M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The Land That Remains Unconquered
3 The following are the nations that the Lord left in place in order to test all the Israelites who had not experienced all the wars in Canaan. 2 (This was done so that the generations of Israelites who did not know war would learn how to wage war.) 3 Those who remained were the five serens[a] of the Philistines, all the Canaanites, the Sidonians, and the Hivites who dwell in the mountains of Lebanon from Mount Baal Hermon to the entrance of Hamath.[b] 4 They remained there to test Israel, in order to know whether or not they would obey the commands of the Lord, which he commanded to their fathers by the hand of Moses.
The Cycles Begin
The First Judge: Othniel Versus the Arameans
5 The people of Israel lived in the midst of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 6 They took the daughters of these peoples as wives for themselves, and they gave their own daughters to the other peoples’ sons. They also served their gods.
7 Then the people of Israel did evil in the eyes of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.[c] 8 The anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Cushan Rishathaim, who was the king of Aram Naharaim.[d] The Israelites served Cushan Rishathaim for eight years. 9 Then the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up a deliverer for the Israelites, who saved them.
The deliverer was Othniel, son of Kenaz, the youngest brother of Caleb.[e] 10 The Spirit of the Lord was upon him. He served as Israel’s judge. When he went out to wage war, the Lord gave Cushan Rishathaim, the king of Aram, into his hand, and his hand was strong against Cushan Rishathaim. 11 Then the land was quiet for forty years, and Othniel son of Kenaz died.
The Second Judge: Ehud Versus the Moabites
12 Again the people of Israel committed evil in the eyes of the Lord, so the Lord gave Eglon king of Moab power over Israel because they had committed evil in the eyes of the Lord.
13 Eglon took Ammonites and Amalekites along with him. He advanced and attacked Israel and took possession of the City of Palms. 14 So the people of Israel served Eglon king of Moab for eighteen years.
15 Again the people of Israel called out to the Lord, and the Lord raised up a deliverer for them. The deliverer was Ehud son of Gera, a Benjaminite, who was left-handed.[f]
The Israelites sent him with a tribute payment for Eglon king of Moab. 16 Ehud made a double-edged sword for himself, about eighteen inches long,[g] and he strapped it under his clothing on his right thigh.
17 Ehud presented the tribute payment to Eglon king of Moab, who was a very fat man. 18 After Ehud had presented the tribute payment, he sent the men who had delivered the tribute on their way. 19 But after he himself had passed the carved images that were at Gilgal, Ehud turned back and told the king, “I have a secret for you, O king!”
The king said, “Quiet, everyone,” so all his attendants left the room.
20 Ehud approached Eglon as Eglon was sitting in the cool upper chamber, all alone. Ehud said, “I have something from God for you.” So Eglon stood up from the throne. 21 Ehud reached out his left hand and took the sword that was on his right thigh and drove it into Eglon’s belly. 22 As the hilt went in after the blade, Eglon’s fat closed behind the blade. Ehud did not draw the sword out from Eglon’s belly, and the contents of his bowels came out. 23 Ehud then went out to the vestibule,[h] shut the doors of the upper chamber behind him, and locked them. 24 Then off he went!
When Eglon’s servants came back, they were surprised to see that the doors of the upper chamber were locked. They said, “He must be using the toilet.”[i] 25 They waited until the delay became embarrassing, but no one opened the doors to the upper chamber. Finally they took the key and opened the door. And there he was. Their master was lying on the ground—dead!
26 While they delayed, Ehud had escaped. He passed by the carved images and escaped to Seirah. 27 When he arrived, ram’s horns were sounded throughout the hill country of Ephraim, and the Israelites marched down from the hill country with Ehud leading the way. 28 He said to them, “Follow me, because the Lord has given your enemies, the Moabites, into your hands.” So they pursued them, captured the fords of the Jordan opposite Moab, and let no one cross. 29 At this time they struck down about ten thousand men of Moab, every one robust, each one a powerful warrior. Not one escaped. 30 This is how Moab was humbled on that day under the hand of Israel, and the land was quiet for eighty years.
The Third Judge: Shamgar Versus the Philistines
31 After Ehud came Shamgar son of Anath. He struck down six hundred Philistines with an ox goad. He too delivered Israel.
Stephen Defends Himself
7 Then the high priest asked, “Are these things true?”
2 Stephen said, “Gentlemen, brothers and fathers, listen! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran. 3 God said to him, ‘Leave your land and your relatives and come to the land that I will show you.’[a]
4 “Then he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After his father died, God had him move from there to this land where you are now living.
5 “He gave him no inheritance in this land, not even enough to set his foot on. But God promised to give it as a possession to him and to his descendants[b] after him,[c] even though Abraham still had no child. 6 God revealed that his descendants[d] would live as strangers in a foreign country, and that they would be enslaved and mistreated for four hundred years. 7 God added, ‘I will judge the nation that they will serve as slaves, and after that they will leave there and serve me in this place.’[e]
8 “Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. So Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.
