M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
God’s People
7 The Lord your God will bring you into the land. You are entering that land to own it. As you go in, he will force out these nations: the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. These seven nations are stronger than you. 2 The Lord your God will hand these nations over to you. You will defeat them. You must destroy them completely. Do not make a peace treaty with them. Do not show them any mercy. 3 Do not marry any of them. Don’t let your daughters marry their sons. And don’t let your sons marry their daughters. 4 Those people will turn your children away from me. Your children will begin serving other gods. The Lord will be very angry with you. And he will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you must do to those people: Tear down their altars. Smash their holy stone pillars. Cut down their Asherah idols and burn their idols in the fire. 6 You are holy people. You belong to the Lord your God. He has chosen you from all the people on earth. You are his very own.
7 The Lord did not care for you and choose you because there were many of you. You are the smallest nation of all. 8 But the Lord chose you because he loved you. And he kept his promise to your ancestors. So he brought you out of Egypt by his great power. He brought you back from the land of slavery. He bought you back from the power of the king of Egypt. 9 So know that the Lord your God is God. He is the faithful God. He will keep his agreement of love for a thousand lifetimes. He does this for people who love him and obey his commands. 10 But he will pay back those people who hate him. He will destroy them. And he will not be slow to pay back those who hate him. 11 So be careful to obey the commands, rules and laws I give you today.
12 Pay attention to these laws. Obey them carefully. Then the Lord your God will keep his agreement and show his love to you. He promised your ancestors he would. 13 He will love and bless you. He will make the number of your people grow. He will bless you with children. He will bless your fields with good crops. He will give you grain, new wine and oil. He will bless your cows with calves and your sheep with lambs. This is the way it will be in the land he promised your ancestors he would give you. 14 You will be blessed more than any other people. Every husband and wife will have children. All your cattle will have calves. 15 The Lord will take away all disease from you. You will not have the terrible diseases that were in Egypt. But he will give them to your enemies. 16 You must destroy all the people the Lord your God hands over to you. Do not feel sorry for them. Do not worship their gods. They will trap you.
17 You might say to yourselves, “These nations are stronger than we are. We can’t force them out.” 18 But don’t be afraid of them. Remember what the Lord your God did to all of Egypt and its king. 19 You saw for yourselves the troubles, signs and miracles he did. You saw how the Lord’s great power and strength brought you out of Egypt. The Lord your God will do the same thing to all the nations you now fear. 20 The Lord your God will also send hornets to attack them. Even those who are alive and hiding from you will die. 21 Don’t be afraid of them. The Lord your God is with you. He is a great God and people are afraid of him. 22 The Lord your God will force those nations out of the land. They will leave little by little ahead of you. Don’t destroy them all at once. Otherwise, the wild animals will grow too many in number. 23 But the Lord your God will hand those nations over to you. He will confuse them until they are destroyed. 24 The Lord will help you defeat their kings. The world will forget who they were. No one will be able to stop you. You will destroy them all. 25 Burn up their idols in the fire. Do not wish for the silver and gold on them. Don’t take it for yourselves, or you will be trapped by it. The Lord your God hates it. 26 Do not bring one of those hated things into your house. If you do, you will be completely destroyed along with it. Hate and reject those things. They must be completely destroyed.
Book 4
Psalms 90—106
God Is Eternal, and We Are Not
A prayer of Moses, the man of God.
90 Lord, you have been our home
since the beginning.
2 Before the mountains were born,
and before you created the earth and the world,
you are God.
You have always been, and you will always be.
3 You turn people back into dust.
You say, “Go back into dust, human beings.”
4 To you, a thousand years
is like the passing of a day.
It passes like an hour in the night.
5 While people sleep, you take their lives.
They are like weeds that grow in the morning.
6 In the morning they are fresh and new.
But by evening they dry up and die.
7 We are destroyed by your anger.
We are terrified by your hot anger.
