M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Abigail and Foolish Nabal

25 Then Samuel died, and all Israel gathered and lamented him, and buried him at his house in Ramah. David then arose and went down to the wilderness of Paran.

² Now there was a man in Maon, whose business was in Carmel, and the man was so wealthy, he had 3,000 sheep and 1,000 goats. At that time he was shearing his sheep in Carmel. ³ The man’s name was Nabal and his wife’s name was Abigail. The woman was intelligent and beautiful, but the man, a Calebite, was harsh and evil in his dealings. ⁴ While David was in the wilderness, he heard that Nabal was shearing his sheep. ⁵ So David dispatched ten young men, and said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and when you reach Nabal, greet him in my name. ⁶ Thus you will say: ‘Long life! And shalom to you, shalom to your house and shalom to all that is yours. ⁷ Now I hear that you have shearers. When your shepherds were with us, we did them no harm and nothing of theirs was missing all the time they were in Carmel. ⁸ Ask your young men and they will tell you. Therefore, let the young men find favor in your eyes, for we have come on a festive day. So please, give to your servants and to your son David, whatever you find at hand.’”

⁹ David’s young men went and told Nabal all those words in David’s name, and waited. ¹⁰ But Nabal answered David’s servants by saying, “Who is David? And who is Jesse’s son? Nowadays there are many slaves each running away from his master. ¹¹ So should I take my bread, my water and my meat that I have cooked for my shearers, and give it to men whom I don’t know where they come from?”

¹² So David’s young men turned around and went back. When they came and reported to him all these words, ¹³ David said to his men, “Everyone buckle on your sword!” So each man buckled on his sword and David also buckled on his sword. About 400 men went up following David, while 200 stayed with the baggage.

¹⁴ But one of the young men told Nabal’s wife Abigail saying, “Look, David had sent messengers from the wilderness to greet our master, but he spurned them. ¹⁵ Yet the men were very good to us. We were not harmed, nor were we missing anything as long as we went about with them while we were in the fields. ¹⁶ They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the time that we were with them tending the sheep. ¹⁷ Now therefore, know and consider what you will do, for evil is determined against our master and against all his household. But he is such a worthless fellow that no one can speak to him.”

¹⁸ Then Abigail hurried and took 200 loaves, two bottles of wine, five dressed sheep, five measures of roasted corn, 100 cakes of raisins, and 200 cakes of figs, and put them on donkeys. ¹⁹ Then she said to her young men, “Go on ahead of me—see, I am coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. ²⁰ As she was riding on the donkey and going down by the hidden pass of the mountain, behold, David and his men were coming down towards her, so she met them.

²¹ Now David had been saying, “Surely in vain I’ve guarded all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missing of all that belonged to him—yet he has returned me evil for good. ²² May God do so and even more to David’s enemies if by the morning I leave even one male of all who belong to him!”

²³ When Abigail saw David, she quickly dismounted from her donkey, fell before David on her face and bowed down to the ground. ²⁴ As she fell at his feet, she pleaded, “On me, only me, my lord, be the punishment! But please, let your maidservant speak in your ears, and listen to the words of your maidservant. ²⁵ Please my lord, pay no attention to this worthless fellow, Nabal, for as his name is, so is he—Nabal^[a] is his name and disgraceful folly is with him. But I, your maidservant, did not see the young men of my lord whom you sent.

²⁶ “So now my lord, as Adonai lives and as your soul lives, since Adonai has restrained you from shedding blood and from avenging yourself with your own hand, now therefore let your enemies and those who are seeking to harm my lord be as Nabal. ²⁷ Now let this blessing, which your maidservant has brought to my lord, be given to the young men who are accompanying my lord. ²⁸ Please, forgive the trespass of your maidservant. For Adonai will certainly make an enduring house for my lord^[b], because my lord is fighting the battles of Adonai. So let no wrongdoing be found in you all your days. ²⁹ If anyone rises to pursue you and seek your life, then let my lord’s life be bound up in the bundle of the living—with Adonai your God. But let the soul of your enemies be hurled away as from the hollow of a sling.

³⁰ “So when Adonai has fulfilled for my lord all the good things that He had spoken concerning you, and has appointed you ruler over Israel, ³¹ then this will not be a stumbling-block for you, or offense of heart to my lord, or needless bloodshed by my lord avenging himself. So when Adonai has dealt graciously with my lord, then remember your handmaid.”

³² Then David said to Abigail, “Blessed be Adonai God of Israel, who sent you to meet me this day! ³³ Blessed be your discernment, and may you be blessed for keeping me this day from shedding blood, from avenging myself with my own hand. ³⁴ Yet as Adonai God of Israel lives, who restrained me from harming you, unless you had come quickly to meet me, surely not one male of Nabal’s line would have been left alive by the morning light!” ³⁵ So David received from her hand what she had brought him, and said to her, “Go up in shalom to your house. Look, I have listened to your plea and have granted your request.”

