M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Laws about Sacrifice

15 The Lord gave Moses ² the following regulations for the people of Israel to observe in the land that he was going to give them. ³ A bull, a ram, a sheep, or a goat may be presented to the Lord as a burnt offering or as a sacrifice in fulfillment of a vow or as a freewill offering or as an offering at your regular religious festivals; the odor of these food offerings is pleasing to the Lord. ^4-5 Whoever presents a sheep or a goat as a burnt offering to the Lord is to bring with each animal 2 pounds of flour mixed with 2 pints of olive oil as a grain offering, together with 2 pints of wine. ⁶ When a ram is offered, 4 pounds of flour mixed with 3 pints of olive oil are to be presented as a grain offering, ⁷ together with 3 pints of wine. The odor of these sacrifices is pleasing to the Lord. ⁸ When a bull is offered to the Lord as a burnt offering or as a sacrifice in fulfillment of a vow or as a fellowship offering, ⁹ a grain offering of 6 pounds of flour mixed with 4 pints of olive oil is to be presented, ¹⁰ together with 4 pints of wine. The odor of this sacrifice is pleasing to the Lord.

¹¹ That is what shall be offered with each bull, ram, sheep, or goat. ¹² When more than one animal is offered, the accompanying offering is to be increased proportionately. ¹³ All native Israelites are to do this when they present a food offering, an odor pleasing to the Lord. ¹⁴ And if at any time foreigners living among you, whether on a temporary or a permanent basis, make a food offering, an odor that pleases the Lord, they are to observe the same regulations. ¹⁵ For all time to come, the same^[a] rules are binding on you and on the foreigners who live among you. You and they are alike in the Lord's sight; ^16 (A)the same laws and regulations apply to you and to them.

¹⁷ The Lord gave Moses ¹⁸ the following regulations for the people of Israel to observe in the land that he was going to give them. ¹⁹ When any food produced there is eaten, some of it is to be set aside as a special contribution to the Lord. ²⁰ When you bake bread, the first loaf of the first bread made from the new grain is to be presented as a special contribution to the Lord. This is to be presented in the same way as the special contribution you make from the grain you thresh. ²¹ For all time to come, this special gift is to be given to the Lord from the bread you bake.

²² But suppose someone unintentionally fails to keep some of these regulations which the Lord has given Moses. ²³ And suppose that in the future the community fails to do everything that the Lord commanded through Moses. ²⁴ If the mistake was made because of the ignorance of the community, they are to offer a bull as a burnt offering, an odor that pleases the Lord, with the proper grain offering and wine offering. In addition, they are to offer a male goat as a sin offering. ²⁵ The priest shall perform the ritual of purification for the community, and they will be forgiven, because the mistake was unintentional and they brought their sin offering as a food offering to the Lord. ²⁶ The whole community of Israel and the foreigners living among them will be forgiven, because everyone was involved in the mistake.

^27 (B)If any of you sin unintentionally, you are to offer a one-year-old female goat as a sin offering. ²⁸ At the altar the priest shall perform the ritual of purification to purify you from your sin, and you will be forgiven. ²⁹ The same regulation applies to all who unintentionally commit a sin, whether they are native Israelites or resident foreigners.

³⁰ But any who sin deliberately, whether they are natives or foreigners, are guilty of treating the Lord with contempt, and they shall be put to death, ³¹ because they have rejected what the Lord said and have deliberately broken one of his commands. They are responsible for their own death.

The Man Who Broke the Sabbath

³² Once, while the Israelites were still in the wilderness, a man was found gathering firewood on the Sabbath. ³³ He was taken to Moses, Aaron, and the whole community, ³⁴ and was put under guard, because it was not clear what should be done with him. ³⁵ Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must be put to death; the whole community is to stone him to death outside the camp.” ³⁶ So the whole community took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the Lord had commanded.

Rules about Tassels

³⁷ The Lord commanded Moses ^38 (C)to say to the people of Israel: “Make tassels on the corners of your garments and put a blue cord on each tassel. You are to do this for all time to come. ³⁹ The tassels will serve as reminders, and each time you see them you will remember all my commands and obey them; then you will not turn away from me and follow your own wishes and desires. ⁴⁰ The tassels will remind you to keep all my commands, and you will belong completely to me. ⁴¹ I am the Lord your God; I brought you out of Egypt to be your God. I am the Lord.”

^(A)A Prayer for Forgiveness^[a]

The Song of the Vineyard

³ So now my friend says, “You people who live in Jerusalem and Judah, judge between my vineyard and me. ⁴ Is there anything I failed to do for it? Then why did it produce sour grapes and not the good grapes I expected?

⁵ “Here is what I am going to do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge around it, break down the wall that protects it, and let wild animals eat it and trample it down. ⁶ I will let it be overgrown with weeds. I will not trim the vines or hoe the ground; instead, I will let briers and thorns cover it. I will even forbid the clouds to let rain fall on it.”

The Evil That People Do

⁸ You are doomed! You buy more houses and fields to add to those you already have. Soon there will be no place for anyone else to live, and you alone will live in the land. ⁹ I have heard the Lord Almighty say, “All these big, fine houses will be empty ruins. ¹⁰ The grapevines growing on five acres of land will yield only five gallons of wine. Ten bushels of seed will produce only one bushel of grain.”

