M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Living as holy people

19 The Lord said to Moses, ² Say to the whole community of the Israelites: You must be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy. ³ Each of you must respect your mother and father, and you must keep my sabbaths; I am the Lord your God. ⁴ Do not turn to idols or make gods of cast metal for yourselves; I am the Lord your God. ⁵ When you sacrifice a communal sacrifice of well-being to the Lord, offer it so that it will be accepted on your account. ⁶ It must be eaten on the day of your sacrifice or the following day; whatever is left over on the third day must be burned with fire. ⁷ If any of it is eaten on the third day, it is foul; it will not be accepted. ⁸ Anyone who eats it will be liable to punishment, because they defiled what is holy to the Lord. That person will be cut off from their people. ⁹ When you harvest your land’s produce, you must not harvest all the way to the edge of your field; and don’t gather up every remaining bit of your harvest. ¹⁰ Also do not pick your vineyard clean or gather up all the grapes that have fallen there. Leave these items for the poor and the immigrant; I am the Lord your God.

¹¹ You must not steal nor deceive nor lie to each other. ¹² You must not swear falsely by my name, desecrating your God’s name in doing so; I am the Lord. ¹³ You must not oppress your neighbors or rob them. Do not withhold a hired laborer’s pay overnight. ¹⁴ You must not insult a deaf person or put some obstacle in front of a blind person that would cause them to trip. Instead, fear your God; I am the Lord.

¹⁵ You must not act unjustly in a legal case. Do not show favoritism to the poor or deference to the great; you must judge your fellow Israelites fairly. ¹⁶ Do not go around slandering your people.^[a] Do not stand by while your neighbor’s blood is shed;^[b] I am the Lord. ¹⁷ You must not hate your fellow Israelite in your heart. Rebuke your fellow Israelite strongly, so you don’t become responsible for his sin.^{[c] 18} You must not take revenge nor hold a grudge against any of your people; instead, you must love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.

¹⁹ You must keep my rules. Do not crossbreed your livestock, do not plant your field with two kinds of seed, and do not wear clothes made from two kinds of material. ²⁰ If a man has sexual relations with a woman who is a slave engaged to another man, who hasn’t yet been released or given her freedom, there must be a punishment.^[d] But they will not be put to death because she had not yet been freed. ²¹ The man must bring as his compensation to the Lord at the meeting tent’s entrance a ram for a compensation offering. ²² The priest will use the ram for the compensation offering to make reconciliation for him before the Lord on account of the sin he committed. Then he will be forgiven of the sin that he committed.

²³ When you enter the land and plant any fruit tree, you must consider its fruit off-limits.^[e] For three years it will be off-limits to you;^[f] it must not be eaten. ²⁴ In the fourth year, all of the tree’s fruit will be holy, a celebration for the Lord. ²⁵ In the fifth year you can eat the fruit. This is so as to increase its produce for you; I am the Lord your God.

²⁶ You must not eat anything with its blood. You must not participate in divination or fortune-telling. ²⁷ You must not cut off the hair on your forehead or clip the ends of your beard. ²⁸ Do not cut your bodies for the dead^[g] or put marks on^[h] yourselves; I am the Lord. ²⁹ Do not defile your daughter by making her sexually promiscuous or else the land will become promiscuous^[i] and full of shame. ³⁰ You must keep my sabbaths and treat my sanctuary with respect; I am the Lord. ³¹ Do not resort to dead spirits or inquire of spirits of divination—you will be made unclean by them; I am the Lord your God. ³² You must rise in the presence of an old person and respect the elderly. You must fear your God; I am the Lord.

³³ When immigrants live in your land with you, you must not cheat them. ³⁴ Any immigrant who lives with you must be treated as if they were one of your citizens. You must love them as yourself, because you were immigrants in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God. ³⁵ You must not act unjustly in a legal case involving measures of length, weight, or volume. ³⁶ You must have accurate scales and accurate weights, an accurate ephah^[j] and an accurate hin.^[k] I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. ³⁷ You must keep all my rules and all my regulations, and do them; I am the Lord.

Psalm 23

A psalm of David.

Psalm 24

A psalm of David.

