M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

34 ^1-2 The Lord told Moses to tell the people of Israel, “When you come into the land of Canaan (I am giving you the entire land as your homeland), ³ the southern portion of the country will be the wilderness of Zin, along the edge of Edom. The southern boundary will begin at the Dead Sea, ⁴ and will continue south past Scorpion Pass^[a] in the direction of Zin. Its southernmost point will be Kadesh-barnea, from which it will go to Hazaraddar, and on to Azmon. ⁵ From Azmon the boundary will follow the brook of Egypt down to the Mediterranean Sea.

⁶ “Your western boundary will be the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea.

^7-9 “Your northern border will begin at the Mediterranean Sea and will proceed eastward to Mount Hor, then to Lebo-Hamath, and on through Zedad and Ziphron to Hazar-enan.

^10-11 “The eastern border will be from Hazar-enan south to Shepham, then on to Riblah at the east side of Ain. From there it will make a large half-circle, first going south and then westward until it touches the southernmost tip of the Sea of Galilee, ¹² and then along the Jordan River, ending at the Dead Sea.”

¹³ “This is the territory you are to apportion among yourselves by lot,” Moses said. “It is to be divided up among the nine and one-half tribes, ^14-15 for the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh have already been assigned land on the east side of the Jordan, opposite Jericho.”

^16-28 And the Lord said to Moses, “These are the names of the men I have appointed to handle the dividing up of the land: Eleazar the priest, Joshua (son of Nun), and one leader from each tribe, as listed below:

³⁸ Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins and didn’t destroy them all. Many and many a time he held back his anger. ³⁹ For he remembered that they were merely mortal men, gone in a moment like a breath of wind.

⁴⁰ Oh, how often they rebelled against him in those desert years and grieved his heart. ⁴¹ Again and again they turned away and tempted God to kill them, and limited the Holy One of Israel from giving them his blessings. ⁴² They forgot his power and love and how he had rescued them from their enemies; ⁴³ they forgot the plagues he sent upon the Egyptians in Tanis^[a]— ⁴⁴ how he turned their rivers into blood so that no one could drink, ⁴⁵ how he sent vast swarms of flies to fill the land, and how the frogs had covered all of Egypt!

⁴⁶ He gave their crops to caterpillars. Their harvest was consumed by locusts. ⁴⁷ He destroyed their grapevines and their sycamores with hail. ⁴⁸ Their cattle died in the fields, mortally wounded by huge hailstones from heaven. Their sheep were killed by lightning. ⁴⁹ He loosed on them the fierceness of his anger, sending sorrow and trouble. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels. ⁵⁰ He gave free course to his anger and did not spare the Egyptians’ lives, but handed them over to plagues and sickness. ⁵¹ Then he killed the eldest son^[b] in each Egyptian family—he who was the beginning of its strength and joy.

⁵² But he led forth his own people like a flock, guiding them safely through the wilderness. ⁵³ He kept them safe, so they were not afraid. But the sea closed in upon their enemies and overwhelmed them. ⁵⁴ He brought them to the border of his land of blessing, to this land of hills he made for them. ⁵⁵ He drove out the nations occupying the land and gave each tribe of Israel its apportioned place as its home.

⁵⁶ Yet though he did all this for them, they still rebelled against the God above all gods and refused to follow his commands. ⁵⁷ They turned back from entering the Promised Land and disobeyed as their fathers had. Like a crooked arrow, they missed the target of God’s will. ⁵⁸ They made him angry by erecting idols and altars to other gods.

⁵⁹ When God saw their deeds, his wrath was strong and he despised his people. ⁶⁰ Then he abandoned his Tabernacle at Shiloh, where he had lived among mankind, ⁶¹ and allowed his Ark to be captured; he surrendered his glory into enemy hands. ⁶² He caused his people to be butchered because his anger was intense. ⁶³ Their young men were killed by fire, and their girls died before they were old enough to sing their wedding songs. ⁶⁴ The priests were slaughtered, and their widows died before they could even begin their lament. ⁶⁵ Then the Lord rose up as though awakening from sleep, and like a mighty man aroused by wine, ⁶⁶ he routed his enemies; he drove them back and sent them to eternal shame. ⁶⁷ But he rejected Joseph’s family, the tribe of Ephraim, ⁶⁸ and chose the tribe of Judah—and Mount Zion, which he loved. ⁶⁹ There he built his towering temple, solid and enduring as the heavens and the earth. ⁷⁰ He chose his servant David, taking him from feeding sheep ^71-72 and from following the ewes with lambs; God presented David to his people as their shepherd, and he cared for them with a true heart and skillful hands.

