belonged to Saul.

⁸ David said to Ahimelech, “Isn’t there here under your hand spear or sword? For I haven’t brought my sword or my weapons with me, because the king’s business required haste.”

⁹ The priest said, “Behold, the sword of Goliath the Philistine, whom you killed in the valley of Elah, is here wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you would like to take that, take it, for there is no other except that here.”

David said, “There is none like that. Give it to me.”

¹⁰ David arose and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. ¹¹ The servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David the king of the land? Didn’t they sing to one another about him in dances, saying,

¹² David laid up these words in his heart, and was very afraid of Achish the king of Gath. ¹³ He changed his behavior before them and pretended to be insane in their hands, and scribbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down on his beard. ¹⁴ Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is insane. Why then have you brought him to me? ¹⁵ Do I lack madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Should this fellow come into my house?”

22 David therefore departed from there and escaped to Adullam’s cave. When his brothers and all his father’s house heard it, they went down there to him. ² Everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered themselves to him; and he became captain over them. There were with him about four hundred men. ³ David went from there to Mizpeh of Moab; and he said to the king of Moab, “Please let my father and my mother come out to you, until I know what God will do for me.” ⁴ He brought them before the king of Moab; and they lived with him all the time that David was in the stronghold. ⁵ The prophet Gad said to David, “Don’t stay in the stronghold. Depart, and go into the land of Judah.”

Then David departed, and came into the forest of Hereth.

⁶ Saul heard that David was discovered, with the men who were with him. Now Saul was sitting in Gibeah, under the tamarisk tree in Ramah, with his spear in his hand, and all his servants were standing around him. ⁷ Saul said to his servants who stood around him, “Hear now, you Benjamites! Will the son of Jesse give everyone of you fields and vineyards? Will he make you all captains of thousands and captains of hundreds? ⁸ Is that why all of you have conspired against me, and there is no one who discloses to me when my son makes a treaty with the son of Jesse, and there is none of you who is sorry for me, or discloses to me that my son has stirred up my servant against me, to lie in wait, as it is today?”

⁹ Then Doeg the Edomite, who stood by the servants of Saul, answered and said, “I saw the son of Jesse coming to Nob, to Ahimelech the son of Ahitub. ¹⁰ He inquired of Yahweh for him, gave him food, and gave him the sword of Goliath the Philistine.”

¹¹ Then the king sent to call Ahimelech the priest, the son of Ahitub, and all his father’s house, the priests who were in Nob; and they all came to the king. ¹² Saul said, “Hear now, you son of Ahitub.”

He answered, “Here I am, my lord.”

¹³ Saul said to him, “Why have you conspired against me, you and the son of Jesse, in that you have given him bread, and a sword, and have inquired of God for him, that he should rise against me, to lie in wait, as it is today?”

¹⁴ Then Ahimelech answered the king, and said, “Who among all your servants is so faithful as David, who is the king’s son-in-law, captain of your body guard, and honored in your house? ¹⁵ Have I today begun to inquire of God for him? Be it far from me! Don’t let the king impute anything to his servant, nor to all the house of my father; for your servant knew nothing of all this, less or more.”

¹⁶ The king said, “You shall surely die, Ahimelech, you and all your father’s house.” ¹⁷ The king said to the guard who stood about him, “Turn and kill the priests of Yahweh, because their hand also is with David, and because they knew that he fled and didn’t disclose it to me.” But the servants of the king wouldn’t put out their hand to fall on the priests of Yahweh.

¹⁸ The king said to Doeg, “Turn and attack the priests!”

Doeg the Edomite turned, and he attacked the priests, and he killed on that day eighty-five people who wore a linen ephod. ¹⁹ He struck Nob, the city of the priests, with the edge of the sword—both men and women, children and nursing babies, and cattle, donkeys, and sheep, with the edge of the sword. ²⁰ One of the sons of Ahimelech the son of Ahitub, named Abiathar, escaped and fled after David. ²¹ Abiathar told David that Saul had slain Yahweh’s priests.

²² David said to Abiathar, “I knew on that day, when Doeg the Edomite was there, that he would surely tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of all the persons of your father’s house. ²³ Stay with me. Don’t be afraid, for he who seeks my life seeks your life. You will be safe with me.”

