M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Elisha Multiplies the Widow’s Oil

4 The wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, “Your servant, my husband, is dead. You know that your servant feared the Lord. But now the moneylender is coming to take my two sons as slaves.”

² Then Elisha said to her, “What can I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”

She said, “Your servant has nothing at all in the house except a jar of olive oil.”

³ He told her, “Go and ask all your neighbors for jars—empty jars. Don’t ask for only a few. ⁴ Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Then pour oil into all the jars. When each one is full, set it aside.”

⁵ So she went and shut the door to her house behind her and her sons. They brought the jars, and she poured. ⁶ When a jar was filled, she said to her son, “Bring me another jar.”

Finally he said, “There aren’t any more.” Then the oil stopped.

⁷ So she went and told the man of God. He said, “Go and sell the oil and pay your debt. Then you and your sons can live off what’s left.”

Elisha and the Woman of Shunem

⁸ One day Elisha went to Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she urged him to eat a meal with her. So whenever he passed by, he would stop there for a meal.

⁹ Then she said to her husband, “Listen. I know that the man who passes by here all the time is a holy man of God. ¹⁰ Let’s make a small upper room on the roof, and let’s put a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp there for him. Then whenever he comes to us, he can stay there.”

¹¹ One day when Elisha came there, he went into the room and lay down. ¹² Then he said to Gehazi his servant, “Call the woman of Shunem.” He called her, and she stood in front of him.

¹³ Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tell her, ‘You have been very concerned about us. What can we do for you? Is there something we can request for you from the king or from the commander of the army?’”

She said, “I am living among my own people.”

¹⁴ Then he said, “What can be done for her?”

Then Gehazi said, “Well, she has no son, and her husband is old.”

¹⁵ He said, “Call her.” So he called her, and she stood at the doorway.

¹⁶ Then he said to her, “At this time next year, you will be holding a son.”

But she said, “No, my lord, you man of God. Do not deceive your servant.”

¹⁷ But the woman conceived, and she gave birth to a son at that same time of year, just as Elisha said to her.

Elisha Raises the Boy From the Dead

¹⁸ The boy grew up, and one day he went out to his father, who was with the reapers. ¹⁹ Then he said to his father, “My head! My head!”

His father said to his servant, “Carry him to his mother.” ²⁰ So he picked him up and carried him to his mother, and the boy sat on her lap until noon. Then he died.

²¹ Then she went up and laid him on the bed of the man of God. She shut the door behind her and went out. ²² Then she called to her husband and said, “Send one of the servants to me with one of the donkeys, so that I can run to the man of God and come back.”

²³ He said, “Why are you going to him today? It’s not the new moon, and it’s not the Sabbath.”

But she said, “It’s all right.”

²⁴ Then she saddled the donkey and said to her servant, “Lead the way. Don’t slow down for me unless I tell you.”

²⁵ So she went to the man of God at Mount Carmel.

When the man of God saw her from a distance, he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look! That’s the woman from Shunem! ²⁶ Now run to meet her and say, ‘Are you all right? Is your husband all right? Is your son all right?’”

She answered, “We’re all right.”

²⁷ Then she came to the man of God at the mountain, and she grasped his feet. Gehazi stepped forward to push her away, but the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for her soul is in distress, but the Lord has hidden it from me. He has not told me.”

²⁸ Then she said, “Did I ask my lord for a son? Didn’t I say, ‘Don’t give me false hope’?”

²⁹ Then Elisha said to Gehazi, “Hike up your garments for travel,^[a] and take my staff in your hand and go! If you meet someone, do not greet him, and if someone greets you, do not answer. Put my staff on the boy’s face.”

³⁰ But the boy’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives and your soul lives, I will not leave you.” So he got up and followed her. ³¹ Gehazi went ahead of them and put the staff on the boy’s face. But there was no sound, and there was no response. So he went back to Elisha and told him, “The boy did not wake up.”

