M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

11 And the people grumbled and deplored their hardships, which was evil in the ears of the Lord, and when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled; and the fire of the Lord burned among them and devoured those in the outlying parts of the camp.

² The people cried to Moses, and when Moses prayed to the Lord, the fire subsided.

³ He called the name of the place Taberah [burning], because the fire of the Lord burned among them.

⁴ And the mixed multitude among them [the rabble who followed Israel from Egypt] began to lust greatly [for familiar and dainty food], and the Israelites wept again and said, Who will give us meat to eat?

⁵ We remember the fish we ate freely in Egypt and without cost, the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic.

⁶ But now our soul (our strength) is dried up; there is nothing at all [in the way of food] to be seen but this manna.

⁷ The manna was like coriander seed and its appearance was like that of bdellium [perhaps a precious stone].

⁸ The people went about and gathered it, and ground it in mills or beat it in mortars, and boiled it in pots, and made cakes of it; and it tasted like cakes baked with fresh oil.

⁹ And when the dew fell on the camp in the night, the manna fell with it.

¹⁰ And Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, every man at the door of his tent; and the anger of the Lord blazed hotly, and in the eyes of Moses it was evil.

¹¹ And Moses said to the Lord, Why have You dealt ill with Your servants? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You lay the burden of all this people on me?

¹² Have I conceived all this people? Have I brought them forth, that You should say to me, Carry them in your bosom, as a nursing father carries the sucking child, to the land which You swore to their fathers [to give them]?

¹³ Where should I get meat to give to all these people? For they weep before me and say, Give us meat, that we may eat.

¹⁴ I am not able to carry all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me.

¹⁵ And if this is the way You deal with me, kill me, I pray You, at once, and be granting me a favor and let me not see my wretchedness [in the failure of all my efforts].

¹⁶ And the Lord said to Moses, Gather for Me ^[a]seventy men of the elders of Israel whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; and bring them to the Tent of Meeting and let them stand there with you.

¹⁷ And I will come down and talk with you there; and I will take of the Spirit which is upon you and will put It upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not have to bear it yourself alone.

¹⁸ And say to the people, Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, and you shall eat meat; for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord, saying, Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt. Therefore the Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat.

¹⁹ You shall not eat one day, or two, or five, or ten, or twenty days,

²⁰ But a whole month—until [you are satiated and vomit it up violently and] it comes out at your nostrils and is disgusting to you—because you have rejected and despised the Lord Who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, Why did we come out of Egypt?^(A)

²¹ But Moses said, The people among whom I am are 600,000 footmen [besides all the women and children], and You have said, I will give them meat, that they may eat a whole month!

²² Shall flocks and herds be killed to suffice them? Or shall all the fish of the sea be collected to satisfy them?

²³ The Lord said to Moses, Has the Lord’s hand (His ability and power) become short (thwarted and inadequate)? You shall see now whether My word shall come to pass for you or not.^(B)

²⁴ So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and he gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and set them round about the Tent.

²⁵ And the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took of the Spirit that was upon him and put It upon the seventy elders; and when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied [sounding forth the praises of God and declaring His will]. Then they did so no more.^(C)

²⁶ But there remained two men in the camp named Eldad and Medad. The Spirit rested upon them, and they were of those who were selected and listed, yet they did not go out to the Tent [as told to do], but they prophesied in the camp.

²⁷ And a young man ran to Moses and said, Eldad and Medad are prophesying [sounding forth the praises of God and declaring His will] in the camp.

²⁸ Joshua son of Nun, the minister of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, My lord Moses, forbid them!

²⁹ But Moses said to him, Are you ^[b]envious or jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!^(D)

³⁰ And Moses went back into the camp, he and the elders of Israel.

³¹ And there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought quails from the sea, and let them fall [so they flew low] beside the camp, about a day’s journey on this side and on the other side, all around the camp, about two cubits above the ground.

³² And the people rose all that day and all night and all the next day and caught and gathered the quails. He who gathered least gathered ten homers; and they spread them out for themselves round about the camp [to cure them by drying].

³³ While the meat was yet between their teeth, before it was consumed, the anger of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote them with a very great plague.

³⁴ That place was called Kibroth-hattaavah [the graves of sensuous desire], because there they buried the people who lusted, whose physical appetite caused them to sin.^(E)

³⁵ The Israelites journeyed from Kibroth-hattaavah to Hazeroth, where they remained.

Psalm 48

A song; a Psalm of the sons of Korah.

¹ Great is the Lord, and highly to be praised in the city of our God! His holy mountain,

² Fair and beautiful in elevation, is the joy of all the earth—^[a]Mount Zion [the City of David], to the northern side [Mount Moriah and the temple], the [whole] city of the Great King!^(A)

³ God has made Himself known in her palaces as a Refuge (a High Tower and a Stronghold).

