M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Solomon’s Prayer to Dedicate the Temple
12 Then Solomon stood before the altar of Yahweh before all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands. 13 (For Solomon had made a platform of bronze five cubits long and five cubits wide and three cubits high, and placed it in the midst of the outer court.) And he stood upon it, then knelt down on his knees before the whole assembly of Israel and spread out his hands to heaven. 14 And he said, “O Yahweh, God of Israel, there is none like you, a God in the heavens and on the earth, keeping the covenant and loyal love with your servants who walk before you with all their heart, 15 that you have kept for your servant David my father what you spoke to him. You spoke with your mouth, and by your hand you have fulfilled it on this day. 16 And now, O Yahweh, God of Israel, keep for your servant David, my father, what you have spoken to him, saying, ‘You shall not lack[a] a man to sit on the throne of Israel before me, if only your sons keep their way, to walk in my law as you have walked before me.’ 17 And now, O Yahweh, God of Israel, let your word that you have spoken to your servant David be confirmed.
18 “But will God indeed dwell with humankind upon the earth? Look, the heavens and the highest heavens[b] cannot contain you! Surely then this house that I have built will not contain you! 19 But turn to the prayer of your servant and to his plea, O Yahweh my God, to hearken to the pleading and to the prayer that your servant is praying before you, 20 that your eyes may be open day and night to this house, to the place that you have promised to place your name there, that you may hear the prayer that your servant has prayed to this place. 21 And listen to the pleas of your servant and your people Israel when they pray toward this place, that you yourself might hear from the place of your dwelling, from the heavens, that you might hear and forgive.
22 “If a man sins against his neighbor and makes him swear an oath[c] and comes with an oath before your altar in this house, 23 then may you yourself hear from the heavens and act and judge your servants, to repay the guilty by bringing his way upon his head and to vindicate the righteous by giving to him according to his righteousness.
24 “And if your people Israel are defeated before an enemy because they have sinned against you and they repent and confess your name and pray and plead before you in this house, 25 then may you yourself hear from the heavens and forgive the sin of your people Israel and again bring them back to the land that you gave to them and to their ancestors.[d]
26 “When the heavens are stopped up and there is no rain because they have sinned against you and they pray to this place and confess your name and turn back from their sin when you humble them, 27 then may you yourself hear from the heavens and forgive the sin of your servants and your people Israel, when you teach them the good way in which they should walk, and give rain upon your land that you have given to your people as an inheritance.
28 “If there is a famine in the land; if there is disease, blight, mildew, locust, and caterpillar; if it happens that his enemy lays siege to him in the land and his gates; any kind of plague, any kind of disease, 29 then any prayer, any plea that is made by any person and by all your people Israel, each one who knows his own affliction and his own anguish and who spreads out his hands to this house, 30 then may you yourself hear from the heavens, your dwelling place, and forgive and give to each according to all his ways, since you know the heart of the children of humankind, 31 that they may fear you and walk in your ways all the days that they are alive upon the face of the land that you have given to our ancestors.[e]
32 “And also, with respect to the foreigner, he who is not of your people Israel, but comes from a distant land, for the sake of your great name and your powerful hand and outstretched arm, when he comes and prays to this house, 33 then may you yourself hear from the heavens, from your dwelling place, and do according to all that the foreigner asks of you, so that all peoples of earth will know of your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that your name possesses[f] this house that I have built.
34 “When your people go out to battle against their enemy according to the way that you have sent them, and they pray to you toward this city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name, 35 then may you hear their prayer and their pleas from the heavens and uphold their case. 36 When they sin against you—for there is no person who does not sin—and you become angry with them and place them before their enemy that they carry them away as captives to a land far or near, 37 but if they repent[g] in the land where they were taken captive and repent[h] and beg you for mercy in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned and acted perversely and done wickedly, 38 and we return to you,’ with their whole heart and with all their inmost being in the land of their captivity where they took them captive, and if they pray toward their land that you have given to their ancestors[i] and the city that you have chosen and to the house that I have built for your name, 39 then may you hear their prayer and their pleas from the heavens, from your dwelling place, and uphold their case and forgive your people who sinned against you. 40 Now, O my God, please let your eyes be open and your ears attentive to the prayer of this place!
