M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Chapter 34
The Boundaries. 1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 Give the Israelites this order: When you enter the land of Canaan, this is the territory that shall fall to you as your heritage—the land of Canaan with its boundaries:
3 Your southern boundary will be at the wilderness of Zin along the border of Edom;(A) on the east your southern boundary will begin at the end of the Salt Sea. 4 Then your boundary will turn south of the Akrabbim Pass and cross Zin. Terminating south of Kadesh-barnea, it extends to Hazar-addar and crosses to Azmon.(B) 5 Then the boundary will turn from Azmon to the Wadi of Egypt and terminate at the Sea.(C)
6 For your western boundary you will have the Great Sea[a] with its coast; this will be your western boundary.
7 This will be your boundary on the north: from the Great Sea you will draw a line to Mount Hor,[b] 8 and draw it from Mount Hor to Lebo-hamath, with the boundary terminating at Zedad. 9 Then the boundary extends to Ziphron and terminates at Hazar-enan. This will be your northern boundary.
10 For your eastern boundary you will draw a line from Hazar-enan to Shepham. 11 From Shepham the boundary will go down to Riblah, east of Ain, and descending further, the boundary will strike the ridge on the east side of the Sea of Chinnereth;[c] 12 then the boundary will descend along the Jordan and terminate with the Salt Sea.
This will be your land, with the boundaries that surround it.
13 Moses also gave this order to the Israelites: “This is the land, to be apportioned among you by lot, which the Lord has commanded to be given to the nine and a half tribes. 14 For the tribe of the Reubenites according to their ancestral houses, and the tribe of the Gadites according to their ancestral houses, as well as half of the tribe of Manasseh, have already received their heritage; 15 these two and a half tribes have received their heritage across the Jordan opposite Jericho, in the east, toward the sunrise.”
Supervisors of the Allotment. 16 The Lord spoke to Moses: 17 These are the names of the men who shall apportion the land among you: Eleazar the priest, and Joshua, son of Nun; 18 (D)and you will designate one leader from each of the tribes to apportion the land. 19 These are the names of the men:
from the tribe of Judah: Caleb, son of Jephunneh,
20 from the tribe of the Simeonites: Samuel, son of Ammihud;
21 from the tribe of Benjamin: Elidad, son of Chislon;
22 from the tribe of the Danites: a leader, Bukki, son of Jogli;
23 for the descendants of Joseph: from the tribe of the Manassites: a leader, Hanniel, son of Ephod; and
24 from the tribe of the Ephraimites: a leader, Kemuel, son of Shiphtan;
25 from the tribe of the Zebulunites: a leader, Elizaphan, son of Parnach;
26 from the tribe of the Issacharites: a leader, Paltiel, son of Azzan;
27 from the tribe of the Asherites: a leader, Ahihud, son of Shelomi;
28 from the tribe of the Naphtalites: a leader, Pedahel, son of Ammihud.
29 These are the ones whom the Lord commanded to apportion to the Israelites their heritage in the land of Canaan.
38 [a]But God being compassionate forgave their sin;
he did not utterly destroy them.
Time and again he turned back his anger,
unwilling to unleash all his rage.(A)
39 He remembered that they were flesh,
a breath that passes on and does not return.
III
A
40 How often they rebelled against God in the wilderness,
grieved him in the wasteland.
41 Again and again they tested God,
provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42 They did not remember his power,
the day he redeemed them from the foe,(B)
43 [b]When he performed his signs in Egypt,
his wonders in the plain of Zoan.(C)
44 God turned their rivers to blood;
their streams they could not drink.
45 He sent swarms of insects that devoured them,(D)
frogs that destroyed them.
46 He gave their harvest to the caterpillar,
the fruits of their labor to the locust.
47 He killed their vines with hail,(E)
their sycamores with frost.
48 He exposed their cattle to plague,
their flocks to pestilence.(F)
49 He let loose against them the heat of his anger,
wrath, fury, and distress,
a band of deadly messengers.
50 He cleared a path for his anger;
he did not spare them from death,
but delivered their animals to the plague.
51 He struck all the firstborn of Egypt,(G)
the first fruits of their vigor in the tents of Ham.
52 Then God led forth his people like sheep,
guided them like a flock through the wilderness.(H)
53 He led them on secure and unafraid,
while the sea enveloped their enemies.(I)
54 And he brought them to his holy mountain,
the hill his right hand had won.(J)
55 He drove out the nations before them,
allotted them as their inherited portion,
and settled in their tents the tribes of Israel.
B
56 But they tested and rebelled against God Most High,
his decrees they did not observe.
