M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

5 The Lord said to Moses,

² Command the Israelites that they put outside the camp every leper and everyone who has a discharge, and whoever is defiled by [coming in contact with] the dead.

³ Both male and female you shall put out; without the camp you shall put them, that they may not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell.

⁴ The Israelites did so, and put them outside the camp; as the Lord said to Moses, so the Israelites did.

⁵ And the Lord said to Moses,

⁶ Say to the Israelites, When a man or woman commits any sin that men commit by breaking faith with the Lord, and that person is guilty,

⁷ Then he shall confess the sin which he has committed, and he shall make restitution for his wrong in full, and add a fifth to it, and give it to him whom he has wronged.

⁸ But if the man [wronged] has no kinsman to whom the restitution may be made, let it be given to the Lord for the priest, besides the ram of atonement with which atonement shall be made for the offender.

⁹ And every offering of all the holy things of the Israelites which they bring to the priest shall be his.

¹⁰ And every man’s hallowed things shall be the priest’s; whatever any man gives the priest shall be his.

¹¹ And the Lord said to Moses,

¹² Say to the Israelites, If any man’s wife goes astray and commits an offense of guilt against him,

¹³ And a man lies with her carnally, and it is hidden from the eyes of her husband and it is kept secret though she is defiled, and there is no witness against her nor was she taken in the act,

¹⁴ And if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he is jealous and suspicious of his wife who has defiled herself—or if the spirit of jealousy comes upon him and he is jealous and suspicious of his wife though she has not defiled herself—

¹⁵ Then shall the man bring his wife to the priest, and he shall bring the offering required of her, a tenth of an ephah of barley meal; but he shall pour no oil upon it nor put frankincense on it [symbols of favor and joy], for it is a cereal offering of jealousy and suspicion, a memorial offering bringing iniquity to remembrance.

¹⁶ And the priest shall bring her near and set her before the Lord.

¹⁷ And the priest shall take holy water [probably from the sacred laver] in an earthen vessel and take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it in the water.

¹⁸ And the priest shall set the woman before the Lord, and let the hair of the woman’s head hang loose, and put the meal offering of remembrance in her hands, which is the jealousy and suspicion offering. And the priest shall have in his hand the water of bitterness that brings the curse.

¹⁹ Then the priest shall make her take an oath, and say to the woman, If no man has lain with you and if you have not gone astray to uncleanness with another instead of your husband, then be free from any effect of this water of bitterness which brings the curse.

²⁰ But if you have gone astray and you are defiled, some man having lain with you beside your husband,

²¹ Then the priest shall make the woman take the oath of the curse, and say to the woman, The Lord make you a curse and an oath among your people when the Lord makes your thigh fall away and your body swell.

²² May this water that brings the curse go into your bowels and make your body swell and your thigh fall away. And the woman shall say, So let it be, so let it be.

²³ The priest shall then write these curses in a book and shall wash them off into the water of bitterness;

²⁴ And he shall cause the woman to drink the water of bitterness that brings the curse, and the water that brings the curse shall enter into her [to try her] bitterly.

²⁵ Then the priest shall take the cereal offering of jealousy and suspicion out of the woman’s hand and shall wave the offering before the Lord and offer it upon the altar.

²⁶ And the priest shall take a handful of the cereal offering as the memorial portion of it and burn it on the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the water.

²⁷ And when he has made her drink the water, then if she is defiled and has committed a trespass against her husband, the curse water which she drank shall be bitterness and cause her body to swell and her thigh to fall away, and the woman shall be a curse among her people.

²⁸ But if the woman is not defiled and is clean, then she shall be free [from the curse] and be able to have children.

²⁹ This is the law of jealousy and suspicion when a wife goes aside to another instead of her husband and is defiled,

³⁰ Or when the spirit of jealousy and suspicion comes upon a man and he is jealous and suspicious of his wife; then shall he set the woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute on her all this law.

³¹ The [husband] shall be free from iniquity and guilt, and that woman [if guilty] shall bear her iniquity.

Psalm 39

To the Chief Musician; for Jeduthun [founder of an official musical family]. A Psalm of David.

¹ I said, I will take heed and guard my ways, that I may sin not with my tongue; I will muzzle my mouth as with a bridle while the wicked are before me.

² I was dumb with silence, I held my peace without profit and had no comfort away from good, while my distress was renewed.

³ My heart was hot within me. While I was musing, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue:

⁴ Lord, make me to know my end and [to appreciate] the measure of my days—what it is; let me know and realize how frail I am [how transient is my stay here].

⁵ Behold, You have made my days as [short as] handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in Your sight. Truly every man at his best is merely a breath! Selah [pause, and think calmly of that]!

⁶ Surely every man walks to and fro—like a shadow in a pantomime; surely for futility and emptiness he is in turmoil; each one heaps up riches, not knowing who will gather them.^(A)

⁷ And now, Lord, what do I wait for and expect? My hope and expectation are in You.

