M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Chapter 21
Sacrifice for Untraceable Killing.[a] 1 If the body of a dead man is found lying on the ground of the land that the Lord, your God, has given you to possess, and it is not known who killed him, 2 have your elders and judges go out and measure the distance from the body to the neighboring towns. 3 The elders of the town that is nearest to the body are to take a heifer that has never worked nor worn a yoke. 4 The elders of that town will then lead it down to a valley with a flowing stream that has not been plowed nor planted. In that valley they are to slit the heifer’s throat. 5 The priests, the sons of Levi, will then come forward, for the Lord, your God, has chosen them to minister to him and to pronounce blessings in the name of the Lord and to decide all disputes and cases of assault. 6 The elders of the town that is nearest to the body will wash their hands[b] over the heifer whose throat had been slit in the valley, 7 and they will proclaim, “Our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it shed. 8 Accept this atonement for your people Israel, O Lord, whom you have redeemed, and do not hold your people responsible for the shedding of innocent blood.” This shall atone for the bloodshed. 9 In this way you will have purged yourself of the guilt of shedding innocent blood, since you will have done what is right in the sight of the Lord.
10 Marrying a Female Captive. When you go to war against your enemies and the Lord, your God, delivers them into your hands and you take them captive, 11 if you see a beautiful woman among them and you desire her, you can take her as your wife. 12 Bring her into your house, and have her shave her head and trim her nails 13 and have her throw out the clothes she was wearing when she was taken captive. She is to live in your house for a full month and mourn her father and her mother. Then you may go to her and be her husband and she will be your wife. 14 If you are not pleased with her, you are to let her go wherever she wishes. You are not to sell her or treat her like a slave, for you have already humbled her.
15 Law of the Firstborn.[c] If a man has two wives, and he loves one and dislikes the other, and they both bear him children, both the one who is loved and the one who is disliked, and the son of the one who is disliked is the firstborn, 16 then when he gives his inheritance to his sons, he is not to give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the woman he loves in preference to the true firstborn, the son of the woman he dislikes. 17 He must acknowledge the son of the woman whom he disliked as the firstborn, giving him a double portion of everything that he owned. That son is the first sign of his strength, and the right of firstborn belongs to him.
18 Punishing a Rebellious Son. If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not listen to his father or his mother, and will not heed them even when he is disciplined, 19 then his father and mother are to take hold of him and bring him out to the elders at the town gate. 20 They are to say to the town elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not listen to us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of that town will stone him to death. You must purge the evil from your midst. All of Israel will hear of it and be filled with fear.
22 Burying a Criminal.[d] If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hanging from a tree, 23 you are not to leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that day, for anyone who is hung from a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land that the Lord, your God, is giving you as an inheritance.
Psalm 108[a]
Prayer for Divine Assistance against Enemies
1 A song. A psalm of David.
2 [b]My heart[c] is steadfast, O God,
my heart is steadfast.
I will sing and chant your praise;
awake, my soul!
3 Awake, lyre and harp!
I will awaken the dawn.[d]
4 [e]I will give thanks to you among the peoples, O Lord;
I will sing your praises among the nations.
5 For your kindness extends above the heavens;
your faithfulness, to the skies.
6 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens,
and let your glory shine over all the earth.
7 [f]With your right hand come to our aid
so that those you love may be delivered.
8 [g]God has promised from his sanctuary,
“In triumph I will apportion Shechem
and measure out the Valley of Succoth.
9 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine;
Ephraim is my helmet,[h]
Judah is my scepter.
10 Moab is my washbasin;[i]
upon Edom I will plant my sandal;
over Philistia I will shout in triumph.”
11 Who will lead me into the fortified city?[j]
Who will guide me into Edom?
12 [k]Is it not you, O God, who have rejected us
and no longer go forth with our armies?
13 Grant us your help against our enemies,
for any human assistance is worthless.
14 With God’s help we will be victorious,
for he will overwhelm our foes.
Psalm 109[l]
Prayer for One Falsely Accused
1 For the director.[m] A psalm of David.
[n]O God, whom I praise,
do not remain silent.
2 Wicked and deceitful men
have opened their mouths against me;[o]
they have spoken against me with lying tongues.
3 They confront me with words of hatred
and assail me without cause.
