M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

2 ^(A)we finally turned and went into the desert, on the road to the Gulf of Aqaba, as the Lord had commanded, and we spent a long time wandering about in the hill country of Edom.

² “Then the Lord told me ³ that we had spent enough time wandering about in those hills and that we should go north. ^4 (B)He told me to give you the following instructions ‘You are about to go through the hill country of Edom, the territory of your distant relatives, the descendants of Esau. They will be afraid of you, ⁵ but you must not start a war with them, because I am not going to give you so much as a square foot of their land. I have given Edom to Esau's descendants. ⁶ You may buy food and water from them.’

⁷ “Remember how the Lord your God has blessed you in everything that you have done. He has taken care of you as you wandered through this vast desert. He has been with you these forty years, and you have had everything you needed.

⁸ “So we moved on and left the road that goes from the towns of Elath and Eziongeber to the Dead Sea, and we turned northeast toward Moab. ^9 (C)The Lord said to me, ‘Don't trouble the people of Moab, the descendants of Lot, or start a war against them. I have given them the city of Ar, and I am not going to give you any of their land.’”

(¹⁰ A mighty race of giants called the Emim used to live in Ar. They were as tall as the Anakim, another race of giants. ¹¹ Like the Anakim they were also known as Rephaim; but the Moabites called them Emim. ¹² The Horites used to live in Edom, but the descendants of Esau chased them out, destroyed their nation, and settled there themselves, just as the Israelites later chased their enemies out of the land that the Lord gave them.)

¹³ “Then we crossed the Zered River as the Lord told us to do. ^14 (D)This was thirty-eight years after we had left Kadesh Barnea. All the fighting men of that generation had died, as the Lord had said they would. ¹⁵ The Lord kept on opposing them until he had destroyed them all.

¹⁶ “After they had all died, ¹⁷ the Lord said to us, ¹⁸ ‘Today you are to pass through the territory of Moab by way of Ar. ^19 (E)You will then be near the land of the Ammonites, the descendants of Lot. Don't trouble them or start a war against them, because I am not going to give you any of the land that I have given them.’”

(²⁰ This territory is also known as the land of the Rephaim, the name of the people who used to live there; the Ammonites called them Zamzummim. ²¹ They were as tall as the Anakim. There were many of them, and they were a mighty race. But the Lord destroyed them, so that the Ammonites took over their land and settled there. ²² The Lord had done the same thing for the Edomites, the descendants of Esau, who live in the hill country of Edom. He destroyed the Horites, so that the Edomites took over their land and settled there, where they still live. ²³ The land along the Mediterranean coast had been settled by people from the island of Crete. They had destroyed the Avvim, the original inhabitants, and had taken over all their land as far south as the city of Gaza.)

²⁴ “After we had passed through Moab, the Lord told us, ‘Now, start out and cross the Arnon River. I am placing in your power Sihon, the Amorite king of Heshbon, along with his land. Attack him, and begin occupying his land. ²⁵ From today on I will make people everywhere afraid of you. Everyone will tremble with fear at the mention of your name.’

Israel Defeats King Sihon^(F)

²⁶ “Then I sent messengers from the desert of Kedemoth to King Sihon of Heshbon with the following offer of peace: ²⁷ ‘Let us pass through your country. We will go straight through and not leave the road. ²⁸ We will pay for the food we eat and the water we drink. All we want to do is to pass through your country, ²⁹ until we cross the Jordan River into the land that the Lord our God is giving us. The descendants of Esau, who live in Edom, and the Moabites, who live in Ar, allowed us to pass through their territory.’

³⁰ “But King Sihon would not let us pass through his country. The Lord your God had made him stubborn and rebellious, so that we could defeat him and take his territory, which we still occupy.

