M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The Seven Lamps
8 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to Aaron, and say to him: ‘When you are setting up the lamps, the seven lamps will give light in front of the face of the lampstand.’” 3 And Aaron did so; he set up the lampstand in front of the face of its lamps, just as Yahweh commanded Moses. 4 And this is how the lampstand was made,[a] a hammered-work of gold; from its base up to its blossom,[b] it was hammered-work according to the pattern that Yahweh showed Moses; so he made the lampstand.
Moses Consecrates the Levites
5 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 6 “Take the Levites from the midst of the Israelites[c] and purify them. 7 So you will do to them, to purify them: sprinkle on them waters of purification, and they will shave their whole body[d] and wash their garments. 8 And they will take a young bull[e] and its grain offering of finely milled flour mixed with oil, and you will take a second young bull[f] as a sin offering. 9 You will bring the Levites before[g] the tent of assembly, and you will summon the entire community of the Israelites.[h] 10 And you will bring the Levites before Yahweh,[i] and the Israelites[j] will lay their hands on the Levites, 11 and Aaron will offer[k] the Levites as a wave offering before Yahweh[l] from the Israelites,[m] and they will do the work of Yahweh. 12 And the Levites will lay their hands on the head of the one bull and offer it as a sin offering and the other one as a burnt offering to Yahweh, to make atonement for the Levites. 13 And you will present the Levites before[n] Aaron and before[o] his sons, and he will offer[p] them as a wave offering to Yahweh.
14 “And you will separate the Levites from the midst of the Israelites,[q] and the Levites will be for me. 15 And after this the Levites will come to serve at the tent of assembly, and you will purify them, and you will offer[r] them as a wave offering. 16 For they are given to me exclusively from the midst of the Israelites.[s] I have taken them for myself in place of the firstborn of every womb, every firstborn from the Israelites.[t] 17 For every firstborn among the Israelites[u] is mine, both humankind and animal. On the day I destroyed every firstborn in the land of Egypt I consecrated them to me, 18 and I have taken the Levites in the place of every firstborn among the Israelites.[v] 19 And I have given the Levites; they are given to Aaron and his sons from the midst of the Israelites[w] to do the work of the Israelites[x] in the tent of the assembly and to make atonement for the Israelites,[y] so a plague will not be among the Israelites[z] when the Israelites[aa] come near the sanctuary.”
20 And Moses and Aaron and the entire community of the Israelites[ab] did to the Levites; everything that Yahweh commanded Moses concerning the Levites, the Israelites[ac] did to them. 21 And the Levites purified themselves, and they washed their garments, and Aaron offered them[ad] as a wave offering before Yahweh;[ae] and Aaron made atonement for them to purify them. 22 After this the Levites came to do their work in the tent of assembly before Aaron and his sons. Just as Yahweh commanded Moses concerning the Levities, so they did to them.
23 Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying, 24 “This is what is for the Levites: those twenty-five years old[af] and above will[ag] come to help with the service in the work of the tent of assembly; 25 and those fifty years old[ah] will[ai] return from the service of the work and will serve no longer. 26 They[aj] can attend[ak] their brothers in the tent of assembly to keep their responsibilities, but they[al] will not do work. This is what you will do concerning the Levities and their responsibilities.”
Present Defeat and Past Deliverance
For the music director. Of the sons of Korah. A maskil.[a]
44 O God, we have heard with our ears;
our ancestors[b] have told us
of work you worked in their days,
in days of old.
2 You with your hand drove out the nations,
but them[c] you planted.
You harmed the peoples,
but them[d] you let spread out.
3 For not with their sword
did they possess the land,
and their arm did not give them victory.
Rather it was your right hand and your arm
and the light of your presence,
because you delighted in them.
4 You are my king, O God.
Command[e] victories for Jacob.
5 By you we push down our enemies;
by your name we tread down those who rise up against us.
6 For I do not trust my bow,
and my sword cannot give me victory.
7 Rather you have saved us from our enemies,[f]
and have humiliated those who hate us.
8 In God we boast all the day,
and we will give thanks to your name forever. Selah
9 Surely you have rejected and disgraced us,
and have not gone out with our armies.
10 You have caused us to pull back from the enemy,
and so those who hate us have plundered for themselves.
11 You have given us as sheep for food,
and among the nations you have scattered us.
12 You have sold your people cheaply,[g]
and did not profit by their price.
