M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The Lord's Greatness
11 “Love the Lord your God and always obey all his laws. 2 Remember today what you have learned about the Lord through your experiences with him. It was you, not your children, who had these experiences. You saw the Lord's greatness, his power, his might, 3 (A)and his miracles. You saw what he did to the king of Egypt and to his entire country. 4 (B)You saw how the Lord completely wiped out the Egyptian army, along with their horses and chariots, by drowning them in the Red Sea[a] when they were pursuing you. 5 You know what the Lord did for you in the desert before you arrived here. 6 (C)You recall what he did to Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab of the tribe of Reuben. In the sight of everyone the earth opened up and swallowed them, along with their families, their tents, and all their servants and animals. 7 Yes, you are the ones who have seen all these great things that the Lord has done.
The Blessings of the Promised Land
8 “Obey everything that I have commanded you today. Then you will be able to cross the river and occupy the land that you are about to enter. 9 And you will live a long time in the rich and fertile land that the Lord promised to give your ancestors and their descendants. 10 The land that you are about to occupy is not like the land of Egypt, where you lived before. There, when you planted grain, you had to work hard to irrigate the fields; 11 but the land that you are about to enter is a land of mountains and valleys, a land watered by rain. 12 The Lord your God takes care of this land and watches over it throughout the year.
13 (D)“So then, obey the commands that I have given you today; love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart. 14 If you do, he will send rain on your land when it is needed, in the autumn and in the spring, so that there will be grain, wine, and olive oil for you, 15 and grass for your livestock. You will have all the food you want. 16 Do not let yourselves be led away from the Lord to worship and serve other gods. 17 If you do, the Lord will become angry with you. He will hold back the rain, and your ground will become too dry for crops to grow. Then you will soon die there, even though it is a good land that he is giving you.
18 (E)“Remember these commands and cherish them. Tie them on your arms and wear them on your foreheads as a reminder. 19 Teach them to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away, when you are resting and when you are working. 20 Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates. 21 Then you and your children will live a long time in the land that the Lord your God promised to give to your ancestors. You will live there as long as there is a sky above the earth.
22 “Obey faithfully everything that I have commanded you: Love the Lord your God, do everything he commands, and be faithful to him. 23 Then he will drive out all those nations as you advance, and you will occupy the land belonging to nations greater and more powerful than you. 24 (F)All the ground that you march over will be yours. Your territory will extend from the desert in the south to the Lebanon Mountains in the north, and from the Euphrates River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. 25 Wherever you go in that land, the Lord your God will make the people fear you, as he has promised, and no one will be able to stop you.
26 “Today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse— 27 a blessing, if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; 28 but a curse, if you disobey these commands and turn away to worship other gods that you have never worshiped before. 29 (G)When the Lord brings you into the land that you are going to occupy, you are to proclaim the blessing from Mount Gerizim and the curse from Mount Ebal. (30 These two mountains are west of the Jordan River in the territory of the Canaanites who live in the Jordan Valley. They are toward the west, not far from the sacred trees of Moreh near the town of Gilgal.) 31 You are about to cross the Jordan River and occupy the land that the Lord your God is giving you. When you take it and settle there, 32 be sure to obey all the laws that I am giving you today.
A Song of Praise
95 Come, let us praise the Lord!
Let us sing for joy to God, who protects us!
2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and sing joyful songs of praise.
3 For the Lord is a mighty God,
a mighty king over all the gods.
4 He rules over the whole earth,
from the deepest caves to the highest hills.
5 He rules over the sea, which he made;
the land also, which he himself formed.
6 Come, let us bow down and worship him;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 (A)He is our God;
we are the people he cares for,
the flock for which he provides.
Listen today to what he says:
8 (B)“Don't be stubborn, as your ancestors were at Meribah,
as they were that day in the desert at Massah.
9 There they put me to the test and tried me,
although they had seen what I did for them.
10 For forty years I was disgusted with those people.
I said, ‘How disloyal they are!
They refuse to obey my commands.’
11 (C)I was angry and made a solemn promise:
‘You will never enter the land
where I would have given you rest.’”
God the Supreme King(D)
96 Sing a new song to the Lord!
Sing to the Lord, all the world!
2 Sing to the Lord, and praise him!
Proclaim every day the good news that he has saved us.
