M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
20 The Lord will send you curses, confusion and punishment in everything you do. You will be destroyed. You will suddenly be ruined. You did wrong when you left him. 21 The Lord will give you terrible diseases. He will destroy you from the land you are going to take. 22 The Lord will punish you with disease, fever, swelling, heat, no rain, plant diseases and mildew. Then you will die. 23 The sky above will look like bronze. And the ground below will be like iron. 24 The Lord will turn the rain into dust and sand. It will fall from the skies until you are destroyed.
25 The Lord will let your enemies defeat you. You will attack them from one direction. But you will run from them in seven directions. And you will become a thing of horror among all the kingdoms on earth. 26 Your dead bodies will be food for all the birds and wild animals. There will be no one to scare them away. 27 The Lord will punish you with boils like those the Egyptians had. You will have bad growths, sores and itches that can’t be cured. 28 The Lord will give you madness, blindness and a confused mind. 29 You will have to feel around in the daylight like a blind man. You will fail in everything you do. People will hurt you and steal from you every day. There will be no one to save you.
30 You will be engaged to a woman. But another man will rape her. You will build a house. But you will not live in it. You will plant a vineyard. But you will not get its grapes. 31 Your ox will be killed before your eyes. But you will not eat any of it. Your donkey will be taken away from you. And it will not be brought back. Your sheep will be given to your enemies. And no one will rescue them. 32 Your sons and daughters will be given to another nation. You will grow tired looking for them every day. But there is nothing you can do. 33 People you don’t know will eat the crops your land and hard work have produced. You will be mistreated and abused all your life. 34 The things you see will cause you to go mad. 35 The Lord will give you sore boils on your knees and legs. They cannot be cured. They will go from the soles of your feet to the tops of your heads.
36 The Lord will send you and your king away to a nation you do not know. There you will serve other gods made of wood and stone. 37 You will become a hated thing to the nations where the Lord sends you. They will laugh at you and make fun of you.
38 You will plant much seed in your field. But your harvest will be small. Locusts will eat the crop. 39 You will plant vineyards and work hard in them. But you will not pick the grapes or drink the wine. The worms will eat them. 40 You will have olive trees in all your land. But you will not get any olive oil. The olives will drop off the trees. 41 You will have sons and daughters. But you will not be able to keep them. They will be taken captive. 42 Locusts will destroy all your trees and crops.
43 The foreigners who live among you will get stronger and stronger. And you will get weaker and weaker. 44 Foreigners will lend money to you. But you will not be able to lend to them. They will be like the head. And you will be like the tail.
45 All these curses will come upon you. They will chase you and catch you and destroy you. This will happen because you did not obey the Lord your God. You did not keep the commands and laws he gave you. 46 The curses will be signs and miracles to you and your descendants forever. 47 You had plenty of everything. But you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and a pure heart. 48 So you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. You will be hungry, thirsty, naked and poor. The Lord will put a load on you until he has destroyed you.
The Curse of an Enemy Nation
49 The Lord will bring a nation against you from far away. It will be from the end of the world. The nation will swoop down like an eagle. You won’t understand their language. 50 They will look mean. They will not respect old people or feel sorry for the young. 51 They will eat the calves from your cattle and the harvest of your field. And you will be destroyed. They will not leave you any grain, new wine or oil. They will not leave you any calves from your herds or lambs from your flocks. You will be ruined. 52 That nation will surround and attack all your cities. You trust in your high, strong walls. But they will fall down. That nation will surround all your cities everywhere in the land the Lord your God is giving you.
53 Your enemy will surround you. Those people will make you starve. You will eat your own babies. You will eat the bodies of the sons and daughters the Lord gave you. 54 Even the most gentle and kind man among you will become cruel. He will be cruel to his brother, his wife whom he loves and his children who are still alive. 55 He will not even give them any of the flesh of his children he is eating. It will be all he has left. Your enemy will surround you. Those people will make you starve in all your cities. 56 The most gentle and kind woman among you will become cruel. She is so gentle and kind she would hardly even walk on the ground. But she will be cruel to her husband whom she loves. And she will be cruel to her son and daughter. 57 She will give birth to a baby. But she will plan to eat the baby and what comes after the birth itself. She will eat them while the enemy surrounds the city. Those people will make you starve in all your cities.
58 Be careful to obey everything in these teachings. They are written in this book. You must respect the glorious and wonderful name of the Lord your God. 59 The Lord will give terrible diseases to you and your descendants. You will have long and serious diseases. You will have long and miserable sicknesses. 60 And the Lord will give you all the diseases of Egypt that you dread. And the diseases will stay with you. 61 The Lord will also give you every disease and sickness not written in this Book of the Teachings. Then you will be destroyed. 62 You people may have outnumbered the stars. But only a few of you will be left. You did not obey the Lord your God. 63 Once the Lord was happy with you. He gave you good things. He made you grow in number. But now the Lord will be happy to ruin and destroy you. You will be removed from the land you are entering to own.
64 Then the Lord will scatter you among the nations. He will scatter you from one end of the earth to the other. There you will serve other gods of wood and stone. They are gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known. 65 You will have no rest among those nations. You will have no place that is yours. The Lord will make your mind worried, your sight weak and your soul sad. 66 You will live with danger. You will be afraid night and day. You will not be sure that you will live. 67 In the morning you will say, “I wish it were evening.” And in the evening you will say, “I wish it were morning.” Terror will be in your heart because of the things you have seen. 68 The Lord will send you back to Egypt in ships. I, Moses, said you would never go back to Egypt. And there you will try to sell yourselves as slaves to your enemies. But no one will buy you.
