M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The Boundaries of the Land
34 The Lord gave Moses 2 the following instructions for the people of Israel: “When you enter Canaan, the land which I am giving you, the borders of your territory will be as follows. 3 The southern border will extend from the wilderness of Zin along the border of Edom. It will begin on the east at the southern end of the Dead Sea. 4 Then it will turn southward toward Akrabbim Pass and continue on through Zin as far south as Kadesh Barnea. Then it will turn northwest to Hazar Addar and on to Azmon, 5 where it will turn toward the valley at the border of Egypt and end at the Mediterranean.
6 “The western border will be the Mediterranean Sea.
7 “The northern border will follow a line from the Mediterranean to Mount Hor 8 and from there to Hamath Pass. It will continue to Zedad 9 and to Ziphron, and will end at Hazar Enan.
10 “The eastern border will follow a line from Hazar Enan to Shepham. 11 It will then go south to Harbel, east of Ain, and on to the hills on the eastern shore of Lake Galilee, 12 then south along the Jordan River to the Dead Sea.
“These will be the four borders of your land.”
13 (A)So Moses said to the Israelites, “This is the land that you will receive by drawing lots, the land that the Lord has assigned to the nine and one-half tribes. 14 The tribes of Reuben and Gad and the eastern half of Manasseh have received their property, divided according to their families, 15 on the eastern side of the Jordan, opposite Jericho.”
The Leaders Responsible for Dividing the Land
16 The Lord said to Moses, 17 “Eleazar the priest and Joshua son of Nun will divide the land for the people. 18 Take also one leader from each tribe to help them divide it.” 19-28 These are the men the Lord chose:
| Tribe | Leader |
|---|---|
| Judah | Caleb son of Jephunneh |
| Simeon | Shelumiel son of Ammihud |
| Benjamin | Elidad son of Chislon |
| Dan | Bukki son of Jogli |
| Manasseh | Hanniel son of Ephod |
| Ephraim | Kemuel son of Shiphtan |
| Zebulun | Elizaphan son of Parnach |
| Issachar | Paltiel son of Azzan |
| Asher | Ahihud son of Shelomi |
| Naphtali | Pedahel son of Ammihud |
29 These are the men that the Lord assigned to divide the property for the people of Israel in the land of Canaan.
38 But God was merciful to his people.
He forgave their sin
and did not destroy them.
Many times he held back his anger
and restrained his fury.
39 He remembered that they were only mortal beings,
like a wind that blows by and is gone.
40 How often they rebelled against him in the desert;
how many times they made him sad!
41 Again and again they put God to the test
and brought pain to the Holy God of Israel.
42 They forgot his great power
and the day when he saved them from their enemies
43 and performed his mighty acts and miracles
in the plain of Zoan in the land of Egypt.
44 (A)He turned the rivers into blood,
and the Egyptians had no water to drink.
45 (B)He sent flies among them, that tormented them,
and frogs that ruined their land.
46 (C)He sent locusts to eat their crops
and to destroy their fields.
47 (D)He killed their grapevines with hail
and their fig trees with frost.
48 He killed their cattle with hail
and their flocks with lightning.[a]
49 He caused them great distress
by pouring out his anger and fierce rage,
which came as messengers of death.
50 He did not restrain his anger
or spare their lives,
but killed them with a plague.
51 (E)He killed the first-born sons
of all the families of Egypt.
52 (F)Then he led his people out like a shepherd
and guided them through the desert.
53 (G)He led them safely, and they were not afraid;
but the sea came rolling over their enemies.
54 (H)He brought them to his holy land,
to the mountains which he himself conquered.
55 (I)He drove out the inhabitants as his people advanced;
he divided their land among the tribes of Israel
and gave their homes to his people.
56 (J)But they rebelled against Almighty God
and put him to the test.
They did not obey his commandments,
57 but were rebellious and disloyal like their ancestors,
unreliable as a crooked arrow.
58 They angered him with their heathen places of worship,
and with their idols they made him furious.
59 God was angry when he saw it,
so he rejected his people completely.
60 (K)He abandoned his tent in Shiloh,[b]
the home where he had lived among us.
61 (L)He allowed our enemies to capture the Covenant Box,
the symbol of his power and glory.
62 He was angry with his own people
and let them be killed by their enemies.
63 Young men were killed in war,
and young women had no one to marry.
64 Priests died by violence,
and their widows were not allowed to mourn.
