M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

32 When Israel arrived in the land of Jazar and Gilead, the tribes of Reuben and Gad (who had large flocks of sheep) noticed what wonderful sheep country it was. ² So they came to Moses and Eleazar the priest and the other tribal leaders and said, ^3-4 “The Lord has used Israel to destroy the population of this whole countryside—Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo, and Beon. And it is all wonderful sheep country, ideal for our flocks. ⁵ Please let us have this land as our portion instead of the land on the other side of the Jordan River.”

⁶ “You mean you want to sit here while your brothers go across and do all the fighting?” Moses demanded. ⁷ “Are you trying to discourage the rest of the people from going across to the land that the Lord has given them? ⁸ This is the same kind of thing your fathers did! I sent them from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, ⁹ but when they finished their survey and returned from the valley of Eshcol, they discouraged the people from going on into the Promised Land. ^10-11 And the Lord’s anger was hot against them, and he swore that of all those he had rescued from Egypt, no one over twenty years of age would ever see the land he promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, for they had refused to do what he wanted them to.

¹² “The only exceptions were Caleb (son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite) and Joshua (son of Nun)—for they wholeheartedly followed the Lord and urged the people to go on into the Promised Land.

¹³ “The Lord made us wander back and forth in the wilderness for forty years until all that evil generation died. ¹⁴ But here you are, a brood of sinners doing exactly the same thing! Only there are more of you, so Jehovah’s anger against Israel will be even fiercer this time. ¹⁵ If you turn away from God like this, he will make the people stay even longer in the wilderness, and you will be responsible for destroying his people and bringing disaster to this entire nation!”

¹⁶ “Not at all!” they explained. “We will build sheepfolds for our flocks and cities for our little ones, ¹⁷ but we ourselves will go over armed, ahead of the rest of the people of Israel, until we have brought them safely to their inheritance. But first we will need to build walled cities here for our families, to keep them safe from attack by the local inhabitants. ¹⁸ We will not settle down here until all the people of Israel have received their inheritance. ¹⁹ We don’t want land on the other side of the Jordan; we would rather have it on this side, on the east.”

²⁰ Then Moses said, “All right, if you will do what you have said and arm yourselves for Jehovah’s war, ²¹ and keep your troops across the Jordan until the Lord has driven out his enemies, ²² then, when the land is finally subdued before the Lord, you may return. Then you will have discharged your duty to the Lord and to the rest of the people of Israel. And the land on the eastern side shall be your possession from the Lord. ²³ But if you don’t do as you have said, then you will have sinned against the Lord, and you may be sure that your sin will catch up with you. ²⁴ Go ahead and build cities for your families and sheepfolds for your sheep, and do all you have said.”

²⁵ “We will follow your instructions exactly,” the people of Gad and Reuben replied. ²⁶ “Our children, wives, flocks, and cattle shall stay here in the cities of Gilead. ²⁷ But all of us who are conscripted will go over to battle for the Lord, just as you have said.”

²⁸ So Moses gave his approval by saying to Eleazar, Joshua, and the tribal leaders of Israel, ²⁹ “If all the men of the tribes of Gad and Reuben who are conscripted for the Lord’s battles go with you over the Jordan, then, when the land is conquered, you must give them the land of Gilead; ³⁰ but if they refuse, then they must accept land among the rest of you in the land of Canaan.”

³¹ The tribes of Gad and Reuben said again, “As the Lord has commanded, so we will do— ³² we will follow the Lord fully armed into Canaan, but our own land shall be here on this side of the Jordan.”

³³ So Moses assigned the territory of King Sihon of the Amorites, and of King Og of Bashan—all the land and cities—to the tribes of Gad, Reuben, and the half-tribe of Manasseh (son of Joseph).

^34-36 The people of Gad built these cities: Dibon, Ataroth, Aroer, Atroth-shophan, Jazer, Jogbehah, Beth-nimrah, Beth-haran. They were all fortified cities with sheepfolds.

^37-38 The children of Reuben built the following cities: Heshbon, Elealeh, Kiriathaim, Nebo, Baal-meon, Sibmah. (The Israelites later changed the names of some of these cities they had conquered and rebuilt.)

