M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Towns for the Levites
35 The Lord spoke to Moses on the Plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho:
2 Command the people of Israel to give the Levites cities[a] to live in from the territory assigned to them as their possession. They will also give the Levites the pasturelands around those cities. 3 The Levites will then have cities to live in. Their pasturelands will be for their cattle, their flocks and herds, and all their other animals.
4 The pasturelands of the cities, which you will give to the Levites, will extend out from the wall of the city 500 yards[b] in all directions. 5 As the eastern boundary you will measure 1000 yards[c] in addition to the size of the city, 1000 yards as the southern boundary, 1000 yards as the western boundary, and 1000 yards as the northern boundary. The city is in the middle. This area will serve as the pasturelands of their cities.
6 The cities which you will give to the Levites will include six cities of refuge, which you will provide so that a person who has killed someone may flee there. In addition to these six cities, you will give them forty-two other cities. 7 All the cities which you are to give to the Levites will total forty-eight cities along with their pasturelands. 8 For the cities which you will transfer to the Levites from the property of the Israelites, you will take more cities from a larger tribe and fewer from a smaller tribe. Every tribe will give some of its cities to the Levites in proportion to the amount of assigned territory it has received.
Cities of Refuge
9 The Lord told Moses 10 to speak to the Israelites and tell them this:
When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 11 you are to designate some cities to be cities of refuge for yourselves, so that a person who has killed someone by taking someone’s life unintentionally may flee there. 12 The cities will serve as a refuge for you from the avenger,[d] so that a person who has killed someone will not die until he stands trial before the community. 13 The cities which you will set aside will serve as the six cities of refuge for you. 14 You are to set aside three cities east of the Jordan and three cities in the land of Canaan. They will serve as cities of refuge. 15 These six cities will serve as a refuge for Israelites, for resident aliens, and for temporary residents living among them so that everyone who has taken someone’s life unintentionally may flee there.
16 But if a person strikes someone with an iron object so that he dies, that person is a murderer. The murderer must certainly be put to death. 17 If a person strikes someone with a stone in his hand that could kill someone, and the victim dies, that person is a murderer. The murderer must certainly be put to death. 18 Or if a person strikes someone with a wooden object in his hand that could kill someone, and the victim dies, that person is a murderer. The murderer must certainly be put to death. 19 The avenger of blood himself will put the murderer to death. When he apprehends him, he is to put him to death. 20 If a person pushes someone out of hatred or throws something at him with malicious intent so that he dies, 21 or in hostility strikes him with his hand so that he dies, that person who struck him must certainly be put to death. He is a murderer. The avenger of blood is to put the murderer to death when he apprehends him.
22 But if a person pushes someone suddenly without hostility or throws any object at him without malicious intent, 23 or if without looking he drops a stone on someone big enough to kill him and that person dies, since that person was not his enemy, and he did not seek to harm him, 24 the community will judge between the killer and the avenger of blood according to these ordinances. 25 The community will deliver the person who has killed someone from the hand of the avenger of blood. Then the community will take him back to his city of refuge, to which he had fled. He must live there until the death of the high priest, who was anointed with the holy oil.
26 But if the person who has killed someone ever goes outside of the border of the city of refuge to which he has fled, 27 and the avenger of blood finds him outside of the border of his city of refuge, and the avenger of blood kills the person who has killed someone, the avenger will not be guilty of bloodshed, 28 because the person who has killed someone should have stayed in his city of refuge until the death of the high priest. But after the death of the high priest he may return to the land that is his possession.
29 These things will be a legal statute for you throughout your generations wherever you live.
30 Everyone who has taken someone’s life is to be put to death as a murderer on the testimony of witnesses, but no one is to die on the testimony of only one witness.
31 You are not to accept a ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, because he must certainly be put to death.
32 You are not to accept a ransom for the one who has fled to a city of refuge in order to allow him to return to live in his land before the death of the priest.
33 So you are not to pollute the land where you are, because bloodshed pollutes the land. No atonement can be made for the land where blood has been shed except by the blood of the one who shed it. 34 You are not to defile the land in which you are living, where I am dwelling in its midst, for I, the Lord, am dwelling in the midst of the people of Israel.
Psalm 79
They Have Reduced Jerusalem to Rubble
Heading
A psalm by Asaph.