65 At last the Lord woke up as though from sleep;
he was like a strong man excited by wine.
66 He drove his enemies back
in lasting and shameful defeat.
67 But he rejected the descendants of Joseph;
he did not select the tribe of Ephraim.
68 Instead he chose the tribe of Judah
and Mount Zion, which he dearly loves.
69 There he built his Temple
like his home in heaven;
he made it firm like the earth itself,
secure for all time.
70 (M)He chose his servant David;
he took him from the pastures,
71 where he looked after his flocks,
and he made him king of Israel,
the shepherd of the people of God.
72 David took care of them with unselfish devotion
and led them with skill.
God Will Give His People Victory
26 A day is coming when the people will sing this song in the land of Judah:
Our city is strong!
God himself defends its walls!
2 Open the city gates
and let the faithful nation enter,
the nation whose people do what is right.
3 You, Lord, give perfect peace
to those who keep their purpose firm
and put their trust in you.
4 Trust in the Lord forever;
he will always protect us.
5 He has humbled those who were proud;
he destroyed the strong city they lived in,
and sent its walls crashing into the dust.
6 Those who were oppressed walk over it now
and trample it under their feet.
7 Lord, you make the path smooth for good people;
the road they travel is level.
8 We follow your will and put our hope in you;
you are all that we desire.
9 At night I long for you with all my heart;
when you judge the earth and its people,
they will all learn what justice is.
10 Even though you are kind to the wicked,
they never learn to do what is right.
Even here in a land of righteous people
they still do wrong;
they refuse to recognize your greatness.
11 (A)Your enemies do not know that you will punish them.
Lord, put them to shame and let them suffer;
let them suffer the punishment you have prepared.
Show them how much you love your people.
12 You will give us prosperity, Lord;
everything that we achieve
is the result of what you do.[a]
13 Lord our God, we have been ruled by others,
but you alone are our Lord.
14 Now they are dead and will not live again;
their ghosts will not rise,
for you have punished them and destroyed them.
No one remembers them any more.
15 Lord, you have made our nation grow,
enlarging its territory on every side;
and this has brought you honor.
16 You punished your people, Lord,
and in anguish they prayed to you.[b]
17 You, Lord, have made us cry out,
as a woman in labor cries out in pain.
18 We were in pain and agony,
but we gave birth to nothing.
We have won no victory for our land;
we have accomplished nothing.[c]
19 Those of our people who have died will live again!
Their bodies will come back to life.
All those sleeping in their graves
will wake up and sing for joy.
As the sparkling dew refreshes the earth,
so the Lord will revive those who have long been dead.
Judgment and Restoration
20 Go into your houses, my people, and shut the door behind you. Hide yourselves for a little while until God's anger is over. 21 The Lord is coming from his heavenly dwelling place to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The murders that were secretly committed on the earth will be revealed, and the ground will no longer hide those who have been killed.
The True Spirit and the False Spirit
4 My dear friends, do not believe all who claim to have the Spirit, but test them to find out if the spirit they have comes from God. For many false prophets have gone out everywhere. 2 This is how you will be able to know whether it is God's Spirit: anyone who acknowledges that Jesus Christ came as a human being has the Spirit who comes from God. 3 But anyone who denies this about Jesus does not have the Spirit from God. The spirit that he has is from the Enemy of Christ; you heard that it would come, and now it is here in the world already.
4 But you belong to God, my children, and have defeated the false prophets, because the Spirit who is in you is more powerful than the spirit in those who belong to the world. 5 Those false prophets speak about matters of the world, and the world listens to them because they belong to the world. 6 But we belong to God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever does not belong to God does not listen to us. This, then, is how we can tell the difference between the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
God Is Love
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. 10 This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.
11 Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another. 12 (A)No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in union with us, and his love is made perfect in us.
13 We are sure that we live in union with God and that he lives in union with us, because he has given us his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and tell others that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If we declare that Jesus is the Son of God, we live in union with God and God lives in union with us. 16 And we ourselves know and believe the love which God has for us.
God is love, and those who live in love live in union with God and God lives in union with them. 17 Love is made perfect in us in order that we may have courage on the Judgment Day; and we will have it because our life in this world is the same as Christ's. 18 There is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear. So then, love has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment.
19 We love because God first loved us. 20 If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen. 21 The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love others also.
Good News Translation® (Today’s English Version, Second Edition) © 1992 American Bible Society. All rights reserved. For more information about GNT, visit www.bibles.com and www.gnt.bible.