M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Israel Rebels Against Rehoboam

12 Rehoboam went to Shechem, because all Israel had gone there to make him king.

² When Jeroboam son of Nebat was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon, he heard about this, and he returned from Egypt.^{[a] 3} So the people sent for him.

Then Jeroboam and the entire assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, ⁴ “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now lighten your father’s harsh service and the heavy yoke he laid on us, and we will serve you.”

⁵ Rehoboam said to them, “Leave me for three days and then return to me.” So the people left.

⁶ Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon while he was alive. He asked, “What answer do you advise me to give to these people?”

⁷ They said to him, “If today you become a servant to this people—if you serve them and answer them with kind words—then they will be your servants for all time.”^[b]

⁸ But he rejected the advice which the old men offered him. Instead, he consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. ⁹ He said to them, “What answer do you advise that we should give to these people who said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father laid on us’?”

¹⁰ The young men who had grown up with him said, “This is what you should say to this people who said to you, ‘Your father laid a heavy yoke on us. Now lighten our yoke.’ Tell them this: ‘My little finger^[c] is thicker than my father’s waist.^{[d] 11} My father imposed a heavy yoke on you. I will make your yoke heavier. My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.’”^[e]

¹² So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, because the king had said, “Come back to me on the third day.”

¹³ The king answered the people harshly, because he had rejected the advice which the old men had offered. ¹⁴ He spoke to them as the young men advised him: “My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to your yoke. My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.”

¹⁵ The king did not listen to the people, because this turn of events was from the Lord, in order to fulfill his word, which the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah from Shiloh.

¹⁶ All Israel saw that the king had not listened to them. So the people answered the king:

So Israel went to their tents.^[f]

¹⁷ Rehoboam continued to rule over the people of Israel who were living in the cities of Judah.

¹⁸ King Rehoboam sent out Adoram,^[g] who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam, however, was able to get in his chariot to flee to Jerusalem.

¹⁹ So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David until this day.

Jeroboam Becomes King of Israel

²⁰ When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they summoned him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. No tribe was left which followed the house of David, except the tribe of Judah alone.

(2 Chronicles 11:1-4)

²¹ When Rehoboam returned to Jerusalem, he assembled the whole house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin, one hundred eighty thousand specially chosen soldiers, to fight against the house of Israel and to restore the kingdom to Rehoboam, the son of Solomon.

²² But the word of God came to Shemaiah, the man of God: ²³ “Say the following to Rehoboam son of Solomon, king of Judah, and to all the house of Judah and Benjamin and to the rest of the people. ²⁴ This is what the Lord says. Do not attack and do not fight against your brothers, the people of Israel. Go home, every one of you, for this turn of events is from me.”

So they listened to the word of the Lord, and they returned home, just as the Lord said. ²⁵ But Jeroboam fortified Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and he lived there. From there he also went out and fortified Penuel.^[h]

The Sin of Jeroboam Son of Nebat

²⁶ But Jeroboam said in his heart, “Now the kingship will go back to the house of David. ²⁷ If this people goes up to offer sacrifices at the House of the Lord in Jerusalem, then the hearts of the people will return to their master, Rehoboam king of Judah. Then they will kill me and return to Rehoboam king of Judah.”

²⁸ After the king sought advice, he made two golden calves and said to the people, “Going up to Jerusalem is too much trouble for you. Here are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!” ²⁹ He set up one in Bethel and the other one in Dan.

³⁰ This sin took hold, and the people traveled as far as Dan to worship. ³¹ Jeroboam also made shrines^[i] on the high places,^[j] and he appointed priests from all kinds of people, even though they were not Levites. ³² Jeroboam instituted a festival in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the festival^[k] that is held in Judah. He offered sacrifices on the altar. He did this in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves he had made. He appointed priests in Bethel for the high places he had made. ³³ He instituted sacrifices on the altar which he had made in Bethel, on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, a month which he chose on his own. He instituted a festival for the people of Israel. He went up to the altar to send offerings up in smoke.

True Righteousness

3 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. It is no trouble for me to write the same things again to you, and it is a safeguard for you. ² Beware of the dogs. Beware of the evildoers. Beware of the mutilation.^{[a] [b] 3} For we are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God,^[c] who are confident in Christ Jesus, and who place no confidence in the flesh, ⁴ even though I have grounds for confidence also in the flesh. If anyone else thinks that he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ in regard to zeal, persecuting the church; in regard to the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.