The Destruction and the Disgrace
1 God, the nations have invaded your possession.
They have profaned your holy temple.
They have reduced Jerusalem to a heap of ruins.
2 They have left the corpses of your servants
as food for the birds of the sky.
They have given the flesh of your favored ones to the wild animals.
3 They have poured out their blood like water all over Jerusalem,
and there is no one to bury them.
4 We are subjected to contempt by our neighbors,
to mockery and ridicule by those around us.
The Prayer for Justice
5 How long, O Lord? Will you stay angry forever?
How long will your jealous anger burn like fire?
6 Pour out your wrath on the nations that do not acknowledge you,
on the kingdoms that do not call on your name,
7 because they have devoured Jacob,
and they have destroyed his pastureland.[a]
8 Do not charge the guilt of our fathers against us.
Hurry, let your compassion come to meet us,
for we are very weak.
9 God, who saves us, help us for the glory of your name.
Deliver us and make atonement for our sins for your name’s sake.
10 Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?”
Before our very eyes, display to the nations
vengeance for the poured-out blood of your servants.
11 May the groaning of the prisoner come before you.
According to the great strength of your arm
preserve those doomed to death.
12 Pay back into the laps of our neighbors seven times as much scorn
as the scorn that they directed at you, Lord.
13 Then we your people, the flock of your pasture, will praise you forever.
From generation to generation we will recount your praise.
The Lord Will Deliver Israel
27 On that day, the Lord will draw his sharp, great, and powerful sword, and he will kill Leviathan,[a] the slithering serpent—Leviathan, the coiling serpent. The Lord will kill the monster[b] in the sea.
2 On that day, sing about a delightful vineyard![c]
3 I, the Lord, am serving as its caretaker.
I water it constantly.
So that nothing will damage it,
I guard it night and day.
4 I am not angry,
but if I do find briers and thorns there,
I will fight them!
I will charge against them and set them all on fire.
5 To prevent this, let them turn to me for protection
and make peace with me.
Let them make peace with me![d]
6 In days to come,
Jacob will take root.
Israel will blossom and bud.
It will fill the whole world with fruit.
7 Has he struck Israel the way he struck those who struck them?
Have they been killed the same way those who killed them were killed?
8 When you drive them away[e] and send them into exile,
you make your case against them.
He drives them out with his violent storm,
as on a day when the hot east wind blows.
9 In this way the guilt of Jacob will be atoned for,
and this will be all the fruit that results from taking away his sin.
He will make all the altar stones like chalk that has been crushed,
and no Asherah poles or incense altars will remain standing.
10 Then the fortified city will be all alone,
a dwelling place, deserted and forsaken, like a wilderness.
Calves will graze there.
They will lie down there and eat all the leaves off the branches.
11 When its twigs are dried up, they are broken off.
Women will come and build a fire with them.
Because they are a people who have no understanding,
therefore their Maker will have no compassion on them.
He who formed them will not be gracious to them.
12 On that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing river, the Euphrates, to the Stream of Egypt,[f] and you Israelites will be gathered one by one. 13 On that day there will be a very loud blast on a ram’s horn, and those who were about to perish in the land of Assyria, together with those who were scattered in the land of Egypt, will come. They will worship the Lord on the holy mountain at Jerusalem.
Faith, Love, and Obedience
5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the God who has given birth[a] also loves one who has been born of him. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: that we keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 because everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith. 5 Who is the one who overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
6 This is the one who came by water and blood: Jesus Christ. He did not come by the water alone but by the water and by the blood. The Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 In fact, there are three that testify:[b] 8 the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three are one.
9 If we accept the testimony of people, God’s testimony is even greater, because it is the testimony that God gave about his Son. 10 The one who believes in the Son of God has this testimony in him, but the one who does not believe has made God out to be a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God gave about his Son. 11 This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
14 This is the confidence that we have before him: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we also know that we receive the things we have asked from him.
16 If anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not result in death, he will ask, and God will give life—to those who commit sin that does not result in death. There is sin that results in death; I am not saying that he should ask about that. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, but there is sin that does not result in death.
18 We know that anyone who has been born of God does not go on sinning. But the one who was born of God protects him,[c] and the Evil One cannot take hold of him. 19 We know that we are from God and that the whole world lies in the grip of the Evil One. 20 We know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
21 Dear children, guard yourselves from idols.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.