⁸ Deliver me from all my transgressions; make me not the scorn and reproach of the [self-confident] fool!

⁹ I am dumb, I open not my mouth, for it is You Who has done it.

¹⁰ Remove Your stroke away from me; I am consumed by the conflict and the blow of Your hand.

¹¹ When with rebukes You correct and chasten man for sin, You waste his beauty like a moth and what is dear to him consumes away; surely every man is a mere breath. Selah [pause, and think calmly of that]!

¹² Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry; hold not Your peace at my tears! For I am Your passing guest, a temporary resident, as all my fathers were.

¹³ O look away from me and spare me, that I may recover cheerfulness and encouraging strength and know gladness before I go and am no more!

3 In the night I dreamed that I sought the one whom I love. [She said] I looked for him but could not find him.^(A)

² So I decided to go out into the city, into the streets and broad ways [which are so confusing to a country girl], and seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I could not find him.

³ The watchmen who go about the city found me, to whom I said, Have you seen him whom my soul loves?

⁴ I had gone but a little way past them when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him and would not let him go until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her who conceived me.^(B)

⁵ I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field that you stir not up nor awaken love until it pleases.

⁶ Who or what is this [she asked] that comes gliding out of the wilderness like stately pillars of smoke perfumed with myrrh, frankincense, and all the fragrant powders of the merchant?

⁷ [Someone answered] Behold, it is the traveling litter (the bridal car) of Solomon. Sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel.

⁸ They all handle the sword and are expert in war; every man has his sword upon his thigh, that fear be not excited in the night.

⁹ King Solomon made himself a car or a palanquin from the [cedar] wood of Lebanon.

¹⁰ He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple, the inside of it lovingly and intricately wrought in needlework by the daughters of Jerusalem.

¹¹ Go forth, O you daughters of Zion, and gaze upon King Solomon wearing the crown with which his mother [Bathsheba] crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of his gladness of heart.

3 So then, brethren, consecrated and set apart for God, who share in the heavenly calling, [thoughtfully and attentively] consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest Whom we confessed [as ours when we embraced the Christian faith].

² [See how] faithful He was to Him Who appointed Him [Apostle and High Priest], as Moses was also faithful in the whole house [of God].^(A)

³ Yet Jesus has been considered worthy of much greater honor and glory than Moses, just as the builder of a house has more honor than the house [itself].

⁴ For [of course] every house is built and furnished by someone, but the Builder of all things and the Furnisher [of the entire equipment of all things] is God.

⁵ And Moses certainly was faithful in the administration of all God’s house [but it was only] as a ministering servant. [In his entire ministry he was but] a testimony to the things which were to be spoken [the revelations to be given afterward in Christ].^(B)

⁶ But Christ (the Messiah) was faithful over His [own Father’s] house as a Son [and Master of it]. And it is we who are [now members] of this house, if we hold fast and firm to the end our joyful and exultant confidence and sense of triumph in our hope [in Christ].

⁷ Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: Today, if you will hear His voice,

⁸ Do not harden your hearts, as [happened] in the rebellion [of Israel] and their provocation and ^[a]embitterment [of Me] in the day of testing in the wilderness,

⁹ Where your fathers tried [My patience] and tested [My forbearance] and ^[b]found I stood their test, and they saw My works for forty years.

¹⁰ And so I was provoked (displeased and sorely grieved) with that generation, and said, They always err and are led astray in their hearts, and they have not perceived or recognized My ways and become progressively better and more experimentally and intimately acquainted with them.

¹¹ Accordingly, I swore in My wrath and indignation, They shall not enter into My rest.^(C)

¹² [Therefore beware] brethren, take care, lest there be in any one of you a wicked, unbelieving heart [which refuses to cleave to, trust in, and rely on Him], leading you to turn away and desert or stand aloof from the living God.

¹³ But instead warn (admonish, urge, and encourage) one another every day, as long as it is called Today, that none of you may be hardened [into settled rebellion] by the deceitfulness of sin [by the fraudulence, the stratagem, the trickery which the delusive glamor of his sin may play on him].

¹⁴ For we ^[c]have become fellows with Christ (the Messiah) and share in all He has for us, if only we hold our first newborn confidence and original assured expectation [in virtue of which we are believers] firm and unshaken to the end.

¹⁵ Then while it is [still] called Today, if you would hear His voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion [in the desert, when the people provoked and irritated and embittered God against them].^(D)

¹⁶ For who were they who heard and yet were rebellious and provoked [Him]? Was it not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses?

¹⁷ And with whom was He irritated and provoked and grieved for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose ^[d]dismembered bodies were strewn and left in the desert?

¹⁸ And to whom did He swear that they should not enter His rest, but to those who disobeyed [who had not listened to His word and who refused to be compliant or be persuaded]?

¹⁹ So we see that they were not able to enter [into His rest], because of their unwillingness to adhere to and trust in and rely on God [unbelief had shut them out].^(E)