M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Moses’ First Address[a]
Chapter 1
Introduction.[b] 1 These are the words that Moses spoke to the whole of Israel on the desert side of the Jordan, in the Arabah,[c] opposite Suph, between Paran, Tophel, Laban, Hazeroth, and Dizahab. 2 This was an eleven days’ journey from Horeb[d] to Kadesh-barnea by way of the highlands of Seir.
3 On the first day of the eleventh month of the fortieth year, Moses told the Israelites all that the Lord had commanded him to say to them.[e] 4 This was after he had killed Sihon, the king of the Amorites who lived in Heshbon, and Og, the king of Bashan, who lived in Ashtaroth and Edrei.[f]
Command to Leave Horeb. 5 On the eastern side of the Jordan, in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying, 6 The Lord, our God, spoke to us at Horeb, saying, “You have stayed at this mountain long enough. 7 Go and proceed into the hill country of the Amorites, into all the territory neighboring the Arabah, into the hill country and the lowlands, into the Negeb and the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites and Lebanon, as far as the great river, the River Euphrates. 8 Behold, I have given you the land. Go in and take possession of the land that the Lord promised he would give to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants after them.”
Appointment of Leaders. 9 At that time I said to you, “I am not able to carry the burden of leading you all by myself. 10 The Lord, your God, has multiplied you and now you are as numerous as the stars in the heavens. 11 May the Lord, the God of your fathers, multiply you a thousand times over and bless you, as he has promised you. 12 How can I handle your problems and your burdens and your disputes all by myself? 13 Choose some wise, prudent, and respected men from your tribesmen, and I will appoint them as your leaders.”
14 They answered, saying, “It would be good to do what you suggested.” 15 So I took the leading men of your tribes, wise and respected men, and made them your leaders, captains of the thousands, and captains of the hundreds, and captains of the fifties and the tens, as your tribal officials. 16 At that time I instructed your judges, “Listen to the disputes among your brethren and judge them justly, whether between a man and his fellow countryman or even the foreigner who is with him.[g] 17 Do not show partiality in judging; listen to both the lowly and the great. Do not be afraid of anyone, for judgment belongs to God. Bring me any case that is too difficult for you and I will hear it.” 18 At that time I instructed you concerning everything that you were to do.
19 Twelve Explorers. Then, as the Lord, our God, had commanded us, we set out from Horeb. We passed through the great and terrible wilderness that you have seen up into the hill country of the Amorites, coming to Kadesh-barnea. 20 I said to you, “Come up into the hill country of the Amorites that the Lord, our God, is giving to us. 21 Look! The Lord, your God, has given the land to you. Go up and take possession of it, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has instructed you. Do not be afraid or discouraged.”
22 All of you came to me and said, “Let us send men ahead of ourselves to explore the land. They can bring a report back to us as to which way we should travel and as to what cities we will encounter.”
23 This seemed to be a very good idea to me. I chose twelve of your men, one from each tribe. 24 They left and went up into the hill country and reached the Valley of Eshcol which they explored. 25 They gathered some of the fruit of the land and brought it down to us, reporting, “The land that the Lord, our God, has given us is good.”
26 The People Rebel. But you were unwilling to go up. You defied the command of the Lord, your God. 27 You complained in your tents and said, “It is because the Lord hates us that he brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites so they might destroy us. 28 Why should we go up? Our brothers have frightened us by saying, ‘The people are larger and taller than we are. The cities have great walls that reach up into the heavens. Moreover, there are the sons of the Anakim,[h] we have seen them there.’ ”
29 But I said to them, “Do not be afraid of them! 30 The Lord, your God, marches before you. He will fight for you, just as he did on your behalf in Egypt, as you yourselves have seen. 31 You saw how the Lord, your God, carried you all throughout your journey in the wilderness, just as a man carries his son, until you arrived in this place.” 32 Yet, in spite of this, you did not trust the Lord, your God. 33 He went ahead of you on your journey, as fire by night to search out a place for you to pitch your tents and as cloud by day to show you the path by which you should travel.
34 When the Lord heard your words, he became angry and swore, 35 “Not one of these men from this evil generation will see the good land that I promised to give to your fathers 36 except for Caleb, the son of Jephunneh. He will see it, and I will give him and his children the land upon which he has set foot, for he has wholeheartedly followed the Lord.”