8 You have put the evil we have done right in front of you.
You clearly see our secret sins.
9 All our days pass while you are angry.
Our years end with a moan.
10 Our lifetime is 70 years.
If we are strong, we may live to be 80.
But the years are full of hard work and pain.
They pass quickly, and then we are gone.
11 Who knows the full power of your anger?
Your anger is as great as our fear of you should be.
12 Teach us how short our lives really are
so that we may be wise.
13 Lord, how long before you return
and show kindness to your servants?
14 Fill us with your love every morning.
Then we will sing and rejoice all our lives.
15 We have seen years of trouble.
Now give us joy as you gave us sorrow.
16 Show your servants the wonderful things you do.
Show your greatness to their children.
17 Lord our God, be pleased with us.
Give us success in what we do.
Yes, give us success in what we do.
God Will Comfort His People
35 The desert and dry land will become happy.
The desert will be glad and will produce flowers.
Like a flower, 2 it will have many blooms.
It will show its happiness, as if it is shouting with joy.
It will be beautiful like the forest of Lebanon.
It will be as beautiful as the hill of Carmel and the Plain of Sharon.
All people will see the glory of the Lord.
They will see the splendor of our God.
3 Make the weak hands strong.
Make the weak knees strong.
4 Say to people who are afraid and confused,
“Be strong. Don’t be afraid.
Look, your God will come,
and he will punish your enemies.
He will make them pay for the wrongs they did.
He will come and save you.”
5 Then the blind people will see again.
Then the deaf will hear.
6 Crippled people will jump like deer.
And those who can’t talk now will shout with joy.
Springs of water will flow in the desert.
Streams will flow in the dry land.
7 The burning desert will have pools of water.
The dry ground will have springs.
Where wild dogs once lived,
grass and water plants will grow.
8 A road will be there.
This highway will be called “The Road to Being Holy.”
Evil people will not be allowed to walk on that road.
Only good people will walk on that road.
No fools will go on it.
9 No lions will be there.
No dangerous animals will be on that road.
They will not be found there.
That road will be for the people God saves.
10 The people the Lord has freed will return there.
They will enter Jerusalem with joy.
Their happiness will last forever.
Their gladness and joy will fill them completely.
Sorrow and sadness will go far away.
5 Then I saw a scroll in the right hand of the One sitting on the throne. The scroll had writing on both sides. It was kept closed with seven seals. 2 And I saw a powerful angel. He called in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” 3 But there was no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth who could open the scroll or look inside it. 4 I cried and cried because there was no one who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. 5 But one of the elders said to me, “Do not cry! The Lion[a] from the tribe of Judah has won the victory. He is David’s descendant. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”
6 Then I saw a Lamb standing in the center of the throne with the four living things around it. The elders were also around the Lamb. The Lamb looked as if he had been killed. He had seven horns and seven eyes. These are the seven spirits of God that were sent into all the world. 7 The Lamb came and took the scroll from the right hand of the One sitting on the throne. 8 After he took the scroll, the four living things and the 24 elders bowed down before the Lamb. Each one of them had a harp. Also, they were holding golden bowls full of incense. These bowls of incense are the prayers of God’s holy people. 9 And they all sang a new song to the Lamb:
“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were killed;
and with the blood of your death you bought men for God
from every tribe, language, people, and nation.
10 You made them to be a kingdom of priests for our God.
And they will rule on the earth.”
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels. The angels were around the throne, the four living things, and the elders. There were thousands and thousands of angels—there were 10,000 times 10,000. 12 The angels said in a loud voice:
“The Lamb who was killed is worthy
to receive power, wealth, wisdom and strength,
honor, glory, and praise!”
13 Then I heard every living thing in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. I heard every thing in all these places, saying:
“All praise and honor and glory and power
forever and ever
to the One who sits on the throne
and to the Lamb!”
14 The four living things said, “Amen!” And the elders bowed down and worshiped.
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.