M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Laws about Truthful Testimony
23 “You are not to spread a false report, nor are you to join forces[a] with the wicked to be a malicious witness. 2 You are not to follow the majority[b] in doing wrong, and you are not to testify in a lawsuit so as to follow the majority and pervert justice. 3 You are not to show partiality to a poor man in his lawsuit.
4 “If you come across your enemy’s ox or donkey wandering off, you are to certainly return it to him. 5 If you see your enemy’s donkey lying helpless under its load, you must not abandon it; rather, you are certainly to return it to him.[c]
6 “You are not to pervert justice for the poor among you[d] in their lawsuits.[e] 7 Stay far away from a false charge, and don’t kill the innocent or the righteous, because I won’t acquit the guilty. 8 You are not to take a bribe because a bribe blinds the clear-sighted and distorts the words of the righteous. 9 You are not to oppress the resident alien, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”
Instructions for Sabbaths and Sabbatical Years
10 “You are to sow your land and gather its crops for six years, 11 but you are to let it rest the seventh year, leaving it unplanted. The poor of your people may eat from it,[f] and the wild animals may eat what they leave. You are to do the same with your vineyards and olive groves. 12 You are to do your work for six days, but on the seventh day you are to refrain from work so that your ox and donkey[g] may rest, and so the son of your maidservant and the alien may be refreshed.
13 “Be careful about everything I’ve told you, and don’t mention the name of other gods. Don’t let them be heard in your mouth!”
The Three Major Festivals
14 “Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival for me. 15 You are to observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread. As I commanded you, you are to eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month Abib, because in it you came out of Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty handed. 16 You are to observe[h] the Festival of Harvest,[i] celebrating[j] the first fruits of your work in planting the field, and the Festival of Tabernacles[k] at the end of the year, when you gather the fruit of your work from the field. 17 Three times a year all your males are to appear in the presence of the Lord God.”
Various Laws
18 “You are not to offer the blood of my sacrifice with anything leavened, and you are not to let the fat portion of my sacrifice remain overnight until morning.
19 “You are to bring the best of the first fruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God.
“You are not to boil a young goat in its mother’s milk.”
God Promises Help as the Israelis Enter Canaan
20 “Look, I’m sending an angel in front of you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place I’ve prepared. 21 Be careful! Be sure to obey him. Don’t rebel against him, because he won’t forgive your transgression, since my Name is in him. 22 Indeed, if you carefully obey him and do everything that I say, then I’ll be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries, 23 because my angel will go ahead of you and will bring you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I’ll annihilate them. 24 You are not to bow down to their gods or serve them. You are not to follow their practices,[l] but you are to overthrow them completely and smash their sacred stones[m] to pieces. 25 You are to serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your food[n] and water, and I’ll remove sickness from you. 26 No woman will miscarry or be barren in your land, and I’ll make every day of your life complete.[o]
27 “I’ll go ahead of you and terrorize all the people to whom you are coming. I’ll confuse your enemies and make them turn their backs on you and run away.[p] 28 I’ll send hornets ahead of you and they’ll drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you. 29 I won’t drive them out before you in a single year, so that the land does not become desolate and so that wild animals do not overrun you. 30 I’ll drive them out ahead of you little by little until you increase in numbers[q] and possess the land.
31 “I’ll set your borders from the Reed[r] Sea to the Sea of the Philistines,[s] and from the desert to the Euphrates[t] River, bringing[u] the inhabitants of the land under your control,[v] and you are to drive them out ahead of you. 32 You are not to make a covenant with them or with their gods. 33 They are not to live in your land. Otherwise they will cause you to sin against me. If you worship their gods, it will become a snare for you.”
Jesus Changes Water into Wine
2 On the third day of that week[a] there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine ran out, Jesus’ mother told him, “They don’t have any more wine.”
4 “How does that concern us, dear lady?”[b] Jesus asked her. “My time hasn’t come yet.”
5 His mother told the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”
6 Now standing there were six stone water jars used for the Jewish rites of purification, each one holding from two to three measures.[c] 7 Jesus told the servants,[d] “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them up to the brim. 8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the man in charge of the banquet.” So they did.
9 When the man in charge of the banquet tasted the water that had become wine (without knowing where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew), he[e] called for the bridegroom 10 and told him, “Everyone serves the best wine first, and the cheap kind when people[f] are drunk. But you have kept the best wine until now!” 11 Jesus did this, the first[g] of his signs, in Cana of Galilee. He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
12 After this, Jesus[h] went down to Capernaum—he, his mother, his brothers, and his disciples—and they remained there for a few days.
Confrontation in the Temple over Money(A)
13 The Jewish Passover was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the Temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, as well as moneychangers sitting at their tables. 15 After making a whip out of cords, he drove all of them out of the Temple, including the sheep and the cattle. He scattered the coins of the moneychangers and knocked over their tables.
16 Then he told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.”[i]
18 Then the Jewish leaders[j] asked him, “What sign can you show us as authority for doing these things?”
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will rebuild it.”
20 The Jewish leaders[k] said, “This sanctuary has been under construction for 46 years, and you’re going to rebuild it in three days?” 21 But the sanctuary he was speaking about was his own body. 22 After he had been raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this. So they believed the Scripture and the statement that Jesus had made.[l]
Jesus Knows All People
23 While Jesus[m] was in Jerusalem for the Passover Festival, many people believed in him[n] because they saw the signs that he was doing. 24 Jesus, however, did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people 25 and didn’t need anyone to tell him what people were like, because he himself knew what was in every person.[o]
On Leviathan
41 [a]“Can you draw Leviathan[b] out of the water[c] with a hook,
or tie down[d] his tongue with a rope?