³⁹ Then the clan of Machir of the tribe of Manasseh went to Gilead and conquered it, and drove out the Amorites who were living there. ⁴⁰ So Moses gave Gilead to the Machirites, and they lived there. ⁴¹ The men of Jair, another clan of the tribe of Manasseh, occupied many of the towns in Gilead, and changed the name of their area to Havroth-jair. ⁴² Meanwhile, a man named Nobah led an army^[a] to Kenath and its surrounding villages, and occupied them, and he called the area Nobah, after his own name.

77 I cry to the Lord; I call and call to him. Oh, that he would listen. ² I am in deep trouble and I need his help so much. All night long I pray, lifting my hands to heaven, pleading. There can be no joy for me until he acts. ³ I think of God and moan, overwhelmed with longing for his help. ⁴ I cannot sleep until you act. I am too distressed even to pray!

⁵ I keep thinking of the good old days of the past, long since ended. ⁶ Then my nights were filled with joyous songs. I search my soul and meditate upon the difference now. ⁷ Has the Lord rejected me forever? Will he never again be favorable? ⁸ Is his loving-kindness gone forever? Has his promise failed? ⁹ Has he forgotten to be kind to one so undeserving? Has he slammed the door in anger on his love? ¹⁰ And I said: This is my fate, that the blessings of God have changed to hate.^{[a] 11} I recall the many miracles he did for me so long ago. ¹² Those wonderful deeds are constantly in my thoughts. I cannot stop thinking about them.

¹³ O God, your ways are holy. Where is there any other as mighty as you? ¹⁴ You are the God of miracles and wonders! You still demonstrate your awesome power.

¹⁵ You have redeemed us who are the sons of Jacob and of Joseph by your might. ¹⁶ When the Red Sea saw you, how it feared! It trembled to its depths! ¹⁷ The clouds poured down their rain, the thunder rolled and crackled in the sky. Your lightning flashed. ¹⁸ There was thunder in the whirlwind; the lightning lighted up the world! The earth trembled and shook.

¹⁹ Your road led by a pathway through the sea—a pathway no one knew was there! ²⁰ You led your people along that road like a flock of sheep, with Moses and Aaron as their shepherds.

24 Look! The Lord is overturning the land of Judah and making it a vast wasteland of destruction. See how he is emptying out all its people and scattering them over the face of the earth. ² Priests and people, servants and masters, slave girls and mistresses, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, bankers and debtors—none will be spared. ³ The land will be completely emptied and looted. The Lord has spoken. ^4-5 The land suffers for the sins of its people. The earth languishes, the crops wither, the skies refuse their rain. The land is defiled by crime; the people have twisted the laws of God and broken his everlasting commands. ⁶ Therefore the curse of God is upon them; they are left desolate, destroyed by the drought. Few will be left alive.

⁷ All the joys of life will go: the grape harvest will fail, the wine will be gone, the merrymakers will sigh and mourn. ⁸ The melodious chords of the harp and timbrel are heard no more; the happy days are ended. ⁹ No more are the joys of wine and song; strong drink turns bitter in the mouth.

¹⁰ The city lies in chaos; every home and shop is locked up tight to keep out looters. ¹¹ Mobs form in the streets, crying for wine; joy has reached its lowest ebb; gladness has been banished from the land. ¹² The city is left in ruins; its gates are battered down. ¹³ Throughout the land^[a] the story is the same—only a remnant is left.

¹⁴ But all who are left will shout and sing for joy; those in the west will praise the majesty of God, ^15-16 and those in the east will respond with praise. Hear them singing to the Lord from the ends of the earth, singing glory to the Righteous One!

But my heart is heavy with grief, for evil still prevails and treachery is everywhere. ¹⁷ Terror and the captivity of hell are still your lot, O men of the world. ¹⁸ When you flee in terror, you will fall into a pit, and if you escape from the pit, you will step into a trap, for destruction falls from the heavens upon you; the world is shaken beneath you. ¹⁹ The earth has broken down in utter collapse; everything is lost, abandoned, and confused. ²⁰ The world staggers like a drunkard; it shakes like a tent in a storm. It falls and will not rise again, for the sins of the earth are very great.