3 Proclaim his glory to the nations,
his mighty deeds to all peoples.
4 The Lord is great and is to be highly praised;
he is to be honored more than all the gods.
5 The gods of all other nations are only idols,
but the Lord created the heavens.
6 Glory and majesty surround him;
power and beauty fill his Temple.
7 (E)Praise the Lord, all people on earth;
praise his glory and might.
8 Praise the Lord's glorious name;
bring an offering and come into his Temple.
9 Bow down before the Holy One when he appears;[a]
tremble before him, all the earth!
10 Say to all the nations, “The Lord is king!
The earth is set firmly in place and cannot be moved;
he will judge the peoples with justice.”
11 Be glad, earth and sky!
Roar, sea, and every creature in you;
12 be glad, fields, and everything in you!
The trees in the woods will shout for joy
13 when the Lord comes to rule the earth.
He will rule the peoples of the world
with justice and fairness.
Messengers from Babylonia(A)
39 About that same time the king of Babylonia, Merodach Baladan, son of Baladan, heard that King Hezekiah had been sick, so he sent him a letter and a present. 2 Hezekiah welcomed the messengers and showed them his wealth—his silver and gold, his spices and perfumes, and all his military equipment. There was nothing in his storerooms or anywhere in his kingdom that he did not show them. 3 Then the prophet Isaiah went to King Hezekiah and asked, “Where did these messengers come from and what did they say to you?”
Hezekiah answered, “They came from a very distant country, from Babylonia.”
4 “What did they see in the palace?”
“They saw everything. There is nothing in the storerooms that I didn't show them.”
5 Isaiah then told the king, “The Lord Almighty says that 6 a time is coming when everything in your palace, everything that your ancestors have stored up to this day, will be carried off to Babylonia. Nothing will be left. 7 (B)Some of your own direct descendants will be taken away and made eunuchs to serve in the palace of the king of Babylonia.”
8 King Hezekiah understood this to mean that there would be peace and security during his lifetime, so he replied, “The message you have given me from the Lord is good.”
9 Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet. I saw a star which had fallen down to the earth, and it was given the key to the abyss.[a] 2 (A)The star opened the abyss, and smoke poured out of it, like the smoke from a large furnace; the sunlight and the air were darkened by the smoke from the abyss. 3 (B)Locusts came down out of the smoke upon the earth, and they were given the same kind of power that scorpions have. 4 (C)They were told not to harm the grass or the trees or any other plant; they could harm only the people who did not have the mark of God's seal on their foreheads. 5 The locusts were not allowed to kill these people, but only to torture them for five months. The pain caused by the torture is like the pain caused by a scorpion's sting. 6 (D)During those five months they will seek death, but will not find it; they will want to die, but death will flee from them.
7 (E)The locusts looked like horses ready for battle; on their heads they had what seemed to be crowns of gold, and their faces were like human faces. 8 (F)Their hair was like women's hair, their teeth were like lions' teeth. 9 (G)Their chests were covered with what looked like iron breastplates, and the sound made by their wings was like the noise of many horse-drawn chariots rushing into battle. 10 They have tails and stings like those of a scorpion, and it is with their tails that they have the power to hurt people for five months. 11 They have a king ruling over them, who is the angel in charge of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon; in Greek the name is Apollyon (meaning “The Destroyer”).
12 The first horror is over; after this there are still two more horrors to come.
13 (H)Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet. I heard a voice coming from the four corners of the gold altar standing before God. 14 The voice said to the sixth angel, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great Euphrates River!” 15 The four angels were released; for this very hour of this very day of this very month and year they had been kept ready to kill a third of all the human race. 16 I was told the number of the mounted troops: it was two hundred million. 17 (I)And in my vision I saw the horses and their riders: they had breastplates red as fire, blue as sapphire, and yellow as sulfur. The horses' heads were like lions' heads, and from their mouths came out fire, smoke, and sulfur. 18 A third of the human race was killed by those three plagues: the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur coming out of the horses' mouths. 19 For the power of the horses is in their mouths and also in their tails. Their tails are like snakes with heads, and they use them to hurt people.
20 (J)The rest of the human race, all those who had not been killed by these plagues, did not turn away from what they themselves had made. They did not stop worshiping demons, nor the idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, which cannot see, hear, or walk. 21 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic, their sexual immorality, or their stealing.
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.