2 Can you attach a bridle[e] to his snout,
or pierce his jaw with a hook?
3 Will he make many supplications to you,
or will he beg you for mercy?[f]
4 Will he try to make a deal with you,
so that you may take him in servitude forever?
5 “Will you play with him like a pet bird?
Will you put a leash on him for your little girls?
6 Will your business be able to buy him,
Will you divide him among your merchant friends?
7 Will you fill his flesh with harpoons,
or his head with lances?
8 Lay your hand on him,
and you’ll remember the struggle.
You’ll never do that again!
9 “Look! Anyone’s hope to capture him[g] will prove itself false;
anyone would be terrified[h] just by looking at him.
10 No one is fierce enough to dare to arouse him.
“Who, then, can stand in my presence and face me?
11 Who can take me to court and be reconciled to me?
All of heaven is mine.
12 “I won’t be silent concerning his limbs,
his mighty strength, and orderly frame.
13 Who can strip off his outer armor?[i]
Who can approach him with a bridle?
14 Who dares to open his mouth,[j]
since it is ringed with his terrible teeth!
15 His protective scales are his pride,
they lie sealed tightly together.
16 Each one is so close to the other
that not even air comes in between them.
17 Each is attached to the other,[k]
grasping each other so they cannot be separated.
18 “His snorting releases flashes of light;
his eyes are like the rays[l] of the dawn.
19 Flames blaze from his mouth;
streams of sparking fire fly out.
20 Smoke billows from his nostrils;
like a boiling pot or burning reeds.
21 His breath can ignite coal;
and flames proceed from his mouth.
22 “His neck is so powerful
that all who meet him are terrified.
23 There is no flaw in his body’s armor;
it is firmly fixed on him and unbreachable.
24 His heart is as strong as stone,
it is as hard as a lower millstone.
25 When he rears up, the mighty are terrified;
they are bewildered as he thrashes about.
26 “Thrusting at him with a sword won’t be effective,
nor will spears, darts, or javelins.
27 He regards iron like straw,
and hardened bronze like a dead tree.
28 Arrows won’t make him flee;
stones from a sling are only pebbles to him.
29 Clubs are like twigs;[m]
he laughs at the whoosh of the javelin.
30 “Beneath him he is armored as with sharp potsherds;
he tears through muddy ground
like a threshing sledge through grain.[n]
31 He causes the deep to boil like water in[o] a pot,
and churns the sea like one stirs ointment.
32 The sea is luminescent behind him;
his wake turns the sea white, like those with gray hair.
33 “There’s nothing like him on earth;
he was created without the ability to fear.
34 He looks down on everything that is high;
he rules over every kind[p] of pride.”
Paul Contrasts Himself with False Apostles
11 I wish you would tolerate a little of my foolishness. Yes, please tolerate me! 2 I am jealous of you with God’s own jealousy, because I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to the Messiah.[a] 3 However, I am afraid that just as the serpent deceived Eve by its tricks, so your minds may somehow be lured away from sincere and pure[b] devotion to the Messiah.[c]
4 For if someone comes along and preaches another Jesus than the one we preached, or should you receive a different spirit from the one you received or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you are all too willing to listen. 5 I do not think I’m inferior in any way to those “super-apostles.” 6 Even though I may be untrained as an orator, I am not so in the field of knowledge. We have made this clear to all of you in every possible way.
7 Did I commit a sin when I humbled myself by proclaiming to you the gospel of God free of charge, so that you could be exalted? 8 I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. 9 When I was with you and needed something, I did not bother any of you, because our brothers who came from Macedonia supplied everything I needed. I kept myself from being a burden to you in any way, and I will continue to do so.
10 As surely as the truth of the Messiah[d] is in me, my boasting will not be silenced in the regions of Achaia. 11 Why? Because I do not love you? God knows that I do!
12 But I will go on doing what I’m doing in order to deny an opportunity to those people who want an opportunity to be recognized as our equals in the work they are boasting about. 13 Such people are false apostles, dishonest workers who are masquerading as apostles of the Messiah.[e] 14 And no wonder, since Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 So it is not surprising if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their doom[f] will match their deeds!
Paul’s Sufferings as an Apostle
16 I will say it again: No one should think that I am a fool. But if you do, then treat me like a fool so that I can also boast a little. 17 When I talk as a confident boaster, I am not talking with the Lord’s authority but like a fool. 18 Since many people boast in a fleshly way, I will do it, too. 19 You are wise, so you will gladly be tolerant of fools. 20 You tolerate anyone who makes you his slaves, devours what you have, takes what is yours, orders you around, or slaps your face!
21 I am ashamed to admit it, but we have been too weak for that. Whatever anyone else dares to claim—I am talking like a fool—I can claim it, too. 22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelis? So am I. Are they among Abraham’s descendants? So am I. 23 Are they the Messiah’s[g] servants? I am insane to talk like this, but I am a far better one! I have been involved in far greater efforts, far more imprisonments, countless beatings, and have faced death more than once. 24 Five times I received from the Jews 40 lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with a stick, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, and I drifted on the sea for a day and a night. 26 I have traveled extensively and have been endangered from rivers, robbers, my own people, and gentiles. I’ve also been in danger in the city, in the open country, at sea, from false brothers, 27 in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, through hunger, thirst, many periods of fasting, coldness, and nakedness. 28 Besides everything else, I have a daily burden because of my anxiety about all the churches. 29 Who is weak without me being weak, too? Who is caused to stumble without me becoming indignant?
30 If I must boast, I will boast about the things that show how weak I am. 31 The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. 32 In Damascus, the governor under King Aretas put guards around the city of Damascus to catch me, 33 but I was let down in a basket through an opening in the wall and escaped from him.
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