³⁶ Then Abigail went to Nabal, and there he was holding a banquet in his house like that of a king—Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was quite drunk. So she told him nothing at all until daybreak. ³⁷ It came to pass in the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, and his wife told him these things, that his heart died within him, and he was paralyzed like a stone. ³⁸ About ten days later, Adonai struck Nabal and he died.

³⁹ When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be Adonai who took the case of my insult from the hand of Nabal, yet has restrained His servant from evil! Adonai has returned Nabal’s vileness on his own head.” Then David sent word and proposed to Abigail to take her as his wife. ⁴⁰ When David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel, they told her, “David has sent us to you, to take you as his wife.”

⁴¹ So she rose, bowed down with her face to the ground and said, “Behold, your handmaid is a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” ⁴² Then Abigail rose quickly and mounted a donkey, with five of her maidens following her, following David’s messengers, and she became his wife.

⁴³ David also took Ahinoam of Jezreel, and the two of them were his wives. ⁴⁴ Meanwhile Saul had given Michal his daughter, David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish, who was of Gallim.

Settle Disputes Within the Community

6 Does any one of you, when he has a matter against his neighbor, dare to go to court before the unrighteous and not before the kedoshim? ² Don’t you know that the kedoshim will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to judge trivial matters? ³ Don’t you know that we will judge angels? How much more the matters of this life! ⁴ So if you have courts for matters of this life, why do you appoint as judges those who have no standing in the community? ⁵ I say this to put you to shame! Isn’t there even one wise man among you who will be able to settle disputes between his brethren? ⁶ Instead, a brother goes to court against a brother—and before unbelievers at that!

⁷ Therefore, it is already an utter failure for you that you have lawsuits among yourselves. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? ⁸ But you yourselves do wrong and cheat—and against your brothers and sisters at that!

Morality in the Temple of God

⁹ Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Don’t be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, those who practice homosexuality, ¹⁰ thieves, the greedy, drunkards, slanderers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. ¹¹ That is what some of you were—but you were washed, you were made holy, you were set right in the name of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah and by the Ruach of our God.

¹² “Everything is permitted for me”—but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permitted for me”—but I will not be controlled by anything. ¹³ “Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food”—but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. ¹⁴ Now God raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. ¹⁵ Don’t you know that your bodies are members of Messiah? Shall I then take the members of Messiah and make them members of a prostitute? May it never be! ¹⁶ Or don’t you know that the one who joins himself to a prostitute is one body with her? For it is said, “The two shall become one flesh.” ^{[a] 17} But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.

¹⁸ Flee from sexual immorality! Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body—but the one committing sexual immorality sins against his own body. ¹⁹ Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Ruach ha-Kodesh who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? ²⁰ For you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.^[b]

Ezekiel Portrays the Siege of Jerusalem

4 “Now you, son of man, take a brick and lay it before you. Engrave on it a city, Jerusalem. ² Lay siege against it, build earthworks against it, raise an assault ramp against it; pitch camps against it and place battering rams all around it. ³ Then take an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Set your face toward it so that it is under siege. So you will lay siege against it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.

⁴ “Then you are to lie on your left side, and set on it the punishment of the house of Israel; according to the number of days that you lie on it, you will bear their iniquity. ⁵ I have appointed the years of their punishment to you as a number of days—390 days. So you will bear the iniquity of the house of Israel. ⁶ When you have completed these, you will lie on your right side and bear the iniquity of the house of Judah—40 days—a day for each year, I have appointed to you. ⁷ You will set your face toward the siege of Jerusalem, with your arm bared, and prophesy against it.

⁸ “Behold, I will put ropes upon you. You will not be able to turn from side to side until you have completed the days of your siege. ⁹ Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and rye, and put them in one bowl. You will make bread from them for the number of days that you will lie on your side; for 390 days, you will eat it. ¹⁰ The food that you will eat will be 20 shekels a day by weight^[a]. You may eat from it from time to time. ¹¹ You are also to drink water by measure, a sixth of a hin^[b]. You may drink it from time to time. ¹² Eat it as barley cakes. Bake it on human dung before their eyes.”

¹³ Then Adonai said, “This is how Bnei-Yisrael will eat their bread—unclean, among the nations where I will scatter them.”

¹⁴ Then I said, “Ah, Adonai Elohim! Behold, I have never defiled myself. From my youth up until now have I not eaten what died of itself or was torn by beasts. Tainted meat has never come into my mouth.”

¹⁵ He said to me, “See, I have given you cow dung instead of human dung. So you will prepare your bread on it.” ¹⁶ Then he said to me, “Son of man, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem. They will eat bread by weight, in anxiety, and they will drink water by measure, in horror. ¹⁷ On account of their lack of bread and water they will be appalled at one another and waste away in their iniquity.

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