M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Achan’s Sin
7 The people of Israel acted unfaithfully in regard to the devoted things. Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things, and the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.
2 Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth Aven, east of Bethel. He said to them, “Go up and spy on[a] the land.” So the men went up and spied on Ai.
3 They returned to Joshua and told him, “All the people do not need to go up. Let about two or three thousand men go up, and they can defeat Ai. Do not trouble all the people with going up there, because there are only a few people in Ai.” 4 So about three thousand men from among the people went up there, but they fled from the men of Ai. 5 The men of Ai struck dead about thirty-six of them. They pursued them from the city gate as far as Shebarim,[b] and they struck them dead on the way down the descent. So the hearts of the people melted and turned to water.
6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell down with his face to the ground in front of the Ark of the Lord until evening—he and the elders of Israel. They also threw dust on their heads. 7 Joshua said, “Ah, my Lord God! Why did you bring this people across the Jordan to place us into the hand of the Amorites to exterminate us? If only we had been willing to settle in the area on the other side of the Jordan! 8 Please bear with me, my Lord! What can I say after Israel has turned its back before its enemies? 9 Now the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear, and they will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. Then what will you do for your great name?”
10 Then the Lord gave directions to Joshua:
You, get up! Why are you falling on your face? 11 Israel has sinned! They have transgressed[c] the covenant that I commanded for them! Yes, they have even taken some of the devoted things. They have stolen! They have deceived! Yes, they have even placed the devoted things that they stole among their own goods. 12 That is why the people of Israel are not able to stand before their enemies. They turned their backs before their enemies because they have become liable to destruction. I will not continue to be with you unless you destroy the devoted things from among you.
13 Get up and consecrate the people. You are to tell them: Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, because this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says. Things devoted to destruction are in your midst, Israel. You will not be able to stand before your enemies until you remove the devoted things from your midst.
14 In the morning you are to present yourselves tribe by tribe. The tribe that the Lord identifies[d] is to come forward by clans. The clan that the Lord identifies is to come forward by households. The household that the Lord identifies is to come forward one man at a time. 15 Then the man who is caught with the devoted things is to be burned with fire—he and all that belongs to him—because he transgressed the covenant of the Lord and because he committed sacrilege in Israel.
16 Joshua got up early in the morning, and he had Israel come forward tribe by tribe. The tribe of Judah was identified. 17 Then he had the tribe of Judah come forward, and he identified the clan of the Zerahites. Next, he had the clan of the Zerahites come forward by individual families, and Zabdi’s family was identified. 18 Then he had Zabdi’s household come forward one man at a time, and Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, from the tribe of Judah, was identified.
19 Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory now to the Lord, the God of Israel, and give him praise. Now tell me what you did. Do not conceal it from me.”
20 Achan answered Joshua, “It is true. I am the one who has sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel, and this is what I did: 21 Among the plunder I saw an expensive Mesopotamian robe,[e] a fine one, and two hundred shekels of silver and one wedge[f] of gold—it weighed fifty shekels.[g] I coveted them and I took them. Now they are hidden in the ground inside my tent, and the silver is underneath it.”
22 So Joshua sent agents. They ran to the tent, and there it was! The robe was hidden in his tent, and the silver was underneath it! 23 They took them from the middle of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel, where they poured them out before the Lord.
24 Then Joshua took Achan son of Zerah and the silver, the garment, and the wedge of gold, as well as Achan’s sons and his daughters, his ox, his donkey and his flock, and his tent and everything that belonged to him—so all Israel, led by Joshua, brought them up to the Valley of Achor.
25 Joshua said, “Why have you brought disaster on us? The Lord will bring disaster on you this day!”
Then all Israel stoned Achan to death. They also burned him and them[h] with fire, and they pelted them with stones. 26 They erected a large heap of stones over Achan, which remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from the heat of his anger. For that reason the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor[i] to this day.
Psalm 137
Beside the Rivers of Babylon
Sorrow for Jerusalem
1 Beside the rivers[a] of Babylon,
there we sat, and, yes, we wept as we remembered Zion.
2 There we hung up our lyres on the willows,
3 because there our captors asked us for words of a song,
and our tormentors asked for a happy song:
“Sing for us one of the songs of Zion!”
Zeal for Zion
4 How can we sing a song of the Lord on foreign soil?
5 If I forget you, Jerusalem,
may my right hand forget how to play music.[b]
6 May my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth
if I do not remember you,
if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my highest joy.
Zeal for God’s Vengeance
7 Remember the day of Jerusalem, O Lord,
against the descendants of Edom[c] who said,
“Tear it down, tear it down to its foundations!”
8 Daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
how blessed is the one who repays you
with the same deeds you did against us.
9 How blessed is the one who seizes your children
and dashes them against the cliff.
Psalm 138
May the Kings Praise You
Heading
By David.
Thanks From a Grateful Heart
1 I will thank you with all my heart.
Before the gods[d] I will make music for you.
2 I will bow down toward your holy temple.
I will give thanks to your name
because of your mercy and because of your truth.
Yes, you made your word even greater than your name.[e]
3 By day I called, and you answered me.
You have made my soul strong.
4 All the kings of the earth will thank you, Lord,
when they have heard the message from your mouth.