³² When Elisha came to the house, there the boy was—dead, lying on his bed. ³³ So he went in and he shut the door behind the two of them. Then he prayed to the Lord. ³⁴ He got up and lay down on top of the boy. He put his mouth to the boy’s mouth, his eyes to the boy’s eyes, his palms to the boy’s palms. Then he bent down over him, and the boy’s flesh became warm. ³⁵ He went back into the house and paced back and forth. Then he went up and bent down over him, and the boy sneezed seven times. Then the boy opened his eyes.

³⁶ Then Elisha called Gehazi and said, “Call the woman of Shunem!” So he called her, and she came in. He said, “Pick up your son.” ³⁷ So she came in and fell at Elisha’s feet and bowed down to the ground. Then she picked up her son and went out.

Elisha Makes a Poison Meal Safe

³⁸ Then Elisha returned to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land. The sons of the prophets were sitting with him, and he said to his servant, “Put the large cooking pot on the fire, and cook some stew for the sons of the prophets.”

³⁹ One of the men went out to the field to gather plants. He found a wild vine and picked some gourds from it. He filled his garment with them. Then he came in and cut them into pieces for the pot of stew. They did not know what they were, ⁴⁰ but they served it to the men to eat. While they were eating the stew, they cried out, “Man of God, there is death in the pot!” So they could not eat it.

⁴¹ But he said, “Take some flour and throw it into the pot.” Then he said, “Serve it to the people.” They ate, and there was nothing harmful in the pot.

A Miraculous Meal

⁴² A man came from Baal Shalishah and brought the man of God some bread from the first ripe grain, twenty loaves of barley bread, and some new grain in his sack. Elisha said, “Set it before the people so that they can eat.”

⁴³ His attendant said, “How can I set this before one hundred men?” But he said, “Set it before the people so that they may eat, for this is what the Lord says: They will eat and have some left over.” So he set it before them. They ate, and they had some left over, just as the Lord had said.

Greeting

1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and Christ Jesus our hope,

² To Timothy, my true child in the faith:

Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Warning Against False Teachers

³ As I urged you while I was going to Macedonia, remain in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach any different doctrines ⁴ or pay any attention to myths and endless genealogies that bring about aimless speculations rather than God’s plan, which centers in faith. ⁵ The goal of this command is love that comes from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from a sincere faith. ⁶ By veering away from these things, some have turned aside into meaningless talk. ⁷ They want to be teachers of the law, although they do not comprehend what they are saying or the things they so strongly affirm. ⁸ Now, we know that the law is good as long as one uses it correctly— ⁹ keeping in mind that the law is not laid down for a righteous person, but for lawless and rebellious people, for godless people and sinners, for unholy and worldly people, for those who kill their fathers and those who kill their mothers, for murderers, ¹⁰ for sexually immoral people, for homosexuals, for kidnappers,^[a] for liars, for perjurers, and for whatever else is opposed to sound teaching— ¹¹ in keeping with the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I was entrusted.

God’s Mercy to Paul

¹² I give thanks to the one who empowered me, namely, Christ Jesus our Lord, that he treated me as trustworthy, appointing me into his ministry. ¹³ He did this even though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man. But I was shown mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. ¹⁴ The grace of our Lord overflowed on me along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. ¹⁵ This saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners,” of whom I am the worst. ¹⁶ But I was shown mercy for this reason: that in me, the worst sinner, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his unlimited patience as an example for those who are going to believe in him, resulting in eternal life. ¹⁷ Now to the King eternal, to the immortal, invisible, only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Fight the Good Fight

¹⁸ I am entrusting this instruction to you, Timothy, my child, according to the prophecies about you, which were made earlier, so that by them you may fight the good fight, ¹⁹ with faith and a good conscience. By rejecting these, some people have suffered shipwreck with regard to their faith, ²⁰ including Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I handed over to Satan so that they might be taught not to blaspheme.