Stephen Defends Himself
9 “The patriarchs, filled with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt, but God was with him. 10 God rescued him from all his troubles and granted him favor and wisdom before Pharaoh, king of Egypt. And Pharaoh made him governor over Egypt and over his whole palace.
11 “A famine came over all of Egypt and Canaan, causing great suffering, and our fathers found no food. 12 But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit. 13 On their second visit, Joseph made himself known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to Pharaoh. 14 Then Joseph sent word and invited his father Jacob and all his relatives to come to him, seventy-five people in all. 15 Jacob went down to Egypt, and there he died, he and our fathers. 16 Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham had bought for a sum of silver from the sons of Hamor in Shechem.
17 “As the time approached that God spoke about in the promise he had made[f] to Abraham, the people increased and multiplied in Egypt. 18 This continued until another king who knew nothing about Joseph became ruler of Egypt. 19 He took advantage of our people in a cunning way, and he mistreated our fathers by forcing them to get rid of their babies so that they would not survive.[g]
Stephen Defends Himself
20 “At that time, Moses was born, and he was favored by God. For three months he was cared for in his father’s house. 21 After he was placed outside,[h] Pharaoh’s daughter took him in and brought him up as her own son. 22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was powerful in his words and actions.
23 “But when he was forty years old, it entered his mind to visit his brothers, the sons of Israel. 24 When he saw one of them being mistreated, he defended him and avenged the oppressed man by striking down the Egyptian. 25 He thought that his brothers would understand that God was giving them deliverance by his hand, but they did not understand. 26 The next day, he came across two of them while they were fighting, and he tried to reconcile them. He said, ‘Men, you are brothers. Why are you harming each other?’ 27 But the one who was harming his neighbor pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me the same way you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’[i] 29 At this remark, Moses fled and lived as an exile in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons.
30 “After forty years had passed, an angel of the Lord[j] appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flames of a burning bush. 31 When Moses saw it, he was amazed at the sight. As he went closer to look, the voice of the Lord said, 32 ‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of[k] Jacob.’[l] Moses trembled and did not dare to look. 33 Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take your sandals off your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground. 34 I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt, and I have heard their groaning. I have come down to rescue them. Now come, I will send you to Egypt.’[m]
35 “This is the same Moses they had rejected by saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and judge?’ This is the one whom God sent to be a ruler and deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 This is the one who led the people out, as he performed wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and in the wilderness for forty years. 37 This is the Moses who said to the people of Israel, ‘God[n] will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.’[o] 38 This is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers. He received living messages to give to us, 39 but our fathers refused to obey him. Instead they pushed him away and turned back, in their hearts, to Egypt. 40 They told Aaron, ‘Make gods for us who will go before us. As for this Moses who led us out of the land of Egypt—we do not know what has happened to him.’[p] 41 That was the time when they made a calf, offered a sacrifice to the idol, and were taking delight in the works of their hands.
42 “But God turned away and gave them over to the worship of the heavenly bodies, as it is written in the book of the prophets:
Did you bring me slaughtered animals and sacrifices
forty years in the wilderness, house of Israel?
43 No, you even took up the tent of Moloch
and the star of your god Rephan,
the statues you made to worship.
Therefore I will send you into exile beyond Babylon.[q]
Stephen Defends Himself
44 “Our fathers had the Tent of the Testimony in the wilderness. It was just like the model Moses had seen, just as he who spoke to Moses directed him to make it. 45 After our fathers received it from him, they brought it in with Joshua when they took possession of the land from the nations God drove out before our fathers. It was here until the days of David. 46 He found favor in the presence of God and asked that he might obtain a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.[r] 47 But it was Solomon who built a house for him.
48 “However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands, just as the prophet says:
49 Heaven is my throne,
and earth is my footstool.
What sort of house will you build for me? says the Lord,
or what is my resting place?
50 Did not my hand make all these things?[s]
Stephen Condemns the Jewish Rulers
51 “You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit! You are doing just what your fathers did. 52 Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? They killed those who prophesied the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers— 53 you who received the law as transmitted by angels, but did not keep it.”
The Stoning of Stephen
54 When they heard these things, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed up into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 He said, “Look, I see heaven opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
57 But they screamed at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and rushed at him with one purpose in mind. 58 They threw him out of the city and stoned him. The witnesses laid their cloaks at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59 While they were stoning Stephen, he called out, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” 60 Then he fell to his knees and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” After he said this, he fell asleep.