2 I said to myself,^[a] Come, I will make you^[b] experience pleasure; enjoy what is good! But this too was pointless! ² Merriment, I thought, is madness; pleasure, of no use at all. ³ I tried cheering myself with wine and by embracing folly—with wisdom still guiding me—until I might see what is really worth doing in the few days that human beings have under heaven.

⁴ I took on great projects: I built houses for myself, planted vineyards for myself. ⁵ I made gardens and parks for myself, planting every kind of fruit tree in them. ⁶ I made reservoirs for myself to water my lush groves. ⁷ I acquired male servants and female servants; I even had slaves born in my house. I also had great herds of cattle and sheep, more than any who preceded me in Jerusalem. ⁸ I amassed silver and gold for myself, the treasures of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers for myself, along with every human luxury, treasure chests galore!^{[c] 9} So I became far greater than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. Moreover, my wisdom stood by me. ¹⁰ I refrained from nothing that my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure. Indeed, my heart found pleasure from the results of my hard work; that was the reward from all my hard work. ¹¹ But when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had worked so hard to achieve, I realized that it was pointless—a chasing after wind. Nothing is to be gained under the sun.

¹² My reflections then turned to wisdom, madness, and folly. What can the king’s heir do but what has already been done? ¹³ I saw that wisdom is more beneficial than folly, as light is more beneficial than darkness.

But I also realized that the same fate happens to both of them. ¹⁵ So I thought to myself, What happens to the fool will also happen to me. So why have I been so very wise? I said to myself, This too is pointless. ¹⁶ There is no eternal memory of the wise any more than the foolish,^[d] because everyone is forgotten before long. How can the wise die just like the fool? ¹⁷ So I hated life, because the things that happen under the sun were troublesome to me. Definitely, everything is pointless—just wind chasing.

¹⁸ I hated the things I worked so hard for here under the sun, because I will have to leave them to someone who comes after me. ¹⁹ And who knows whether that one will be wise or foolish? Either way, that person will have control over the results of all my hard work and wisdom here under the sun. That too is pointless. ²⁰ I then gave myself up to despair, as I thought about all my laborious hard work under the sun, ²¹ because sometimes those who have worked hard with wisdom, knowledge, and skill must leave the results of their hard work as a possession to those who haven’t worked hard for it. This too is pointless—it’s a terrible wrong. ²² I mean, What do people get for all their hard work and struggles under the sun? ²³ All their days are pain, and their work is aggravation; even at night, their hearts don’t find rest. This too is pointless.

²⁴ There’s nothing better for human beings than to eat, drink, and experience pleasure in their hard work. I also saw that this is from God’s hand— ²⁵ Who can eat and find enjoyment otherwise?— ²⁶ because God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please God. But to those who are offensive,^[e] God gives the task of hoarding and accumulating, but only so as to give it all to those who do please God. This too is pointless and a chasing after wind.

4 The Spirit clearly says that in latter times some people will turn away from the faith. They will pay attention to spirits that deceive and to the teaching of demons. ² They will be controlled by the pretense of lying, and their own consciences will be seared. ³ They will prohibit marriage and eating foods that God created—and he intended them to be accepted with thanksgiving by those who are faithful and have come to know the truth. ⁴ Everything that has been created by God is good, and nothing that is received with thanksgiving should be rejected. ⁵ These things are made holy by God’s word and prayer. ⁶ If you point these things out to the believers, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus who has been trained by the words of faith and the good teaching that you’ve carefully followed. ⁷ But stay away from the godless myths that are passed down from the older women.

Practices of spiritual leadership

Train yourself for a holy life! ⁸ While physical training has some value, training in holy living is useful for everything. It has promise for this life now and the life to come. ⁹ This saying is reliable and deserves complete acceptance. ¹⁰ We work and struggle for this: “Our hope is set on the living God, who is the savior of all people, especially those who believe.” ¹¹ Command these things. Teach them. ¹² Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young. Instead, set an example for the believers through your speech, behavior, love, faith, and by being sexually pure. ¹³ Until I arrive, pay attention to public reading, preaching, and teaching. ¹⁴ Don’t neglect the spiritual gift in you that was given through prophecy when the elders laid hands on you. ¹⁵ Practice these things, and live by them so that your progress will be visible to all. ¹⁶ Focus on working on your own development and on what you teach. If you do this, you will save yourself and those who hear you.