41 “And now arise, O Yahweh God, to your resting place, you and the ark of your strength! O Yahweh God, let the priests be clothed with salvation, and let your holy ones rejoice in your goodness! 42 O Yahweh God, do not turn away the face of your anointed one! Remember the loyal love of your servant, David!”
5 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been fathered by God, and everyone who loves the father[a] also loves the child fathered by him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God: whenever we love God and keep his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God: that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 4 because everyone who is fathered by God conquers the world.
God Has Given Us Eternal Life in the Son
And this is the victory which has conquered the world: our faith. 5 Now who is the one who conquers the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ, not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify,[b] 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are in agreement[c].
9 If we receive the testimony of people, the testimony of God is greater, because this is the testimony of God that he has testified concerning his Son. 10 (The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. The one who does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has testified concerning his Son.) 11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 The one who has the Son has the life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.
Our Assurance of Eternal Life
13 These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in order that you may know that you have eternal life.
14 And this is the confidence that we have before him: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked from him. 16 If anyone should see his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he should ask, and he will grant life to him, to those who sin not leading to death. (There is a sin leading to death; I do not say that he should ask about that. 17 All unrighteousness is sin, and there is a sin not leading to death.)
18 We know that everyone who is fathered by God does not sin, but the one fathered by God, he protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. 19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, in order that we may know the one who is true, and we are in the one who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This one is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, guard yourselves from idols.
Habakkuk’s Complaint
1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 O Yahweh, how long shall I cry for help
and you will not listen?
How long will I cry out to you, “Violence!”
and you will not save?
3 Why do you cause me to see evil
while you look at trouble?
Destruction and violence happen before me;
contention and strife arise.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice does not go forth perpetually.[a]
For the wicked surround the righteous;
therefore justice goes forth perverted.
God’s Answer to Habakkuk
5 “Look among the nations and see;
be astonished and astounded.
For a work is about to be done in your days
that you will not believe if it is told.
6 For look! I am raising up the Chaldeans,
the bitter and impetuous nation,
the one who walks through the spacious places of earth
to take possession of dwellings not belonging to it.[b]
7 They[c] are dreadful and awesome;
their[d] justice and their[e] dignity proceed from themselves.[f]
8 Their[g] horses are more swift than leopards;
they are more menacing than wolves at dusk.
Their[h] horsemen gallop; their[i] horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle that is swift to devour.
9 All of them[j] come for violence,
their faces pressing forward.
They gather captives like the sand.
10 And they themselves scoff at kings
and rulers are a joke to them.
They laugh at every fortification,
and they heap up earth and take it.
11 Then they sweep like the wind and pass on;
they become guilty, whose might is their[k] god!”
Habakkuk’s Second Complaint
12 Are you not from of old,
O Yahweh my God, my Holy One?
You[l] shall not die.
O Yahweh, you have marked them[m] for judgment;
O Rock, you have established them[n] for reproof.
13 Your eyes are too pure to see evil,
and you are not able to look at wrongdoing.[o]
Why do you look at the treacherous?
Why are you silent when the wicked swallows up
someone more righteous than him?
14 You make humankind like fish of the sea,
like crawling creatures that have no ruler among them.
15 He brings up all of them with a fishhook;
he drags them up with a fishnet;
he gathers them in his dragnet.
Therefore, he rejoices and exults.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his fishnet
and makes offerings to his dragnet,
for by them he makes a good living[p]
and his food is rich.
17 Will he therefore empty his fishnet
and continually kill nations without showing mercy?