4 In return for my love they denounce me
even as I offer up prayers for them.[p]
5 They give me back evil in exchange for good
and hatred in place of my love.[q]
6 [r]They say:[s]
“Choose a wicked man to oppose him,
an accuser to stand on his right.
7 At his judgment, let him be found guilty,
with even his prayers deemed sinful.[t]
8 “May his remaining days be few,
with someone else appointed to take his office.[u]
9 May his children become fatherless
and his wife become widowed.
10 “May his children be vagrants and beggars,
driven from the ruins they use for shelter.
11 May the creditor seize all he has,
and strangers abscond with his life savings.
12 [v]“May no one extend mercy to him
or take pity on his fatherless children.
13 May his posterity be doomed to extinction
and his name be blotted out within a generation.
14 “May the iniquity of his ancestors be remembered by the Lord,
and the sin of his mother never be wiped out.
15 May their guilt be continually before the Lord,
and may he banish all remembrance of them from the earth.
16 [w]“For he never thought of showing mercy;
rather, he hounded to death
the poor and the needy and the brokenhearted.
17 He loved to level curses[x] at others;
may they recoil on him.
He took no pleasure in blessing;
may no blessing be his.
18 [y]“He clothed himself with cursing as his garment;
it seeped into his body like water
and into his bones like oil.
19 May it be like the robe that envelops him,
like the belt that encircles him every day.”
20 May these evils my accusers wish for me
be inflicted upon them by the Lord.[z]
21 [aa]But you, O Lord, my God,
treat me kindly for your name’s sake;[ab]
deliver me because of your overwhelming kindness.
22 For I am poor and needy,[ac]
and my heart is pierced within me.
23 I am fading away[ad] like an evening shadow;
I am shaken off like a locust.
24 My knees are weak from fasting;
my flesh is wasting away.
25 I have become an object of ridicule to my accusers;
upon seeing me, they toss their heads.[ae]
26 Come to my aid, O Lord, my God;
save me because of your kindness.[af]
27 Let them know that your hand has done this,
that you, O Lord, have accomplished it.
28 When they curse, you will bless;
when they attack, they will be put to shame,
and your servant will rejoice.[ag]
29 My accusers will be clothed in disgrace,
wrapped in their shame as in a cloak.
30 I will thank the Lord with my lips,
and before all the people I will praise him.[ah]
31 For he stands at the right hand of the poor
to save him from his accusers who pass judgment on him.[ai]
Chapter 48
A Plea to the Captives
1 Hear this, O house of Jacob,
you who are called by the name of Israel,
and who came forth from the stock of Judah,
who swear by the name of the Lord
and invoke the God of Israel
but not with righteousness or good faith,
2 even though you call yourselves citizens of the holy city
and rely on the God of Israel
whose name is the Lord of hosts.
3 Things that happened in the past
I foretold long before they occurred.
These predictions issued forth from my mouth,
and I made them known to you;
then suddenly I acted and they came to pass.
4 Because I know full well that you are obstinate,
with your neck an iron sinew
and your forehead firm as bronze,
5 I foretold these events to you long ago
and declared them to you before they happened
so that you could not assert, “My idols did them;
my carved statue and my molten image ordained them.”
6 You have heard what I said; now consider it
and admit the truth of what I have stated.
From now on I will reveal new things,
hidden things of which you have not been aware.
7 They have just been brought into existence, and not long ago;
before today you have never heard of them,
so that you cannot claim to have already known them.
8 You neither heard nor knew;
knowledge of them never reached your ears before now.
For I knew how treacherous you are
and that from your birth you were rebellious.
9 For the sake of my name I will restrain my anger;
for the sake of my honor I will be patient with you
lest I should be tempted to destroy you.
10 See, I have tested you,
but not in the manner that silver is tested;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For my sake, for my own sake, I do this,
for why should my name be profaned?
I will not yield my glory to another.
12 Listen to me, O Jacob,
and Israel, whom I have called.
I am he; I am the first
and I am the last.
13 My hand laid the foundations of the earth,
and my right hand spread out the heavens;
when I summon them,
they all present themselves immediately.
14 Assemble, all of you, and listen!
Who among the idols has revealed what will happen—
that he whom I love[a] will do my will
against Babylon and the Chaldeans?