3 Brothers, I couldn’t speak to you as to spiritual, but as to fleshly, as to babies in Christ. ² I fed you with milk, not with solid food, for you weren’t yet ready. Indeed, you aren’t ready even now, ³ for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men? ⁴ For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you fleshly?

⁵ Who then is Apollos, and who is Paul, but servants through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave to him? ⁶ I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase. ⁷ So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. ⁸ Now he who plants and he who waters are the same, but each will receive his own reward according to his own labor. ⁹ For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s farming, God’s building.

¹⁰ According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it. But let each man be careful how he builds on it. ¹¹ For no one can lay any other foundation than that which has been laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² But if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, ¹³ each man’s work will be revealed. For the Day will declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself will test what sort of work each man’s work is. ¹⁴ If any man’s work remains which he built on it, he will receive a reward. ¹⁵ If any man’s work is burned, he will suffer loss, but he himself will be saved, but as through fire.

¹⁶ Don’t you know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? ¹⁷ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, which you are.

¹⁸ Let no one deceive himself. If anyone thinks that he is wise among you in this world, let him become a fool that he may become wise. ¹⁹ For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.”^{(A) 20} And again, “The Lord knows the reasoning of the wise, that it is worthless.”^{(B) 21} Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, ²² whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come. All are yours, ²³ and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

1 Now in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river Chebar, the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God.^[a]

² In the fifth of the month, which was the fifth year of King Jehoiachin’s captivity, ³ Yahweh’s^[b] word came to Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and Yahweh’s hand was there on him.

⁴ I looked, and behold,^[c] a stormy wind came out of the north: a great cloud, with flashing lightning, and a brightness around it, and out of the middle of it as it were glowing metal, out of the middle of the fire. ⁵ Out of its center came the likeness of four living creatures. This was their appearance: They had the likeness of a man. ⁶ Everyone had four faces, and each one of them had four wings. ⁷ Their feet were straight feet. The sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot; and they sparkled like burnished bronze. ⁸ They had the hands of a man under their wings on their four sides. The four of them had their faces and their wings like this: ⁹ Their wings were joined to one another. They didn’t turn when they went. Each one went straight forward.

¹⁰ As for the likeness of their faces, they had the face of a man. The four of them had the face of a lion on the right side. The four of them had the face of an ox on the left side. The four of them also had the face of an eagle. ¹¹ Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above. Two wings of each one touched another, and two covered their bodies. ¹² Each one went straight forward. Where the spirit was to go, they went. They didn’t turn when they went. ¹³ As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, like the appearance of torches. The fire went up and down among the living creatures. The fire was bright, and lightning went out of the fire. ¹⁴ The living creatures ran and returned as the appearance of a flash of lightning.

¹⁵ Now as I saw the living creatures, behold, there was one wheel on the earth beside the living creatures, for each of the four faces of it. ¹⁶ The appearance of the wheels and their work was like a beryl. The four of them had one likeness. Their appearance and their work was as it were a wheel within a wheel. ¹⁷ When they went, they went in their four directions. They didn’t turn when they went. ¹⁸ As for their rims, they were high and dreadful; and the four of them had their rims full of eyes all around.

¹⁹ When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them. When the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. ²⁰ Wherever the spirit was to go, they went. The spirit was to go there. The wheels were lifted up beside them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. ²¹ When those went, these went. When those stood, these stood. When those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up beside them; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.

²² Over the head of the living creature there was the likeness of an expanse, like an awesome crystal to look at, stretched out over their heads above. ²³ Under the expanse, their wings were straight, one toward the other. Each one had two which covered on this side, and each one had two which covered their bodies on that side. ²⁴ When they went, I heard the noise of their wings like the noise of great waters, like the voice of the Almighty, a noise of tumult like the noise of an army. When they stood, they let down their wings.

²⁵ There was a voice above the expanse that was over their heads. When they stood, they let down their wings. ²⁶ Above the expanse that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire^[d] stone. On the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man on it above. ²⁷ I saw as it were glowing metal, as the appearance of fire within it all around, from the appearance of his waist and upward; and from the appearance of his waist and downward I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him. ²⁸ As the appearance of the rainbow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around.

This was the appearance of the likeness of Yahweh’s glory. When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of one that spoke.

By David.