³¹ “Then the Lord said to me, ‘Look, I have made King Sihon and his land helpless before you; take his land and occupy it.’ ³² Sihon came out with all his men to fight us near the town of Jahaz, ³³ but the Lord our God put him in our power, and we killed him, his sons, and all his men. ³⁴ At the same time we captured and destroyed every town, and put everyone to death, men, women, and children. We left no survivors. ³⁵ We took the livestock and plundered the towns. ³⁶ The Lord our God let us capture all the towns from Aroer, on the edge of the Arnon Valley, and the city in the middle of that valley, all the way to Gilead. No town had walls too strong for us. ³⁷ But we did not go near the territory of the Ammonites or to the banks of the Jabbok River or to the towns of the hill country or to any other place where the Lord our God had commanded us not to go.

A Prayer for the Defeat of Israel's Enemies^[a]

Longing for God's House^[b]

A Useless Treaty with Egypt

30 The Lord has spoken: “Those who rule Judah are doomed because they rebel against me. They follow plans that I did not make, and sign treaties against my will, piling one sin on another. ² They go to Egypt for help without asking for my advice. They want Egypt to protect them, so they put their trust in Egypt's king. ³ But the king will be powerless to help them, and Egypt's protection will end in disaster. ⁴ Although their ambassadors have already arrived at the Egyptian cities of Zoan and Hanes, ⁵ the people of Judah will regret that they ever trusted that unreliable nation, a nation that fails them when they expect help.”

⁶ This is God's message about the animals of the southern desert: “The ambassadors travel through dangerous country, where lions live and where there are poisonous snakes and flying dragons. They load their donkeys and camels with expensive gifts for a nation that cannot give them any help. ⁷ The help that Egypt gives is useless. So I have nicknamed Egypt, ‘The Harmless Dragon.’”

The Disobedient People

⁸ God told me to write down in a book what the people are like, so that there would be a permanent record of how evil they are. ⁹ They are always rebelling against God, always lying, always refusing to listen to the Lord's teachings. ¹⁰ They tell the prophets to keep quiet. They say, “Don't talk to us about what's right. Tell us what we want to hear. Let us keep our illusions. ¹¹ Get out of our way and stop blocking our path. We don't want to hear about your holy God of Israel.”

¹² But this is what the holy God of Israel says: “You ignore what I tell you and rely on violence and deceit. ¹³ You are guilty. You are like a high wall with a crack running down it; suddenly you will collapse. ¹⁴ You will be shattered like a clay pot, so badly broken that there is no piece big enough to pick up hot coals with or to dip water from a cistern.”

¹⁵ The Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says to the people, “Come back and quietly trust in me. Then you will be strong and secure.” But you refuse to do it. ¹⁶ Instead, you plan to escape from your enemies by riding fast horses. And you are right—escape is what you will have to do! You think your horses are fast enough, but those who pursue you will be faster! ¹⁷ A thousand of you will run away when you see one enemy soldier, and five soldiers will be enough to make you all run away. Nothing will be left of your army except a lonely flagpole on the top of a hill. ¹⁸ And yet the Lord is waiting to be merciful to you. He is ready to take pity on you because he always does what is right. Happy are those who put their trust in the Lord.

God Will Bless His People

¹⁹ You people who live in Jerusalem will not weep any more. The Lord is compassionate, and when you cry to him for help, he will answer you. ²⁰ The Lord will make you go through hard times, but he himself will be there to teach you, and you will not have to search for him any more. ²¹ If you wander off the road to the right or the left, you will hear his voice behind you saying, “Here is the road. Follow it.” ²² You will take your idols plated with silver and your idols covered with gold, and will throw them away like filth, shouting, “Out of my sight!” ²³ Whenever you plant your crops, the Lord will send rain to make them grow and will give you a rich harvest, and your livestock will have plenty of pasture. ²⁴ The oxen and donkeys that plow your fields will eat the finest and best fodder. ²⁵ On the day when the forts of your enemies are captured and their people are killed, streams of water will flow from every mountain and every hill. ²⁶ The moon will be as bright as the sun, and the sun will be seven times brighter than usual, like the light of seven days in one. This will all happen when the Lord bandages and heals the wounds he has given his people.

God Will Punish Assyria

²⁷ The Lord's power and glory can be seen in the distance. Fire and smoke show his anger. He speaks, and his words burn like fire. ²⁸ He sends the wind in front of him like a flood that carries everything away. It sweeps nations to destruction and puts an end to their evil plans. ²⁹ But you, God's people, will be happy and sing as you do on the night of a sacred festival. You will be as happy as those who walk to the music of flutes on their way to the Temple of the Lord, the defender of Israel.