Daniel’s Vision of the Ram and the Goat

8 In the third year of the reign of King Belshazzar,^[a] a vision appeared to me—I, Daniel—after the one that appeared to me previously.

² I saw the vision, and as I watched, I was in the citadel^[b] of Susa, which is in the province of Elam. I saw in the vision that I was beside the Ulai Canal. ³ I looked up and right there in front of me I saw a ram standing beside the canal. He had two horns. The two horns were large. One, however, was larger than the other, but the larger one had grown up later. ⁴ I saw the ram pushing toward the west, north, and south, and no beast was able to stand in his way. Nothing could rescue anyone from his power. So he did as he pleased and made himself great.

⁵ As I was thinking about this, I saw a male goat coming from the west, moving across the surface of the whole earth without touching the ground. The goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. ⁶ He came up to the ram with the two horns that I saw standing beside the canal, and he ran at him with fierce anger. ⁷ I saw him coming up to the ram, and he was enraged against him. He struck the ram and broke his two horns. The ram had no power to stand up against him, so the goat threw the ram to the ground and trampled him. There was no one who could rescue the ram from his power.

⁸ The male goat made himself very great. But as he became strong, his large horn was broken, and four conspicuous horns grew up in its place toward the four winds of heaven.

⁹ Then from one of these horns a single horn came up. It began small, but it became very large toward the south and the east and toward the beautiful land. ¹⁰ It exalted itself against the army of heaven. It made some of that army and some of the stars fall to earth, and it trampled them. ¹¹ It exalted itself against the Prince of the Army. It deprived him of the continual sacrifice, and the place of his sanctuary was thrown down. ¹² The army and the continual sacrifice will be handed over to the horn during the rebellion, and it will throw truth to the ground. It will succeed in doing this.

¹³ Then I heard a holy one speaking, and another holy one said to the one speaking, “How long is the vision about the continual sacrifice and the rebellion that causes desolation going to last—this handing over of both the Holy Place and the army to be trampled?”

¹⁴ He said to him, “Until two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings, and then the Holy Place will be consecrated.”

Gabriel Explains the Vision of the Ram and the Goat

¹⁵ When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I tried to understand it. Then suddenly there was someone standing in front of me who had the appearance of a man. ¹⁶ I heard a human voice coming from between the banks of the Ulai. It called out and said, “Gabriel, make this man understand the vision.”

¹⁷ So he came beside the spot where I stood, and when he came, I was terrified and fell facedown. He said to me, “Understand, son of man, that the vision concerns the time of the end.” ¹⁸ When he had spoken with me, I fell into a deep sleep, facedown on the ground. He touched me and made me stand up.

¹⁹ He said, “Listen, I am about to make known to you what will happen during the last part of the furious anger, because this concerns the appointed time of the end.

²⁰ “The ram that you saw had two horns, the kings of Media and Persia. ²¹ The male goat is the king of Greece, and the large horn between his eyes is the first king.^{[c] 22} He is the one who was broken, and four others arose in his place. Four kingdoms will arise from his nation, but not with the same power he had.

²³ “In the latter part of their kingdom, when the rebels have reached their full measure, a merciless king who understands intrigue will arise.^{[d] 24} His power will be very great, but not from his own power. He will destroy wonderful things, and he will succeed in doing this. He will destroy mighty men^[e] and the people of the saints. ²⁵ Through his cunning, he will deceive in order to succeed by his power and will also exalt himself in his heart. He will destroy many who are at ease,^[f] and he will rise up against the Prince of Princes. However, he will be broken, but not by human power. ²⁶ The vision of the evenings and the mornings that was spoken is true. But you—seal the vision, because it concerns a time many days in the future.”

²⁷ I, Daniel, was exhausted and sick for days. Then I got up and carried out the king’s business. I was stunned by the vision, but I did not understand it.

Psalm 116

Deliverance From Death

Overview

Past Deliverance

Future Devotion