26 Listen to them singing! In that day the whole land of Judah will sing this song:

“Our city is strong! We are surrounded by the walls of his salvation!” ² Open the gates to everyone, for all may enter in who love the Lord. ³ He will keep in perfect peace all those who trust in him, whose thoughts turn often to the Lord! ⁴ Trust in the Lord God always, for in the Lord Jehovah is your everlasting strength. ⁵ He humbles the proud and brings the haughty city to the dust; its walls come crashing down. ⁶ He presents it to the poor and needy for their use.

⁷ But for good men the path is not uphill and rough! God does not give them a rough and treacherous path, but smooths the road before them. ⁸ O Lord, we love to do your will! Our hearts’ desire is to glorify your name. ⁹ All night long I search for you; earnestly I seek for God; for only when you come in judgment on the earth to punish it will people turn away from wickedness and do what is right.

¹⁰ Your kindness to the wicked doesn’t make them good; they keep on doing wrong and take no notice of your majesty. ¹¹ They do not listen when you threaten; they will not look to see your upraised fist. Show them how much you love your people. Perhaps then they will be ashamed! Yes, let them be burned up by the fire reserved for your enemies.

¹² Lord, grant us peace; for all we have and are has come from you. ¹³ O Lord our God, once we worshiped other gods; but now we worship you alone. ¹⁴ Those we served before are dead and gone; never again will they return. You came against them and destroyed them, and they are long forgotten. ¹⁵ O praise the Lord! He has made our nation very great. He has widened the boundaries of our land!

¹⁶ Lord, in their distress they sought for you. When your punishment was on them, they poured forth a whispered prayer. ¹⁷ How we missed your presence, Lord! We suffered as a woman giving birth who cries and writhes in pain. ¹⁸ We too have writhed in agony, but all to no avail. No deliverance has come from all our efforts. ¹⁹ Yet we have this assurance: Those who belong to God shall live again. Their bodies shall rise again! Those who dwell in the dust shall awake and sing for joy! For God’s light of life will fall like dew upon them!

²⁰ Go home, my people, and lock the doors! Hide for a little while until the Lord’s wrath against your enemies has passed. ²¹ Look! The Lord is coming from the heavens to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will no longer hide the murderers. The guilty will be found.

4 Dearly loved friends, don’t always believe everything you hear just because someone says it is a message from God: test it first to see if it really is. For there are many false teachers around, ² and the way to find out if their message is from the Holy Spirit is to ask: Does it really agree that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, actually became man with a human body? If so, then the message is from God. ³ If not, the message is not from God but from one who is against Christ, like the “Antichrist” you have heard about who is going to come, and his attitude of enmity against Christ is already abroad in the world.

⁴ Dear young friends, you belong to God and have already won your fight with those who are against Christ because there is someone in your hearts who is stronger than any evil teacher in this wicked world. ⁵ These men belong to this world, so, quite naturally, they are concerned about worldly affairs and the world pays attention to them. ⁶ But we are children of God; that is why only those who have walked and talked with God will listen to us. Others won’t. That is another way to know whether a message is really from God; for if it is, the world won’t listen to it.

⁷ Dear friends, let us practice loving each other, for love comes from God and those who are loving and kind show that they are the children of God, and that they are getting to know him better. ⁸ But if a person isn’t loving and kind, it shows that he doesn’t know God—for God is love.

⁹ God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into this wicked world to bring to us eternal life through his death. ¹⁰ In this act we see what real love is: it is not our love for God but his love for us when he sent his Son to satisfy God’s anger against our sins.

¹¹ Dear friends, since God loved us as much as that, we surely ought to love each other too. ¹² For though we have never yet seen God, when we love each other God lives in us, and his love within us grows ever stronger. ¹³ And he has put his own Holy Spirit into our hearts as a proof to us that we are living with him and he with us. ¹⁴ And furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now tell all the world that God sent his Son to be their Savior. ¹⁵ Anyone who believes and says that Jesus is the Son of God has God living in him, and he is living with God.

¹⁶ We know how much God loves us because we have felt his love and because we believe him when he tells us that he loves us dearly. God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him. ¹⁷ And as we live with Christ, our love grows more perfect and complete; so we will not be ashamed and embarrassed at the day of judgment, but can face him with confidence and joy because he loves us and we love him too.

¹⁸ We need have no fear of someone who loves us perfectly; his perfect love for us eliminates all dread of what he might do to us. If we are afraid, it is for fear of what he might do to us and shows that we are not fully convinced that he really loves us. ¹⁹ So you see, our love for him comes as a result of his loving us first.

²⁰ If anyone says “I love God,” but keeps on hating his brother, he is a liar; for if he doesn’t love his brother who is right there in front of him, how can he love God whom he has never seen? ²¹ And God himself has said that one must love not only God but his brother too.