M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
14 One day when Samson was in Timnah he noticed a certain Philistine girl, 2 and when he got home he told his father and mother that he wanted to marry her. 3 They objected strenuously.
“Why don’t you marry a Jewish girl?” they asked. “Why must you go and get a wife from these heathen Philistines? Isn’t there one girl among all the people of Israel you could marry?”
But Samson told his father, “She is the one I want. Get her for me.”
4 His father and mother didn’t realize that the Lord was behind the request, for God was setting a trap for the Philistines, who at that time were the rulers of Israel.
5 As Samson and his parents were going to Timnah, a young lion attacked Samson in the vineyards on the outskirts of the town. 6 At that moment the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him and since he had no weapon, he ripped the lion’s jaws apart and did it as easily as though it were a young goat! But he didn’t tell his father or mother about it. 7 Upon arriving at Timnah, he talked with the girl and found her to be just what he wanted, so the arrangements were made.[a]
8 When he returned for the wedding, he turned off the path to look at the carcass of the lion. And he found a swarm of bees in it and some honey! 9 He took some of the honey with him, eating as he went, and gave some of it to his father and mother. But he didn’t tell them where he had gotten it.
10-11 As his father was making final arrangements for the marriage, Samson threw a party for thirty young men of the village, as was the custom of the day. 12 When Samson asked if they would like to hear a riddle, they replied that they would.
“If you solve my riddle during these seven days of the celebration,” he said, “I’ll give you thirty plain robes and thirty fancy robes. 13 But if you can’t solve it, then you must give the robes to me!”
“All right,” they agreed, “let’s hear it.”
14 This was his riddle: “Food came out of the eater, and sweetness from the strong!” Three days later they were still trying to figure it out.
15 On the fourth day they said to his new wife, “Get the answer from your husband, or we’ll burn down your father’s house with you in it. Were we invited to this party just to make us poor?”
16 So Samson’s wife broke down in tears before him and said, “You don’t love me at all; you hate me, for you have told a riddle to my people and haven’t told me the answer!”
“I haven’t even told it to my father or mother; why should I tell you?” he replied.
17 So she cried whenever she was with him and kept it up for the remainder of the celebration. At last, on the seventh day, he told her the answer and she, of course, gave the answer to the young men. 18 So before sunset of the seventh day they gave him their reply.
“What is sweeter than honey?” they asked, “and what is stronger than a lion?”
“If you hadn’t plowed with my heifer, you wouldn’t have found the answer to my riddle!” he retorted.
19 Then the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he went to the city of Ashkelon, killed thirty men, took their clothing, and gave it to the young men who had told him the answer to his riddle. But he was furious about it and abandoned his wife and went back home to live with his father and mother. 20 So his wife was married instead to the fellow who had been best man at Samson’s wedding.
18 Then Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. 2-3 There he became acquainted with a Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy with his wife, Priscilla. They had been expelled from Italy as a result of Claudius Caesar’s order to deport all Jews from Rome. Paul lived and worked with them, for they were tentmakers just as he was.
4 Each Sabbath found Paul at the synagogue, trying to convince the Jews and Greeks alike. 5 And after the arrival of Silas and Timothy from Macedonia, Paul spent his full time preaching and testifying to the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah. 6 But when the Jews opposed him and blasphemed, hurling abuse at Jesus, Paul shook off the dust from his robe and said, “Your blood be upon your own heads—I am innocent—from now on I will preach to the Gentiles.”
7 After that he stayed with Titus Justus, a Gentile who worshiped God and lived next door to the synagogue. 8 However, Crispus, the leader of the synagogue, and all his household believed in the Lord and were baptized—as were many others in Corinth.
9 One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision and told him, “Don’t be afraid! Speak out! Don’t quit! 10 For I am with you and no one can harm you. Many people here in this city belong to me.” 11 So Paul stayed there the next year and a half, teaching the truths of God.