²¹ On that day the Lord will punish the fallen angels in the heavens and the proud rulers of the nations on earth. ²² They will be rounded up like prisoners and imprisoned in a dungeon until they are tried and condemned. ²³ Then the Lord of heaven’s armies will mount his throne in Zion and rule gloriously in Jerusalem, in the sight of all the elders of his people. Such glory there will be that all the brightness of the sun and moon will seem to fade away.

2 My little children, I am telling you this so that you will stay away from sin. But if you sin, there is someone to plead for you before the Father. His name is Jesus Christ, the one who is all that is good and who pleases God completely. ² He is the one who took God’s wrath against our sins upon himself and brought us into fellowship with God; and he is the forgiveness for our sins,^[a] and not only ours but all the world’s.

³ And how can we be sure that we belong to him? By looking within ourselves: are we really trying to do what he wants us to?

⁴ Someone may say, “I am a Christian; I am on my way to heaven; I belong to Christ.” But if he doesn’t do what Christ tells him to, he is a liar. ⁵ But those who do what Christ tells them to will learn to love God more and more. That is the way to know whether or not you are a Christian. ⁶ Anyone who says he is a Christian should live as Christ did.

⁷ Dear brothers, I am not writing out a new rule for you to obey, for it is an old one you have always had, right from the start. You have heard it all before. ⁸ Yet it is always new, and works for you just as it did for Christ; and as we obey this commandment, to love one another, the darkness in our lives disappears and the new light of life in Christ shines in.

⁹ Anyone who says he is walking in the light of Christ but dislikes his fellow man is still in darkness. ¹⁰ But whoever loves his fellow man is “walking in the light” and can see his way without stumbling around in darkness and sin. ¹¹ For he who dislikes his brother is wandering in spiritual darkness and doesn’t know where he is going, for the darkness has made him blind so that he cannot see the way.

¹² I am writing these things to all of you, my little children, because your sins have been forgiven in the name of Jesus our Savior. ¹³ I am saying these things to you older men because you really know Christ, the one who has been alive from the beginning. And you young men, I am talking to you because you have won your battle with Satan. And I am writing to you younger boys and girls because you, too, have learned to know God our Father.

¹⁴ And so I say to you fathers who know the eternal God, and to you young men who are strong with God’s Word in your hearts, and have won your struggle against Satan: ¹⁵ Stop loving this evil world and all that it offers you, for when you love these things you show that you do not really love God; ¹⁶ for all these worldly things, these evil desires—the craze for sex, the ambition to buy everything that appeals to you, and the pride that comes from wealth and importance—these are not from God. They are from this evil world itself. ¹⁷ And this world is fading away, and these evil, forbidden things will go with it, but whoever keeps doing the will of God will live forever.

¹⁸ Dear children, this world’s last hour has come. You have heard about the Antichrist who is coming—the one who is against Christ—and already many such persons have appeared. This makes us all the more certain that the end of the world is near. ¹⁹ These “against-Christ” people used to be members of our churches, but they never really belonged with us or else they would have stayed. When they left us it proved that they were not of us at all.

²⁰ But you are not like that, for the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you know the truth. ²¹ So I am not writing to you as to those who need to know the truth, but I warn you as those who can discern the difference between true and false.

²² And who is the greatest liar? The one who says that Jesus is not Christ. Such a person is antichrist, for he does not believe in God the Father and in his Son. ²³ For a person who doesn’t believe in Christ, God’s Son, can’t have God the Father either. But he who has Christ, God’s Son, has God the Father also.

²⁴ So keep on believing what you have been taught from the beginning. If you do, you will always be in close fellowship with both God the Father and his Son. ²⁵ And he himself has promised us this: eternal life.

²⁶ These remarks of mine about the Antichrist are pointed at those who would dearly love to blindfold you and lead you astray. ²⁷ But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you, in your hearts, so that you don’t need anyone to teach you what is right. For he teaches you all things, and he is the Truth, and no liar; and so, just as he has said, you must live in Christ, never to depart from him.

²⁸ And now, my little children, stay in happy fellowship with the Lord so that when he comes you will be sure that all is well and will not have to be ashamed and shrink back from meeting him. ²⁹ Since we know that God is always good and does only right, we may rightly assume that all those who do right are his children.