15 I myself have spoken and summoned him;
I have brought him,
and his mission will succeed.
16 Draw near to me and hear this:
From the very beginning
I have not spoken in secret.
From the time it came to be, I have been there.
Now the Lord God has sent me and his Spirit.
17 Thus says the Lord God,
your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
I am the Lord, your God
who teaches you what is for your own good
and who leads you in the way you should go.
18 If only you had listened to my commandments,
your prosperity would have been like a river
and your success like the waves of the sea.
19 Your descendants would have been as numerous as the sand
and your offspring like its countless grains.
Their name would never be erased
or blotted out from my sight.
20 Go forth from Babylon! Flee from Chaldea!
Proclaim this with shouts of joy
and make it known.
Send the message to the ends of the earth and say,
“The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob.”
21 Those whom he led through desert lands
never endured thirst.
He caused water to flow from the rock for them;
he split open the rock and waters streamed forth.
22 Thus says the Lord:
There is no peace for the wicked.
Chapter 18
The Fall of Babylon the Great.[a] 1 After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and his splendor illumined the earth. 2 He cried out in a mighty voice:
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a dwelling place for demons,
a haunt for every unclean spirit
and for every filthy and loathsome bird.
3 For all the nations have drunk
the wine of the wrath of her harlotry.
The kings of the earth have committed fornication with her,
and the merchants of the earth have grown rich
from her wealth and luxury.”
4 Then I heard another voice from heaven saying:
“Depart from her, my people,
so that you will not take part in her sins
and share in her plagues.
5 For her sins are piled up as high as the heavens,
and God has remembered her crimes.
6 Pay her back as she has done to others,
and repay her double for her deeds;
mix her a double portion of her own poison.
7 Give her torment and grief
to equal the measure of her glory and luxury.
In her heart she says,
‘I rule as a queen.
I am not a widow,
and I will never experience grief.’
8 Therefore, in a single day
her plagues will come upon her:
pestilence and mourning and famine.
And she will be consumed by fire,
for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.
Funereal Ode over Rome.[b] 9 “The kings of the earth who committed fornication with her and shared in her luxury will weep and mourn over her when they behold the smoke of her immolation. 10 In terror at her torment, they will keep their distance and say:
“ ‘Woe, woe, O great city,
mighty city of Babylon.
In one hour your judgment has come.’
11 “The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, since no one buys their cargo anymore: 12 their cargo of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; purple and scarlet cloth, silks, and fine linens; all sorts of fragrant wood and all kinds of objects of ivory, all kinds of objects of expensive wood, bronze, iron, and marble; 13 cinnamon and spices; incense, myrrh, and frankincense; wine and olive oil; fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and chariots; and slaves, that is, human lives. They will say:
14 “ ‘The fruit you longed for
is no longer available to you.
All your riches and splendor are gone,
and you will never find them again.’
15 “The merchants of these things who made a fortune from her will stand far off, weeping and mourning aloud, and terrified as they behold her torment:
16 “ ‘Woe, woe, O great city,
clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet,
adorned with gold, jewels, and precious stones!
17 Within one hour
all this wealth has been destroyed.’
“All the ship captains and voyagers, all the sailors and those who make their living by trading upon the sea, will stand far off 18 and exclaim as they see the smoke caused by her immolation, ‘Has there ever been a city to compare with this great city?’ 19 Then they will throw dust on their heads and with mourning and weeping cry out:
“ ‘Woe, woe, O great city,
where all who had ships at sea
became rich through her wealth!
Within one hour
she has been brought to ruin.
20 Rejoice over her, O heaven,
you holy ones, apostles, and prophets!
For God has passed judgment on her for you.’ ”
21 Then a mighty angel picked up a stone the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, saying:
“This is how
the great city of Babylon will be thrown down,
never to be found again.
22 The sound of harpists and minstrels,
flute players and trumpeters,
will never be heard in you again.
Craftsmen of every trade
never will be found in you again.
The sound of a millstone
will never be heard in you again.
23 The light from a lamp
will never be seen in you again.
The voices of a bridegroom and bride
will never be heard in you again.
Since your merchants were the world’s great men,
all the nations were led astray by your enticements.
24 In you[c] was found the blood of the Prophets,
of the saints,
and of all who have been slain on the earth.”
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