³⁰ The Lord will let everyone hear his majestic voice and feel the force of his anger. There will be flames, cloudbursts, hailstones, and torrents of rain. ³¹ The Assyrians will be terrified when they hear the Lord's voice and feel the force of his punishment. ³² As the Lord strikes them again and again, his people will keep time with the music of drums and harps. God himself will fight against the Assyrians. ³³ Long ago a place was prepared where a huge fire will burn the emperor of Assyria. It is deep and wide, and piled high with wood. The Lord will breathe out a stream of flame to set it on fire.

^1 (A)From Jude, servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James—

To those who have been called by God, who live in the love of God the Father and the protection of Jesus Christ:

² May mercy, peace, and love be yours in full measure.

False Teachers

³ My dear friends, I was doing my best to write to you about the salvation we share in common, when I felt the need of writing at once to encourage you to fight on for the faith which once and for all God has given to his people. ⁴ For some godless people have slipped in unnoticed among us, persons who distort the message about the grace of our God in order to excuse their immoral ways, and who reject Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord. Long ago the Scriptures predicted the condemnation they have received.

^5 (B)For even though you know all this, I want to remind you of how the Lord^[a] once rescued the people of Israel from Egypt, but afterward destroyed those who did not believe. ⁶ Remember the angels who did not stay within the limits of their proper authority, but abandoned their own dwelling place: they are bound with eternal chains in the darkness below, where God is keeping them for that great Day on which they will be condemned. ^7 (C)Remember Sodom and Gomorrah, and the nearby towns, whose people acted as those angels did and indulged in sexual immorality and perversion: they suffer the punishment of eternal fire as a plain warning to all.

⁸ In the same way also, these people have visions which make them sin against their own bodies; they despise God's authority and insult the glorious beings above. ^9 (D)Not even the chief angel Michael did this. In his quarrel with the Devil, when they argued about who would have the body of Moses, Michael did not dare condemn the Devil with insulting words, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” ¹⁰ But these people attack with insults anything they do not understand; and those things that they know by instinct, like wild animals, are the very things that destroy them. ^11 (E)How terrible for them! They have followed the way that Cain took. For the sake of money they have given themselves over to the error that Balaam committed. They have rebelled as Korah rebelled, and like him they are destroyed. ¹² With their shameless carousing they are like dirty spots in your fellowship meals. They take care only of themselves. They are like clouds carried along by the wind, but bringing no rain. They are like trees that bear no fruit, even in autumn, trees that have been pulled up by the roots and are completely dead. ¹³ They are like wild waves of the sea, with their shameful deeds showing up like foam. They are like wandering stars, for whom God has reserved a place forever in the deepest darkness.

^14 (F)It was Enoch, the seventh^[b] direct descendant from Adam, who long ago prophesied this about them: “The Lord will come with many thousands of his holy angels ¹⁵ to bring judgment on all, to condemn them all for the godless deeds they have performed and for all the terrible words that godless sinners have spoken against him!”

¹⁶ These people are always grumbling and blaming others; they follow their own evil desires; they brag about themselves and flatter others in order to get their own way.

Warnings and Instructions

¹⁷ But remember, my friends, what you were told in the past by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. ^18 (G)They said to you, “When the last days come, people will appear who will make fun of you, people who follow their own godless desires.” ¹⁹ These are the people who cause divisions, who are controlled by their natural desires, who do not have the Spirit. ²⁰ But you, my friends, keep on building yourselves up on your most sacred faith. Pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, ²¹ and keep yourselves in the love of God, as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ in his mercy to give you eternal life.

²² Show mercy toward those who have doubts; ²³ save others by snatching them out of the fire; and to others show mercy mixed with fear, but hate their very clothes, stained by their sinful lusts.

Prayer of Praise

²⁴ To him who is able to keep you from falling and to bring you faultless and joyful before his glorious presence— ²⁵ to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, from all ages past, and now, and forever and ever! Amen.