12 But when Gallio became governor of Achaia, the Jews rose in concerted action against Paul and brought him before the governor for judgment. 13 They accused Paul of “persuading men to worship God in ways that are contrary to Roman law.” 14 But just as Paul started to make his defense, Gallio turned to his accusers and said, “Listen, you Jews, if this were a case involving some crime, I would be obliged to listen to you, 15 but since it is merely a bunch of questions of semantics and personalities and your silly Jewish laws, you take care of it. I’m not interested and I’m not touching it.” 16 And he drove them out of the courtroom.
17 Then the mob[a] grabbed Sosthenes, the new leader of the synagogue, and beat him outside the courtroom. But Gallio couldn’t have cared less.
18 Paul stayed in the city several days after that and then said good-bye to the Christians and sailed for the coast of Syria, taking Priscilla and Aquila with him. At Cenchreae Paul had his head shaved according to Jewish custom, for he had taken a vow.[b] 19 Arriving at the port of Ephesus, he left us aboard ship while he went over to the synagogue for a discussion with the Jews. 20 They asked him to stay for a few days, but he felt that he had no time to lose.[c]
21 “I must by all means be at Jerusalem for the holiday,”[d] he said. But he promised to return to Ephesus later if God permitted; and so he set sail again.
22 The next stop was at the port of Caesarea from where he visited the church at Jerusalem[e] and then sailed on to Antioch. 23 After spending some time there, he left for Turkey again, going through Galatia and Phrygia visiting all the believers, encouraging them and helping them grow in the Lord.
24 As it happened, a Jew named Apollos, a wonderful Bible teacher and preacher, had just arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt. 25-26 While he was in Egypt, someone had told him about John the Baptist and what John had said about Jesus, but that is all he knew. He had never heard the rest of the story! So he was preaching boldly and enthusiastically in the synagogue, “The Messiah is coming! Get ready to receive him!” Priscilla and Aquila were there and heard him—and it was a powerful sermon. Afterwards they met with him and explained what had happened to Jesus since the time of John, and all that it meant![f]
27 Apollos had been thinking about going to Greece, and the believers encouraged him in this. They wrote to their fellow-believers there, telling them to welcome him. And upon his arrival in Greece, he was greatly used of God to strengthen the church, 28 for he powerfully refuted all the Jewish arguments in public debate, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus is indeed the Messiah.
27 This message came to Jeremiah from the Lord at the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim[a] (son of Josiah), king of Judah:
2 “Make a yoke and fasten it on your neck with leather thongs as you would strap a yoke on an ox. 3 Then send messages to the kings of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyre, and Sidon, through their ambassadors in Jerusalem, 4 saying, Tell your masters that the Lord, the God of Israel, sends you this message:
5 “By my great power I have made the earth and all mankind and every animal; and I give these things of mine to anyone I want to. 6 So now I have given all your countries to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who is my deputy. And I have handed over to him all your cattle for his use. 7 All the nations shall serve him and his son and his grandson until his time is up, and then many nations and great kings shall conquer Babylon and make him their slave. 8 Submit to him and serve him—put your neck under Babylon’s yoke! I will punish any nation refusing to be his slave; I will send war, famine, and disease upon that nation until he has conquered it.
9 “Do not listen to your false prophets, fortune-tellers, dreamers, mediums, and magicians who say the king of Babylon will not enslave you. 10 For they are all liars, and if you follow their advice and refuse to submit to the king of Babylon, I will drive you out of your land and send you far away to perish. 11 But the people of any nation submitting to the king of Babylon will be permitted to stay in their own country and farm the land as usual.”
12 Jeremiah repeated all these prophecies to Zedekiah, king of Judah. “If you want to live, submit to the king of Babylon,” he said. 13 “Why do you insist on dying—you and your people? Why should you choose war and famine and disease, which the Lord has promised to every nation that will not submit to Babylon’s king? 14 Don’t listen to the false prophets who keep telling you the king of Babylon will not conquer you, for they are liars. 15 I have not sent them, says the Lord, and they are telling you lies in my name. If you insist on heeding them, I must drive you from this land to die—you and all these ‘prophets’ too.”