⁷ But, whatever things were a profit for me, these things I have come to consider a loss because of Christ. ⁸ But even more than that, I consider everything to be a loss because of what is worth far more: knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake, I have lost all things and consider them rubbish, so that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, which comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God by faith. ¹⁰ I do this so that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, ¹¹ in the hope that in some way I may arrive at the resurrection from the dead.

Press On

¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus also took hold of me. ¹³ Brothers, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it yet, but there is one thing I do: Forgetting the things that are behind and straining toward the things that are ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal, for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ Therefore, let all of us who are mature continue to think this way. And if you think differently about anything, God will reveal this to you too. ¹⁶ Only let us think the same thing and^[d] walk in line with what we already have attained.

¹⁷ Brothers, join together in imitating me and in paying attention to those who are walking according to the pattern we gave you. ¹⁸ To be sure, many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. I told you about them often, and now I am saying it while weeping. ¹⁹ Their end is destruction, their god is their appetite,^[e] and their glory is in their shame. They are thinking only about earthly things. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. We are eagerly waiting for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. ²¹ By the power that enables him to subject all things to himself, he will transform our humble bodies to be like his glorious body.

Rooms North of the Temple

42 Then he led me out into the outer courtyard which was north of the temple building, and he brought me to a set of rooms which bordered on the south side of the restricted area and was north of the structure of the temple building.^{[a] 2} This building north of the temple, which had doors facing north, was one hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide.^[b]

³ On each side of the north courtyard, across from the twenty cubits that belonged to the inner courtyard on the south side and across from the pavement that belonged to the outer courtyard on the north side, two sets of balconies faced each other.^[c] Each was three stories high.^{[d] 4} In front of the rooms on the inside of the courtyard was a walkway^[e] ten cubits wide and one hundred cubits long.^[f] The entrances of the rooms faced north.^[g]

⁵ The upper rooms were narrower, because the balconies took more space away from them than from the building’s bottom and middle floors. ⁶ These rooms were arranged in three stories and had no pillars like the pillars in the courtyards, so as you went up from ground level, the upper story had to be set back more than the lower and middle ones.^[h]

⁷ There was a wall in the outer courtyard, which ran parallel to the rooms on the east side.^[i] It was fifty cubits long. ⁸ The length of the set of rooms on the east side of the building facing toward the outer courtyard was fifty cubits, but the length of those on the north side was one hundred cubits long.^{[j] 9} On the bottom floor of these rooms on the east end of the building, there was an entrance, through which one could enter them from the outer courtyard.^[k]

The Same Rooms on the South Side

¹⁰ At the head of the wall of the courtyard,^[l] on the south^[m] side of the temple, opposite the restricted area and opposite the building, there were rooms. ¹¹ They also had a passageway in front of them. They looked just like the rooms on the north. They were the same length and also the same width, and they were the same in regard to all their exits, their designs, and their entrances. ¹² Also identical were the entrances to the rooms on the south, at the head of the passageway, that is, the passageway opposite the corresponding wall, as one enters them from the east.

¹³ Then he said to me, “The northern and southern rooms in front of the restricted area are holy rooms where the priests who approach the Lord will eat the most holy offerings. There they will deposit the most holy offerings, the grain offering, the sin offering, and the restitution offering, for the place is holy. ¹⁴ When the priests go to enter these rooms, they must not go out from the holy place into the outer courtyard until they have put away their vestments in which they have ministered there, because the vestments are holy. They must put on other clothing before they approach the area that is for the people.”

¹⁵ In this way the man finished the measurements of the interior of the temple complex. Then he led me out through the gate on the east side of the temple complex and measured the temple area all the way around. ¹⁶ He measured the east side using the measuring rod. It measured five hundred cubits,^[n] using canes, that is, the measuring rod. ¹⁷ Then he turned and measured the north side. It was five hundred cubits, using canes, that is, the measuring rod. ¹⁸ Then he turned and measured the south side. It was five hundred cubits, using canes, that is, the measuring rod. ¹⁹ He turned to the west side and measured again. It also was five hundred cubits, using canes, that is, the measuring rod. ²⁰ Thus he measured the temple area on all four sides. It had a wall all the way around it. It was five hundred cubits long and five hundred cubits wide, in order to separate the holy from the common.

Psalm 94

The Lord Rules the Wicked

A Call for Vengeance

The Deeds of the Wicked

Relief for the Righteous