37 The Lord grew angry with me because of you and said, “You are not going to enter it either. 38 Joshua, the son of Nun, who assists you, will enter it. Encourage him, for he will bring Israel in to inherit it. 39 Furthermore, your children whom you said would be taken captive, those who do not yet know the difference between good and evil, they will enter it. I will give it to them, and they will take possession of it. 40 But as for you, turn back and set out toward the wilderness along the route to the Red Sea.”
41 Then you replied and said to me, “We have sinned against the Lord. We will go up and fight as the Lord, our God, has commanded us.” So every one of you put on your weapons, thinking it would be easy to go up into the hill country.
42 The Lord said to me, “Say to them, ‘Do not go up, nor fight. Otherwise you will be slain by your enemies.’ ” 43 So I spoke to you, but you would not listen to me. You defied the command of the Lord and arrogantly went up into the hill country. 44 The Amorites who dwell in that hill country came out against you and chased you like bees, beating you down from Seir all the way to Hormah. 45 You came back and wept before the Lord, but the Lord would not pay attention to your voice nor give ear to you. 46 So you stayed in Kadesh for a long time, all the days that you spent there.
Psalm 81[a]
Exhortation To Worship Worthily
1 For the director.[b] “Upon the gittith.” Of Asaph.
2 Sing out your joy to God our strength;
shout aloud to the God of Jacob.[c]
3 Raise the chant and sound the tambourine;
play the pleasant harp and the lyre.
4 Sound the trumpet at the new moon,
and also at the full moon on the day of our Feast.[d]
5 For this is a law in Israel,
a decree of the God of Jacob.
6 He imposed this testimony on Joseph[e]
when he departed from the land of Egypt.
I now hear an unfamiliar voice:
7 “I lifted the burden from their shoulders;
their hands put aside the laborer’s basket.[f]
8 When you cried out to me in distress, I rescued you;[g]
from the thunderclouds I answered you;
I tested you at the waters of Meribah: Selah
9 “ ‘Listen to me, O my people, while I warn you.
O Israel, if only you would listen to me!
10 You must not accept a foreign god in your presence;
you must not bow down to an alien deity.
11 I am the Lord, your God,
who brought you up from the land of Egypt;
open your mouth[h] wide so that I may fill it.’
12 “But my people did not listen to my voice;
Israel refused to obey me.[i]
13 So I abandoned them to their stubborn hearts[j]
and let them follow their own devices.
14 [k]“If only my people would listen to me,
if only Israel would walk in my ways,[l]
15 I would quickly subdue their enemies
and raise my hand[m] against their foes.
16 “Then those who hate the Lord[n] would tremble before him,
for their doom would last forever.
17 But Israel he would feed with the finest of wheat[o]
and fill them with honey from the rock.”
Psalm 82[p]
Judgment on Abuse of Authority
1 A psalm of Asaph.[q]
God takes his place in the divine council;[r]
in the midst of the gods he pronounces judgment:
2 “How long will you issue unfair judgments
and rule in favor of those who are wicked?[s] Selah
3 [t]“Grant justice to the weak and the orphan;
defend the rights of the lowly and the poor.
4 Rescue the wretched and the needy;
free them from the hand of the wicked.
5 “They neither know nor understand;
they wander around in darkness
while all the foundations of the earth[u] are crumbling.
6 [v]I declare, ‘Although you are gods,
all of you sons of the Most High,
7 you will die as all men do;
like any ruler you will fall.’ ”[w]
8 Rise up, O God, and judge the earth,
for all the nations belong to you.[x]
Chapter 29
The Siege of Jerusalem
1 [a]Woe to Ariel, Ariel,[b]
the city where David encamped.
Year after year will pass,
and the festivals will be celebrated annually.
2 Yet I will inflict distress upon Ariel,
and there will be endless mourning and lamentation
as she becomes like an altar of fire.
3 I will encamp against you like David,
completely surround you with my forces
and erect siege-works against you.
4 Then, as you lie prostrate, you will speak,
and from the dust of the earth
your words will come forth.
Your voice will rise from the ground
like that of a ghost,
and your words will whisper out of the dust.
5 But the vast throng of your enemies
will be like fine dust,
and the horde of your ruthless foes
will be like flying chaff.
Then suddenly, in an instant,
6 you will be visited by the Lord of hosts,
accompanied by thunder and earthquake and intense din,
by whirlwind and tempest
and the flame of devouring fire.