Jesus’ Authority Challenged
20 And it happened that on one of the days while[a] he was teaching the people in the temple courts[b] and proclaiming the gospel, the chief priests and the scribes approached together with the elders 2 and said, saying to him, “Tell us, by what authority you are doing these things, or who is the one who gave you this authority? 3 And he answered and[c] said to them, “I also will ask you a question, and you tell me: 4 The baptism of John—was it from heaven or from men? 5 And they discussed this[d] with one another, saying, “If we say ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why did you not believe him?’ 6 But if we say, ‘From men,’ all the people will stone us to death, because they are convinced that John was a prophet.” 7 And they replied that they did not know where it was from. 8 And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”
The Parable of the Tenant Farmers in the Vineyard
9 And he began to tell the people this parable: “A man[e] planted a vineyard, and leased it to tenant farmers, and went on a journey for a long time. 10 And at the proper time he sent a slave to the tenant farmers, so that they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenant farmers sent him away empty-handed after[f] beating him.[g] 11 And he proceeded to send another slave, but they beat and dishonored that one also, and[h] sent him[i] away empty-handed. 12 And he proceeded to send a third, but they wounded and[j] threw out this one also. 13 So the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What should I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ 14 But when[k] the tenant farmers saw him, they began to reason[l] with one another, saying, ‘This is the heir. Let us kill him so that the inheritance will become ours!’ 15 And they threw him out of the vineyard and[m] killed him.[n] What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and destroy those tenant farmers and give the vineyard to others.” And when they[o] heard this,[p] they said, “May this never happen!” 17 But he looked intently at them and[q] said, “What then is this that is written:
‘The stone which the builders rejected,
this has become the cornerstone.’[r]
18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, and the one on whom it falls—it will crush him!” 19 And the scribes and the chief priests sought to lay their[s] hands on him at that same hour, and they were afraid of the people, for they knew that he had told this parable with reference to them.
Paying Taxes to Caesar
20 And they watched him[t] closely and[u] sent spies who pretended they were upright, in order that they could catch him in a statement, so that they could hand him over to the authority and the jurisdiction of the governor. 21 And they asked him, saying, “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and do not show partiality,[v] but teach the way of God in truth. 22 Is it permitted for us to pay taxes[w] to Caesar or not?” 23 But seeing through their craftiness, he said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius! Whose image and inscription does it have?” And they answered and[x] said,[y] “Caesar’s.” 25 So he said to them, “Well then, give to Caesar the things of Caesar, and to God the things of God!” 26 And they were not able to catch him[z][aa] in a statement in the sight of the people, and astonished at his answer, they became silent.
A Question About Marriage and the Resurrection
27 Now some of the Sadducees—who deny that there is a resurrection[ab]—came up and[ac] asked him, 28 saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us if someone’s brother dies having a wife, and this man is childless, that his brother should take the wife and father[ad] descendants for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers, and the first took a wife and[ae] died childless, 30 and the second, 31 and the third took her, and likewise also the seven did not leave children and died. 32 Finally the woman also died. 33 Therefore in the resurrection, the woman—whose wife will she be? For the seven had her as wife.” 34 And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, 35 but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, 36 for they are not even able to die any longer, because they are like the angels and are sons of God, because they[af] are sons of the resurrection. 37 But that the dead are raised, even Moses revealed in the passage about[ag] the bush, when he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him!” 39 And some of the scribes answered and[ah] said, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” 40 For they no longer dared to ask him anything.
David’s Son and Lord
41 But he said to them, “In what sense do they say that the Christ is David’s son? 42 For David himself says in the book of Psalms,
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
43 until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.”’[ai]
44 David therefore calls him ‘Lord,’ and how is he his son?”
Warning to Beware of the Scribes
45 And while[aj] all the people were listening, he said to the disciples,[ak] 46 “Beware of the scribes, who like walking around in long robes and who love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets, 47 who devour the houses of widows and pray lengthy prayers for the sake of appearance. These will receive more severe condemnation!”
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