5 Then they will sing about the ways of the Lord,
because the glory of the Lord is great.
6 Indeed the Lord is exalted, but he sees the lowly,
and he recognizes the proud from a distance.
7 If I walk surrounded by danger, you keep me alive
in spite of the anger of my enemies.
You stretch out your hand.
You save me with your right hand.
8 The Lord will fulfill his purpose[f] for me.
Lord, your mercy endures forever.
Do not let go of the works[g] of your hands.
1 The words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah, who was one of the priests from Anathoth in the land of Benjamin.
2 The word of the Lord came to him in the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah, 3 and continued through the reign of Jehoiakim son of Josiah, king of Judah, until the eleventh year of Zedekiah son of Josiah, king of Judah, up to the time of the exile of Jerusalem in the fifth month.
The Call of Jeremiah
4 The word of the Lord came to me.
5 Before I formed you in the womb, I knew[a] you,
and before you were born, I set you apart.
I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.
6 But I said, “Ah, Lord God! I really do not know how to speak! I am only a child!”
7 The Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a child.’ You must go to everyone to whom I send you and say whatever I command you. 8 Do not be afraid of them, because I am with you, and I will rescue you, declares the Lord.”
9 Then the Lord stretched out his hand and touched my mouth. The Lord said to me:
There! I have now placed my words in your mouth.
10 Look, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms
to uproot and to tear down,
to destroy and to overthrow,
to build and to plant.
Jeremiah’s First Visions
11 Again the word of the Lord came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?”
I answered, “I see a branch of an almond tree.”
12 The Lord said to me, “That is correct. You have observed accurately. And this vision means that I am watching[b] over my word to fulfill it.”
13 The word of the Lord came to me a second time: “What do you see?”
I answered, “I see a boiling pot tipped away from the north.”
14 Then the Lord said to me:
Disaster will boil over from the north on everyone who lives in the land.
15 Listen, I am summoning all the clans from the northern kingdoms, declares the Lord. They will come, and each one will set up his throne at the entrance of the gates of Jerusalem. They will come against all the surrounding walls and against all the cities of Judah. 16 I will pronounce my judgments against Judah because of their wickedness. They have abandoned me. They have made burnt offerings to other gods, and they have bowed down to the work of their own hands.
17 Now you, get ready.[c] Rise up and tell them everything I am commanding you. Do not be frightened by them, or I will frighten you in their presence.
18 Look, today I have made you like a fortified city, like an iron pillar, and like bronze walls, to take a stand against the whole land. Stand against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests, and the people of the land.
19 They will fight against you, but they will not overcome you, because I am with you to rescue you, declares the Lord.
Commandments and Traditions
15 Then the Pharisees and experts in the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, 2 “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They do not wash their hands when they eat bread.”
3 He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? 4 For example, God said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’[a] and, ‘Whoever speaks evil of his father or mother should be put to death.’[b] 5 But you say that if someone tells his father or mother, ‘Whatever help you might have received from me has been dedicated as a gift to God,’[c] 6 that man does not need to honor his father or his mother.[d] And so you set aside the word of God for the sake of your tradition. 7 Hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
8 These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
9 They worship me in vain, teaching human rules as if they are doctrines.”[e]
10 Then he summoned the crowd and said to them, “Listen and understand. 11 What goes into the mouth does not make a person unclean, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a person.”
12 Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard this saying?”
13 He answered, “Every plant which my heavenly Father did not plant will be uprooted. 14 Let them go. They are blind guides of the blind.[f] And if the blind are guiding the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
15 Peter replied and said to him, “Explain the parable to us.”
16 Jesus said, “Do you still not understand? 17 Do you not understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated into the latrine? 18 But whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart. That is what defiles a person. 19 To be sure, out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, and blasphemies. 20 These are the things that defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a person.”
The Faith of a Canaanite Woman
21 Jesus left that place and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 There a Canaanite woman from that territory came and kept crying out, “Have mercy on me, Lord, Son of David! A demon is severely tormenting my daughter!”
23 But he did not answer her a word.
His disciples came and pleaded, “Send her away, because she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
25 But she came and knelt in front of him, saying, “Lord, help me.”
26 He answered her, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to their little dogs.”
27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “yet their little dogs also eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”
28 Then Jesus answered her, “Woman, your faith is great! It will be done for you, just as you desire.” And her daughter was healed at that very hour.
29 Jesus moved on from there and went along the Sea of Galilee. He went up onto the mountain and sat there. 30 Large crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the blind, the crippled, those unable to speak, and many others. They put them down at his feet, and he healed them. 31 As a result, the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healed, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel.
Jesus Feeds More Than Four Thousand
32 Jesus summoned his disciples and said, “I feel compassion for the people, because they have remained with me already three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they might faint on the way.”
33 The disciples said to him, “Where can we get so many loaves in the wilderness to satisfy such a large crowd?”
34 Jesus asked them, “How many loaves do you have?”
They said, “Seven, and a few small fish.”
35 He instructed the crowd to sit down on the ground. 36 He took the seven loaves and the fish, gave thanks, and broke them. He gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 37 They all ate and were filled. They picked up seven basketfuls of the broken pieces that were left over. 38 Those who ate numbered four thousand men, without counting the women and children. 39 After Jesus sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the region of Magadan.
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.