25 I am about to die.
Give me life, as you have promised.
26 I told you about my life, and you answered me.
Teach me your demands.
27 Help me understand your orders.
Then I will think about your miracles.
28 I am sad and tired.
Make me strong again as you have promised.
29 Don’t let me be dishonest.
Be kind to me by helping me obey your teachings.
30 I have chosen to obey you.
I have obeyed your laws.
31 I hold on to your rules.
Lord, do not let me be disgraced.
32 I will obey your commands
because you have made me happy.
33 Lord, teach me your demands.
Then I will obey them until the end.
34 Help me understand, so I can obey your teachings.
I will obey them with all my heart.
35 Help me obey your commands
because that makes me happy.
36 Help me want to obey your rules
instead of selfishly wanting riches.
37 Keep me from looking at worthless things.
Let me live by your word.
38 Keep your promise to me, your servant,
so you will be feared.
39 Take away the shame I fear.
Your laws are good.
40 How I want to follow your orders.
Give me life because of your goodness.
41 Lord, show me your love.
Save me as you have promised.
42 Then I will have an answer for people who insult me.
I trust what you say.
43 Never keep me from speaking your truth.
I depend on your fair laws.
44 I will obey your teachings
forever and ever.
45 So I will live in freedom
because I want to follow your orders.
46 I will discuss your rules with kings.
And I will not be ashamed.
47 I enjoy obeying your commands.
I love them.
48 I praise your commands, which I love.
And I think about your demands.
God Gives What Is Good
55 The Lord says, “All you who are thirsty,
come and drink.
Those of you who do not have money,
come, buy and eat!
Come buy wine and milk.
You don’t need money; it will cost you nothing.
2 Why spend your money on something that is not real food?
Why work for something that doesn’t really satisfy you?
Listen closely to me, and you will eat what is good.
You will enjoy the food that satisfies your soul.
3 Come to me and listen.
Listen to me so you may live.
I will make an agreement with you that will last forever.
I will give you the blessings I promised to David.
4 I made David a witness of my power for all nations.
I made him a ruler and commander of many nations.
5 You will call for nations that you don’t yet know.
And these nations will run to you.
This will happen because of the Lord your God.
The Holy One of Israel honors you.”
6 So you should look for the Lord before it is too late.
You should call to him while he is near.
7 Evil people should stop being evil.
They should stop thinking bad thoughts.
They should return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them.
They should come to our God, because he will freely forgive them.
8 The Lord says, “Your thoughts are not like my thoughts.
Your ways are not like my ways.
9 Just as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways.
And my thoughts are higher than your thoughts.
10 Rain and snow fall from the sky.
They don’t return without watering the ground.
They cause the plants to sprout and grow.
And the plants make seeds for the farmer.
And from these seeds people have bread to eat.
11 The words I say do the same thing.
They will not return to me empty.
They make the things happen that I want to happen.
They succeed in doing what I send them to do.
12 “So you will go out with joy.
You will be led out in peace.
The mountains and hills will burst into song before you.
All the trees in the fields will clap their hands.
13 Large cypress trees will grow where thornbushes were.
Myrtle trees will grow where weeds were.
These things will be a reminder of the Lord’s promise.
And this reminder will never be destroyed.”
The Work of John the Baptist
3 About that time John the Baptist came and began preaching in the desert area of Judea. 2 John said, “Change your hearts and lives because the kingdom of heaven is coming soon.” 3 John the Baptist is the one Isaiah the prophet was talking about. Isaiah said:
“This is a voice of a man
who calls out in the desert:
‘Prepare the way for the Lord.
Make the road straight for him.’” Isaiah 40:3
4 John’s clothes were made from camel’s hair. He wore a leather belt around his waist. For food, he ate locusts and wild honey. 5 Many people went to hear John preach. They came from Jerusalem and all Judea and all the area around the Jordan River. 6 They told of the sins they had done, and John baptized them in the Jordan River.
7 Many of the Pharisees and Sadducees came to the place where John was baptizing people. When John saw them, he said: “You are snakes! Who warned you to run away from God’s anger that is coming? 8 You must do the things that show that you have really changed your hearts and lives. 9 And don’t think that you can say to yourselves, ‘Abraham is our father.’ I tell you that God could make children for Abraham from these rocks. 10 The ax is now ready to cut down the trees. Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.[a]
11 “I baptize you with water to show that your hearts and lives have changed. But there is one coming later who is greater than I am. I am not good enough to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. 12 He will come ready to clean the grain. He will separate the good grain from the chaff. He will put the good part of the grain into his barn. And he will burn the chaff with a fire that cannot be put out.”[b]
Jesus Is Baptized by John
13 At that time Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan River. He came to John and wanted John to baptize him. 14 But John tried to stop him. John said, “Why do you come to me to be baptized? I should be baptized by you!”
15 Jesus answered, “Let it be this way for now. We should do all things that are right.” So John agreed to baptize Jesus.
16 Jesus was baptized and came up out of the water. Heaven opened, and he saw God’s Spirit coming down on him like a dove. 17 And a voice spoke from heaven. The voice said, “This is my Son and I love him. I am very pleased with him.”
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.