57 They turned disloyal, faithless like their ancestors;
they proved false like a slack bow.
58 They enraged him with their high places,
and with their idols provoked him[c] to jealous anger.(K)
C
59 God heard and grew angry;
he rejected Israel completely.
60 He forsook the shrine at Shiloh,[d](L)
the tent he set up among human beings.
61 He gave up his might into captivity,
his glorious ark into the hands of the foe.(M)
62 God delivered his people to the sword;
he was enraged against his heritage.
63 Fire consumed their young men;
their young women heard no wedding songs.(N)
64 Their priests fell by the sword;
their widows made no lamentation.
D
65 Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
like a warrior shouting from the effects of wine.
66 He put his foes to flight;
everlasting shame he dealt them.
67 He rejected the tent of Joseph,
chose not the tribe of Ephraim.
68 [e]God chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion which he loved.(O)
69 He built his shrine like the heavens,
like the earth which he founded forever.
70 He chose David his servant,
took him from the sheepfolds.(P)
71 From tending ewes God brought him,
to shepherd Jacob, his people,
Israel, his heritage.(Q)
72 He shepherded them with a pure heart;
with skilled hands he guided them.
Chapter 26
Judah’s Praise and Prayer for Deliverance.[a] 1 On that day this song shall be sung in the land of Judah:
“A strong city[b] have we;
he sets up victory as our walls and ramparts.(A)
2 Open up the gates
that a righteous nation may enter,
one that keeps faith.(B)
3 With firm purpose you maintain peace;
in peace, because of our trust in you.”(C)
4 Trust in the Lord forever!
For the Lord is an eternal Rock.(D)
5 He humbles those who dwell on high,
the lofty city he brings down,
Brings it down to the ground,
levels it to the dust.(E)
6 The feet of the needy trample on it—
the feet of the poor.
7 The way of the just is smooth;
the path of the just you make level.(F)
8 The course of your judgments, Lord, we await;
your name and your memory are the desire of our souls.
9 My soul yearns for you at night,
yes, my spirit within me seeks you at dawn;
When your judgment comes upon the earth,
the world’s inhabitants learn justice.(G)
10 The wicked, when spared, do not learn justice;
in an upright land they act perversely,
and do not see the majesty of the Lord.(H)
11 Lord, your hand is raised high,
but they do not perceive it;
Let them be put to shame when they see your zeal for your people:
let the fire prepared for your enemies consume them.(I)
12 Lord, you will decree peace for us,
for you have accomplished all we have done.(J)
13 Lord, our God, lords other than you have ruled us;
only because of you can we call upon your name.
14 Dead they are, they cannot live,
shades that cannot rise;
Indeed, you have punished and destroyed them,
and wiped out all memory of them.
15 You have increased the nation, Lord,
you have increased the nation, have added to your glory,
you have extended far all the boundaries of the land.(K)
16 Lord, oppressed by your punishment,
we cried out in anguish under your discipline.(L)
17 As a woman about to give birth
writhes and cries out in pain,
so were we before you, Lord.(M)
18 We conceived and writhed in pain,
giving birth only to wind;
Salvation we have not achieved for the earth,
no inhabitants for the world were born.(N)
19 [c]But your dead shall live, their corpses shall rise!
Awake and sing, you who lie in the dust!
For your dew is a dew of light,
and you cause the land of shades to give birth.(O)
The Lord’s Response[d]
20 Go, my people, enter your chambers,
and close the doors behind you;
Hide yourselves for a brief moment,
until the wrath is past.(P)
21 See, the Lord goes forth from his place,
to punish the wickedness of the earth’s inhabitants;
The earth will reveal the blood shed upon it,
and no longer conceal the slain.(Q)
Chapter 4
Testing the Spirits.[a] 1 Beloved, do not trust every spirit but test the spirits to see whether they belong to God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.(A) 2 This is how you can know the Spirit of God: every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God,(B) 3 and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus[b] does not belong to God. This is the spirit of the antichrist that, as you heard, is to come, but in fact is already in the world.(C) 4 You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them, for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 5 They belong to the world; accordingly, their teaching belongs to the world, and the world listens to them.(D) 6 We belong to God, and anyone who knows God listens to us, while anyone who does not belong to God refuses to hear us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.(E)
God’s Love and Christian Life. 7 [c]Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. 8 Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.(F) 10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.(G) 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.(H)
13 [d]This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. 14 Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. 15 Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. 16 We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.
God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. 17 In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.(I) 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God[e] whom he has not seen.(J) 21 This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.(K)
Scripture texts, prefaces, introductions, footnotes and cross references used in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC All Rights Reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.