^11 (B)You are doomed! You get up early in the morning to start drinking, and you spend long evenings getting drunk. ¹² At your feasts you have harps and tambourines and flutes—and wine. But you don't understand what the Lord is doing, ¹³ and so you will be carried away as prisoners. Your leaders will starve to death, and the common people will die of thirst. ¹⁴ The world of the dead is hungry for them, and it opens its mouth wide. It gulps down the nobles of Jerusalem along with the noisy crowd of common people.

¹⁵ Everyone will be disgraced, and all who are proud will be humbled. ¹⁶ But the Lord Almighty shows his greatness by doing what is right, and he reveals his holiness by judging his people. ¹⁷ In the ruins of the cities lambs will eat grass and young goats will find pasture.^[a]

¹⁸ You are doomed! You are unable to break free from your sins. ¹⁹ You say, “Let the Lord hurry up and do what he says he will, so that we can see it. Let Israel's holy God carry out his plans; let's see what he has in mind.”

²⁰ You are doomed! You call evil good and call good evil. You turn darkness into light and light into darkness. You make what is bitter sweet, and what is sweet you make bitter.

²¹ You are doomed! You think you are wise, so very clever.

²² You are doomed! Heroes of the wine bottle! Brave and fearless when it comes to mixing drinks! ²³ But for just a bribe you let the guilty go free, and you keep the innocent from getting justice. ²⁴ So now, just as straw and dry grass shrivel and burn in the fire, your roots will rot and your blossoms will dry up and blow away, because you have rejected what the Lord Almighty, Israel's holy God, has taught us. ²⁵ The Lord is angry with his people and has stretched out his hand to punish them. The mountains will shake, and the bodies of those who die will be left in the streets like rubbish. Yet even then the Lord's anger will not be ended, but his hand will still be stretched out to punish.

²⁶ The Lord gives a signal to call for a distant nation.^[b] He whistles for them to come from the ends of the earth. And here they come, swiftly, quickly! ²⁷ None of them grow tired; none of them stumble. They never doze or sleep. Not a belt is loose; not a sandal strap is broken. ²⁸ Their arrows are sharp, and their bows are ready to shoot. Their horses' hoofs are as hard as flint, and their chariot wheels turn like a whirlwind. ²⁹ The soldiers roar like lions that have killed an animal and are carrying it off where no one can take it away from them.

³⁰ When that day comes, they will roar over Israel as loudly as the sea. Look at this country! Darkness and distress! The light is swallowed by darkness.

God Our Father

12 As for us, we have this large crowd of witnesses around us. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us. ² Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God's throne.

³ Think of what he went through; how he put up with so much hatred from sinners! So do not let yourselves become discouraged and give up. ⁴ For in your struggle against sin you have not yet had to resist to the point of being killed. ^5 (A)Have you forgotten the encouraging words which God speaks to you as his children?

⁷ Endure what you suffer as being a father's punishment; your suffering shows that God is treating you as his children. Was there ever a child who was not punished by his father? ⁸ If you are not punished, as all his children are, it means you are not real children, but bastards. ⁹ In the case of our human fathers, they punished us and we respected them. How much more, then, should we submit to our spiritual Father and live! ¹⁰ Our human fathers punished us for a short time, as it seemed right to them; but God does it for our own good, so that we may share his holiness. ¹¹ When we are punished, it seems to us at the time something to make us sad, not glad. Later, however, those who have been disciplined by such punishment reap the peaceful reward of a righteous life.

Instructions and Warnings

^12 (B)Lift up your tired hands, then, and strengthen your trembling knees! ^13 (C)Keep walking on straight paths, so that the lame foot may not be disabled, but instead be healed.

¹⁴ Try to be at peace with everyone, and try to live a holy life, because no one will see the Lord without it. ^15 (D)Guard against turning back from the grace of God. Let no one become like a bitter plant that grows up and causes many troubles with its poison. ^16 (E)Let no one become immoral or unspiritual like Esau, who for a single meal sold his rights as the older son. ^17 (F)Afterward, you know, he wanted to receive his father's blessing; but he was turned back, because he could not find any way to change what he had done, even though in tears he looked for it.^[a]

^18 (G)You have not come, as the people of Israel came, to what you can feel, to Mount Sinai with its blazing fire, the darkness and the gloom, the storm, ¹⁹ the blast of a trumpet, and the sound of a voice. When the people heard the voice, they begged not to hear another word, ^20 (H)because they could not bear the order which said, “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” ^21 (I)The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, “I am trembling and afraid!”

²² Instead, you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, with its thousands of angels. ²³ You have come to the joyful gathering of God's first-born, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, who is the judge of all people, and to the spirits of good people made perfect. ^24 (J)You have come to Jesus, who arranged the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that promises much better things than does the blood of Abel.

^25 (K)Be careful, then, and do not refuse to hear him who speaks. Those who refused to hear the one who gave the divine message on earth did not escape. How much less shall we escape, then, if we turn away from the one who speaks from heaven! ^26 (L)His voice shook the earth at that time, but now he has promised, “I will once more shake not only the earth but heaven as well.” ²⁷ The words “once more” plainly show that the created things will be shaken and removed, so that the things that cannot be shaken will remain.

²⁸ Let us be thankful, then, because we receive a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Let us be grateful and worship God in a way that will please him, with reverence and awe; ^29 (M)because our God is indeed a destroying fire.