⁴ For, behold, the kings assembled, they came onward and they passed away together.

⁵ They looked, they were amazed; they were stricken with terror and took to flight [affrighted and dismayed].

⁶ Trembling took hold of them there, and pain as of a woman in childbirth.

⁷ With the east wind You shattered the ships of Tarshish.

⁸ As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it forever. Selah [pause, and calmly think of that]!

⁹ We have thought of Your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of Your temple.

¹⁰ As is Your name, O God, so is Your praise to the ends of the earth; Your right hand is full of righteousness (rightness and justice).

¹¹ Let Mount Zion be glad! Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of Your [righteous] judgments!

¹² Walk about Zion, and go round about her, number her towers (her lofty and noble deeds of past days),

¹³ Consider well her ramparts, go through her palaces and citadels, that you may tell the next generation [and cease recalling disappointments].

¹⁴ For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide [even] until death.

1 The vision [seen by spiritual perception] of Isaiah son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah [the kingdom] and Jerusalem [its capital] in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.

² Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: I have nourished and brought up sons and have made them great and exalted, but they have rebelled against Me and broken away from Me.

³ The ox [instinctively] knows his owner, and the donkey his master’s crib, but Israel does not know or recognize Me [as Lord], My people do not consider or understand.

⁴ Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken the Lord, they have despised and shown contempt and provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they have become utterly estranged (alienated).

⁵ Why should you be stricken and punished any more [since it brings no correction]? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint (feeble, sick, and nauseated).

⁶ From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness or health in [the nation’s body]—but wounds and bruises and fresh and bleeding stripes; they have not been pressed out and closed up or bound up or softened with oil. [No one has troubled to seek a remedy.]

⁷ [Because of your detestable disobedience] your country lies desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land—strangers devour it in your very presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by aliens.

⁸ And the Daughter of Zion [Jerusalem] is left like a [deserted] booth in a vineyard, like a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, like a besieged city [spared, but in the midst of desolation].

⁹ Except the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant [of survivors], we should have been like Sodom, and we should have been like Gomorrah.^(A)

¹⁰ Hear [O Jerusalem] the word of the Lord, you rulers or judges of [another] Sodom! Give ear to the law and the teaching of our God, you people of [another] Gomorrah!

¹¹ To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices to Me [unless they are the offering of the heart]? says the Lord. I have had enough of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts [without obedience]; and I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of he-goats [without righteousness].

¹² When you come to appear before Me, who requires of you that your [unholy feet] trample My courts?

¹³ Bring no more offerings of vanity (emptiness, falsity, vainglory, and futility); [your hollow offering of] incense is an abomination to Me; the New Moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure—[it is] iniquity and profanation, even the solemn meeting.

¹⁴ Your New Moon festivals and your [hypocritical] appointed feasts My soul hates. They are an oppressive burden to Me; I am weary of bearing them.

¹⁵ And when you spread forth your hands [in prayer, imploring help], I will hide My eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood!

¹⁶ Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes! Cease to do evil,

¹⁷ Learn to do right! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.

¹⁸ Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool.

¹⁹ If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

²⁰ But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it.

²¹ How the faithful city has become an [idolatrous] harlot, she who was full of justice! Uprightness and right standing with God [once] lodged in her—but now murderers.

²² Your silver has become dross, your wine is mixed with water.

²³ Your princes are rebels and companions of thieves; everyone loves bribes and runs after compensation and rewards. They judge not for the fatherless nor defend them, neither does the cause of the widow come to them [for they delay or turn a deaf ear].

²⁴ Therefore says the Lord, the Lord of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will appease Myself on My adversaries and avenge Myself on My enemies.

²⁵ And I will bring My hand again upon you and thoroughly purge away your dross [as with lye] and take away all your tin or alloy.

²⁶ And I will restore your judges as at the first, and your counselors as at the beginning; afterward you shall be called the City of Righteousness, the Faithful City.

²⁷ Zion shall be redeemed with justice, and her [returned] converts with righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God).

²⁸ But the crushing and destruction of rebels and sinners shall be together, and they who forsake the Lord shall be consumed.

²⁹ For you will be ashamed [of the folly and degradation] of the oak or terebinth trees in which you found [idolatrous] pleasure, and you will blush with shame for the [idolatrous worship which you practice in the passion-inflaming] gardens which you have chosen.

³⁰ For you shall be like an oak or terebinth whose leaf withers, and like a garden that has no water.

³¹ And the strong shall become like tow and become tinder, and his work like a spark, and they shall both burn together, with none to quench them.