Jeremiah Must Not Marry
16 The word of the Lord came to me.
2 You are not to marry a wife in this place
or to have sons and daughters,
3 because this is what the Lord says
about the sons and daughters born in this place,
about the mothers who bore them,
and about the fathers who conceived them in this land:
4 They will die of deadly diseases.
They will not be mourned.
They will not be buried.
They will lie on the ground like manure.
They will be devoured by sword and famine,
and their carcasses will become food for the birds in the sky
and the wild animals in the land.
5 This is what the Lord says.
Do not enter a house where people are grieving.
Do not go there to mourn for anyone or to comfort anyone,
for I have taken away my peace from this people, declares the Lord,
along with my mercy and my compassion.
6 Both the greatest and the least will die in this land.
No one will bury them or mourn for them.
No one will cut himself or shave himself for them.
7 No one will break bread to comfort those who mourn the dead.
No one will offer a consoling cup, even for a father or a mother.
8 Do not enter a house where there is feasting,
or sit down there to eat and drink.
9 For this is what the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel, says.
I will certainly put an end to the sounds of joy and happiness in this place,
as well as the voices of bride and groom.
This will take place before your eyes and in your lifetime.
An Evil Day
10 When you tell the people all of this, they will ask you, “Why has the Lord decreed all this great disaster against us? What are we guilty of? What sin have we committed against the Lord our God?”
11 Then say this to them:
It is because your fathers abandoned me, declares the Lord, and followed other gods. They served them, and they worshipped them. They abandoned me and did not keep my law. 12 But you have done more evil than your fathers. Look, each of you follows his own stubborn, evil heart, and you do not listen to me. 13 Therefore, I will throw you out of this land into a land neither you nor your fathers have known. There you will serve other gods day and night, and I will show you no mercy.
14 Nevertheless, listen to this. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer say, “As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the children of Israel out from the land of Egypt.” 15 But they will say, “As surely as the Lord lives, who brought the children of Israel out from the land in the north and from all the lands to which he exiled them.” For I will restore them to the homeland I gave to their fathers.
16 Look, I am sending for many fishermen, declares the Lord, and they will catch them. After that I will send for many hunters, and they will hunt for them on every mountain, on every high hill, and in the crevices of the rocks. 17 My eyes are watching everything they do. It is not hidden from me, nor is their guilt hidden from my eyes. 18 But first I will pay them double for their guilt and their sin, because they defiled my land with the carcasses of their disgusting idols, and they have filled my inheritance with their abominations.
19 The Lord is my strength and my fortress,
my refuge in times of trouble.
Nations will come to you from the ends of the earth and say,
“Our forefathers possessed only false gods,
worthless idols, and there was nothing good in them.
20 Can a man make gods for himself?
Yes, but they are not gods!”
21 Therefore I will certainly teach them.
This time I will teach them my power and my strength,
and then they will know that my name is the Lord.
Jesus Forgives Sins
2 When Jesus again entered Capernaum some days later, people heard that he was home. 2 So many people were gathered together that there was no more room, not even by the door, and he was speaking the word to them. 3 Some people came to him bringing a paralyzed man, carried by four men. 4 Since they could not bring the man to Jesus because of the crowd, they dug through the roof above where he was. When they had made an opening, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralyzed man was lying. 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
6 But there were some experts in the law sitting there and thinking in their hearts, 7 “Why does this fellow speak like this? He is blaspheming! Who can forgive sins except God alone?”
8 Jesus immediately knew in his spirit that they were thinking this way within themselves. He asked them, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier: to tell the paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your stretcher, and walk’? 10 But, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralyzed man, 11 “I tell you, get up, take your stretcher, and go home.”
12 At once the man got up, picked up the stretcher, and went out in front of everyone. So they were all amazed and glorified God. They said, “We have never seen anything like this!”
The Calling of Levi (Matthew)
13 Jesus went out again along the sea. The whole crowd went to him, and he taught them. 14 As he was passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him. And Levi got up and followed him.
15 Then when Jesus was reclining at a table in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples because many of them also were following him. 16 When the experts in the law and the Pharisees saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why is he eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
A Question About Fasting
18 John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. They came and asked Jesus, “Why is it that John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
19 Jesus said to them, “The friends of the bridegroom cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20 But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then on that day they will fast. 21 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the patch shrinks, the new tears away from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22 No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will pour out,[a] and the skins will be ruined. Instead, new wine is poured into new wineskins.”
Lord of the Sabbath
23 Once on a Sabbath day, Jesus was passing through the grain fields, and his disciples began to pick heads of grain as they walked along. 24 The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath day?”
25 He replied to them, “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry (he and his companions)? 26 He entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the Bread of the Presence, which is not lawful for anyone to eat, except for the priests. He also gave some to his companions.”
27 Then Jesus said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man is the Lord even of the Sabbath.”
The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.