7 Then the horde of all the nations
that fight against Ariel,
all who fight against her,
besieging her and causing her great anguish,
will fade away like a dream,
like a vision in the night.
8 Just as when a hungry man dreams of eating
and then awakens with an empty stomach,
or as when a thirsty man dreams of drinking
and then awakens to find his throat still parched,
so will it be with the horde of all the nations
that make war against Mount Zion.
Hypocrisy and Deception
9 If you stupefy yourselves,
you will remain in a stupor.
If you blind yourselves,
you will remain blind.
Be drunk, but not on wine;
stagger, but not from strong drink.
10 For the Lord has poured out on you
a spirit of deep sleep;
he has closed your eyes, you prophets,
and covered your heads, you seers.
11 The prophetic vision of all this has become like the words of a sealed scroll. If you hand it to someone who is able to read and you say to him, “Please read this,” he will answer, “I cannot, because it is sealed.” 12 And if you hand it to someone who cannot read and say to him, “Please read this,” he will reply, “I cannot read.”
13 [c]Then the Lord said:
Because this people draws near to me
only with their words
and honors me only with their lips
while their hearts are far from me,
and their reverence for me has become
nothing but a human commandment
that has been memorized,
14 therefore, I will continue to deal with this people
in shocking and amazing ways.
The wisdom of their wise men will perish,
and the understanding of their discerning men will cease.
15 Woe to those who go to extreme measures
to conceal their plans from the Lord,
who perpetrate their evil deeds in the dark,
saying, “Who sees us? Who knows where we are?”
16 Such people are truly perverse.
Is the potter no better than the clay?
Can what is made say of its maker,
“He did not make me”?
Can a pot say of the potter,
“He really has no particular skill”?
Deliverance
17 It will be but a very short time
before Lebanon will become a fertile field
and its orchards will be regarded as forests.
18 On that day the deaf will hear
the words of a book being read,
and the eyes of the blind will see,
delivered from gloom and darkness.
19 The lowly will once again rejoice in the Lord,
and those who are poor will exult
in the Holy One of Israel.
20 For the tyrants will be no more
and the arrogant will cease to exist;
all those who revel in evil deeds will be destroyed:
21 those whose lies cause a man to be judged guilty,
those who set traps to capture just arbiters
and thereby deprive the innocent
from being granted justice.
22 Therefore, thus says the Lord,
the deliverer of Abraham,
in regard to the house of Jacob:
No longer will the house of Jacob be ashamed,
nor will their faces grow pale.
23 For when they see in their midst
their children, the work of my hands,
they will acknowledge my name as holy.
They will reverence the Holy One of Jacob
and stand in awe of the God of Israel.
24 Those who err in spirit will gain understanding,
and those who are obstinate will receive instruction.
Salutation. 1 The Presbyter[a] to my beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth. 2 Beloved, I pray that everything is going well with you and that your bodily health is equal to that of your soul.[b]
Commendation of Gaius. 3 I rejoiced greatly when some of the brethren[c] arrived and related how faithful you are to the truth, and that you continue to walk in the truth. 4 Nothing gives me greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
5 [d]Beloved, you have been faithful in everything you do for the brethren, especially to strangers. 6 They have testified before the Church to your love. Please continue to help them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. 7 For they began their journey for the sake of the Name,[e] and they have refused to accept any support from nonbelievers. 8 Therefore, we ought to show hospitality to such people so that we may be collaborators in the truth.
Condemnation and Diotrephes. 9 I have previously written something to the Church, but Diotrephes,[f] who enjoys being in a position of leadership, refuses to acknowledge our authority. 10 Therefore, if I come, I shall draw attention to what he is doing. He has circulated false charges against us. And not content with that, he not only refuses to welcome the brethren but interferes with those who want to do so and expels them from the Church.
11 Exhortation to Gaius. Beloved, do not imitate what is evil; rather, imitate what is good. Whoever does what is good is from God. Whoever does what is evil has never seen God.[g]
12 Example of Demetrius. Everyone has spoken favorably about Demetrius,[h] and so has the Truth itself. We also will vouch for him, and you are well aware that our testimony is true.
13 Conclusion.[i]I have much to write to you, but I do not think it prudent to do so with pen and ink. 14 Instead, I hope to visit you in the very near future, when we can talk together face to face.
15 Peace be with you. The friends[j] send you their greetings. Greet each of our friends there by name.
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