13 You have made us a taunt to our neighbors,
a derision and a scorn to those around us.
14 You have made us a byword among the nations,
a shaking of the head among the peoples.
15 All day long[h] my disgrace is before me,
and the shame of my face covers me,
16 because of the voice of the taunter and the reviler,
because of the enemy and the avenger.
17 All this has befallen us, though we have not forgotten you,
and we have not been false to your covenant.
18 Our heart has not turned back,
and our steps have not turned aside from your way.
19 But you have crushed us in a place of jackals,
and have covered us with deep shadow.
20 If we had forgotten the name of our God,
or had spread out our hands in prayer to a foreign god,
21 would not God discover this,
for he knows the secrets of the heart?
22 Rather, on account of you we are killed all day long;[i]
we are accounted as sheep for slaughter.
23 Wake up! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake! Do not reject forever.
24 Why do you hide your face?
Have you forgotten our misery and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust.
Our body[j] clings to the ground.
26 Rise up! Be a help for us,
and redeem us for the sake of your loyal love.
6 Where has your beloved gone,
O most beautiful among women?
Where has your beloved turned
that we may seek him with you?
2 My beloved has gone down to his garden,
to the garden bed of the spice,
to pasture his flock and to gather lilies in the garden.
Mutual Possession Refrain
3 I belong to my beloved and he belongs to me;[a]
he pastures his flock among the lilies.
Solomon’s Praise of His Beloved
4 You are beautiful, my beloved, as Tirzah,
lovely as Jerusalem,
overwhelming as an army with banners.[b]
5 Turn away your eyes from before me,
for they overwhelm me.
Your hair is like a flock of the goats
that moves down from Gilead.
6 Your teeth are like a flock of the ewes
that have come up from the washing,
all of them bearing twins,
and there is none bereaved among them.
7 Your cheeks behind[c] your veil
are like halves of a pomegranate.
The Maiden’s Beauty Is without Peer
8 Sixty queens there are, eighty concubines,
and maidens beyond number.
9 My dove, she is the one;[d][e]
my perfect, she is the only one;[f][g]
she is the favorite of[h][i] her mother who bore her.
Maidens see her and consider her fortunate;[j]
queens and concubines praise her:
10 “Who is this that looks down like the dawn,
beautiful as the moon,
bright as the sun,[k][l]
overwhelming as an army with banners?”[m]
The Journey to the Valley
11 I went down to the orchard of the walnut trees
to look at the blossoms of the valley,
to see whether the vines have sprouted,
whether the pomegranates have blossomed.
12 I did not know my heart[n] set me
in a chariot of my princely people.[o]
13 [p] Turn, turn,[q] O Shulammite![r]
Turn, turn[s] so that we may look upon you!
Why do you look upon the Shulammite
as at a dance of the two armies?
A Serious Warning Against Falling Away
6 Therefore, leaving behind the elementary message about Christ, let us move on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and faith in God, 2 teaching about baptisms and laying on of hands, and resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do, if God permits. 4 For it is impossible concerning those who have once been enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and become sharers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 and having fallen away, to renew them again to repentance, because they[a] have crucified again for themselves the Son of God and held him up to contempt. 7 For ground that drinks the rain that comes often upon it, and brings forth vegetation usable to those people for whose sake[b] it is also cultivated, shares a blessing from God. 8 But if it[c] produces thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to a curse, whose end is for burning.
9 But even if we are speaking in this way, dear friends, we are convinced of better things concerning you, and belonging to salvation. 10 For God is not unjust, so as to forget your work and the love which you demonstrated for his name by[d] having served the saints, and continuing to serve them. 11 And we desire each one of you to demonstrate the same diligence for the full assurance of your hope until the end, 12 in order that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who inherit the promises through faith and patience.
The Reliability of God’s Promise
13 For when[e] God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater to swear by, he swore by himself, 14 saying,
15 And so, by[h] persevering, he obtained the promise. 16 For people swear by what is greater than themselves, and the oath for confirmation is the end of all dispute for them. 17 In the same way God, because he[i] wanted to show even more to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his resolve, guaranteed it with an oath, 18 in order that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge may have powerful encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us, 19 which we have like an anchor of the soul, both firm and steadfast, and entering into the inside of the curtain, 20 where Jesus, the forerunner for us, entered, because he[j] became a high priest forever[k] according to the order of Melchizedek.
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