16 I spoke again and again to the priests and all the people and told them: “This is what the Lord says! Don’t listen to your prophets who are telling you that soon the gold dishes taken from the Temple will be returned from Babylon. It is all a lie. 17 Don’t listen to them. Surrender to the king of Babylon and live, for otherwise this whole city will be destroyed. 18 If they are really God’s prophets, then let them pray to the Lord Almighty that the gold dishes still here in the Temple, left from before, and that those in the palace of the king of Judah and in the palaces in Jerusalem will not be carried away with you to Babylon!
19-21 “For the Lord Almighty says: The pillars of bronze standing before the Temple, the great bronze basin in the Temple court, the metal stands, and all the other ceremonial articles left here by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, when he exiled all the important people of Judah and Jerusalem to Babylon, along with Jeconiah (son of Jehoiakim), king of Judah, 22 will all yet be carried away to Babylon and will stay there until I send for them. Then I will bring them all back to Jerusalem again.”
13 As he was leaving the Temple that day, one of his disciples said, “Teacher, what beautiful buildings these are! Look at the decorated stonework on the walls.”
2 Jesus replied, “Yes, look! For not one stone will be left upon another, except as ruins.”
3-4 And as he sat on the slopes of the Mount of Olives across the valley from Jerusalem, Peter, James, John, and Andrew got alone with him and asked him, “Just when is all this going to happen to the Temple? Will there be some warning ahead of time?”
5 So Jesus launched into an extended reply. “Don’t let anyone mislead you,” he said, 6 “for many will come declaring themselves to be your Messiah and will lead many astray. 7 And wars will break out near and far, but this is not the signal of the end-time.
8 “For nations and kingdoms will proclaim war against each other, and there will be earthquakes in many lands, and famines. These herald only the early stages of the anguish ahead. 9 But when these things begin to happen, watch out! For you will be in great danger. You will be dragged before the courts, and beaten in the synagogues, and accused before governors and kings of being my followers. This is your opportunity to tell them the Good News. 10 And the Good News must first be made known in every nation before the end-time finally comes.[a] 11 But when you are arrested and stand trial, don’t worry about what to say in your defense. Just say what God tells you to. Then you will not be speaking, but the Holy Spirit will.
12 “Brothers will betray each other to death, fathers will betray their own children, and children will betray their parents to be killed. 13 And everyone will hate you because you are mine. But all who endure to the end without renouncing me shall be saved.
14 “When you see the horrible thing standing in the Temple[b] —reader, pay attention!—flee, if you can, to the Judean hills. 15-16 Hurry! If you are on your rooftop porch, don’t even go back into the house. If you are out in the fields, don’t even return for your money or clothes.
17 “Woe to pregnant women in those days, and to mothers nursing their children. 18 And pray that your flight will not be in winter. 19 For those will be days of such horror as have never been since the beginning of God’s creation, nor will ever be again. 20 And unless the Lord shortens that time of calamity, not a soul in all the earth will survive. But for the sake of his chosen ones he will limit those days.
21 “And then if anyone tells you, ‘This is the Messiah,’ or, ‘That one is,’ don’t pay any attention. 22 For there will be many false Messiahs and false prophets who will do wonderful miracles that would deceive, if possible, even God’s own children.[c] 23 Take care! I have warned you!
24 “After the tribulation ends, then the sun will grow dim and the moon will not shine, 25 and the stars will fall—the heavens will convulse.
26 “Then all mankind will see me, the Messiah,[d] coming in the clouds with great power and glory. 27 And I will send out the angels to gather together my chosen ones from all over the world—from the farthest bounds of earth and heaven.
28 “Now, here is a lesson from a fig tree. When its buds become tender and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that spring has come. 29 And when you see these things happening that I’ve described, you can be sure that my return is very near, that I am right at the door.
30 “Yes, these are the events that will signal the end of the age.[e] 31 Heaven and earth shall disappear, but my words stand sure forever.
32 “However, no one, not even the angels in heaven, nor I myself,[f] knows the day or hour when these things will happen; only the Father knows. 33 And since you don’t know when it will happen, stay alert. Be on the watch for my return.[g]
34 “My coming[h] can be compared with that of a man who went on a trip to another country. He laid out his employees’ work for them to do while he was gone and told the gatekeeper to watch for his return.
35-37 “Keep a sharp lookout! For you do not know when I[i]
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.