9 Now even the first covenant had its own rules and regulations for divine worship, and it had a sanctuary [but one] of this world.^(A)

² For a tabernacle (tent) was erected, in the outer division or compartment of which were the lampstand and the table with [its loaves of] the showbread set forth. [This portion] is called the Holy Place.^(B)

³ But [inside] beyond the second curtain or veil, [there stood another] tabernacle [division] known as the Holy of Holies.^(C)

⁴ It had the golden ^[a]altar of incense and the ark (chest) of the covenant, covered over with wrought gold. This [ark] contained a golden jar which held the manna and the rod of Aaron that sprouted and the [two stone] slabs of the covenant [bearing the Ten Commandments].^(D)

⁵ Above [the ark] and overshadowing the mercy seat were the representations of the cherubim [winged creatures which were the symbols] of glory. We cannot now go into detail about these things.

⁶ These arrangements having thus been made, the priests enter [habitually] into the outer division of the tabernacle in performance of their ritual acts of worship.

⁷ But into the second [division of the tabernacle] none but the high priest goes, and he only once a year, and never without taking a sacrifice of blood with him, which he offers for himself and for the errors and sins of ignorance and thoughtlessness which the people have committed.^(E)

⁸ By this the Holy Spirit points out that the way into the [true Holy of] Holies is not yet thrown open as long as the former [the outer portion of the] tabernacle remains a recognized institution and is still standing,

⁹ Seeing that that first [outer portion of the] tabernacle was a parable (a visible symbol or type or picture of the present age). In it gifts and sacrifices are offered, and yet are incapable of perfecting the conscience or of cleansing and renewing the inner man of the worshiper.

¹⁰ For [the ceremonies] deal only with clean and unclean meats and drinks and different washings, [mere] external rules and regulations for the body imposed to tide the worshipers over until the time of setting things straight [of reformation, of the complete new order when Christ, the Messiah, shall establish the reality of what these things foreshadow—a better covenant].

¹¹ But [that appointed time came] when Christ (the Messiah) appeared as a High Priest of the better things that have come and are to come. [Then] through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with [human] hands, that is, not a part of this material creation,

¹² He went once for all into the [Holy of] Holies [of heaven], not by virtue of the blood of goats and calves [by which to make reconciliation between God and man], but His own blood, having found and secured a complete redemption (an everlasting release for us).

¹³ For if [the mere] sprinkling of unholy and defiled persons with blood of goats and bulls and with the ashes of a burnt heifer is sufficient for the purification of the body,^(F)

¹⁴ How much more surely shall the blood of Christ, Who ^[b]by virtue of [His] eternal Spirit [His own preexistent ^[c]divine personality] has offered Himself as an unblemished sacrifice to God, purify our consciences from dead works and lifeless observances to serve the [ever] living God?

¹⁵ [Christ, the Messiah] is therefore the Negotiator and Mediator of an [entirely] new agreement (testament, covenant), so that those who are called and offered it may receive the fulfillment of the promised everlasting inheritance—since a death has taken place which rescues and delivers and redeems them from the transgressions committed under the [old] first agreement.

¹⁶ For where there is a [last] will and testament involved, the death of the one who made it must be established,

¹⁷ For a will and testament is valid and takes effect only at death, since it has no force or legal power as long as the one who made it is alive.

¹⁸ So even the [old] first covenant (God’s will) was not inaugurated and ratified and put in force without the shedding of blood.

¹⁹ For when every command of the Law had been read out by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of slain calves and goats, together with water and scarlet wool and with a bunch of hyssop, and sprinkled both the Book (the roll of the Law and covenant) itself and all the people,

²⁰ Saying these words: This is the blood that seals and ratifies the agreement (the testament, the covenant) which God commanded [me to deliver to] you.^(G)

²¹ And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and all the [sacred] vessels and appliances used in [divine] worship.

²² [In fact] under the Law almost everything is purified by means of blood, and without the shedding of blood there is neither release from sin and its guilt nor the remission of the due and merited punishment for sins.

²³ By such means, therefore, it was necessary for the [earthly] copies of the heavenly things to be purified, but the actual heavenly things themselves [required far] better and nobler sacrifices than these.

²⁴ For Christ (the Messiah) has not entered into a sanctuary made with [human] hands, only a copy and pattern and type of the true one, but [He has entered] into heaven itself, now to appear in the [very] presence of God on our behalf.

²⁵ Nor did He [enter into the heavenly sanctuary to] offer Himself regularly again and again, as the high priest enters the [Holy of] Holies every year with blood not his own.

²⁶ For then would He often have had to suffer [over and over again] since the foundation of the world. But as it now is, He has once for all at the consummation and close of the ages appeared to put away and abolish sin by His sacrifice [of Himself].

²⁷ And just as it is appointed for [all] men once to die, and after that the [certain] judgment,

²⁸ Even so it is that Christ, having been offered to take upon Himself and bear as a burden the sins of many once and ^[d]once for all, will appear a second time, not to carry any burden of sin nor to deal with sin, but to bring to full salvation those who are [eagerly, constantly, and patiently] waiting for and expecting Him.