M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
17 There was a man of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah.
2 And he said to his mother, The 1,100 shekels of silver that were taken from you, about which you cursed and also spoke about in my hearing, behold, I have the silver with me; I took it. And his mother said, Blessed be you by the Lord, my son!
3 He restored the 1,100 shekels of silver to his mother, and she said, I had truly dedicated the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son to make a graven image and a molten image; now therefore, I will restore it to you.
4 So when he restored the money to his mother, she took 200 pieces of silver and gave them to the silversmith, who made of it a graven image and a molten image; and they were in the house of Micah.
5 And the man Micah had a house of gods, and he made an ephod and teraphim and dedicated one of his sons, who became his priest.
6 In those days there was no king in Israel; every man did what was right in his own eyes.
7 And there was a young man in Bethlehem of Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite; and he sojourned there.
8 And the man departed from the town of Bethlehem in Judah to sojourn where he could find a place, and as he journeyed he came to the hill country of Ephraim to the house of Micah.
9 And Micah said to him, From where do you come? And he said to him, I am a Levite of Bethlehem in Judah, and I go to sojourn where I may find a place.
10 And Micah said to him, Dwell with me and be to me a father and a priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver each year, a suit of clothes, and your living. So the Levite went in.
11 And the Levite was content to dwell with the man, and the young man was to Micah as one of his sons.
12 And Micah consecrated the Levite, and the young man became his priest and was in the house of Micah.
13 Then said Micah, Now I know that the Lord will favor me, since I have a Levite to be my priest.
21 And when we had torn ourselves away from them and withdrawn, we set sail and made a straight run to Cos, and on the following [day came] to Rhodes and from there to Patara.
2 There we found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia; so we went aboard and sailed away.
3 After we had sighted Cyprus, leaving it on our left we sailed on to Syria and put in at Tyre, for there the ship was to unload her cargo.
4 And having looked up the disciples there, we remained with them for seven days. Prompted by the [Holy] Spirit, they kept telling Paul not to set foot in Jerusalem.
5 But when our time there was ended, we left and proceeded on our journey; and all of them with their wives and children accompanied us on our way till we were outside the city. There we knelt down on the beach and prayed.
6 Then when we had told one another farewell, we went on board the ship, and they returned to their own homes.
7 When we had completed the voyage from Tyre, we landed at Ptolemais, where we paid our respects to the brethren and remained with them for one day.
8 On the morrow we left there and came to Caesarea; and we went into the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the Seven [first deacons], and stayed with him.(A)
9 And he had four maiden daughters who had the gift of prophecy.
10 While we were remaining there for some time, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.
11 And coming to [see] us, he took Paul’s belt and with it bound his own feet and hands and said, Thus says the Holy Spirit: The Jews at Jerusalem shall bind like this the man who owns this belt, and they shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles (heathen).
12 When we heard this, both we and the residents of that place pleaded with him not to go up to Jerusalem.
13 Then Paul replied, What do you mean by weeping and breaking my heart like this? For I hold myself in readiness not only to be arrested and bound and imprisoned at Jerusalem, but also [even] to die for the name of the Lord Jesus.
14 And when he would not yield to [our] persuading, we stopped [urging and imploring him], saying, The Lord’s will be done!
15 After these days we packed our baggage and went up to Jerusalem.
16 And some of the disciples from Caesarea came with us, conducting us to the house of Mnason, a man from Cyprus, one of the disciples of long standing, with whom we were to lodge.
17 When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brethren received and welcomed us gladly.
18 On the next day Paul went in with us to [see] James, and all the elders of the church were present [also].
19 After saluting them, Paul gave a detailed account of the things God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
20 And upon hearing it, they adored and exalted and praised and thanked God. And they said to [Paul], You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and all of them are enthusiastic upholders of the [Mosaic] Law.
21 Now they have been informed about you that you continually teach all the Jews who live among the Gentiles to turn back from and forsake Moses, advising them not to circumcise their children or pay any attention to the observance of the [Mosaic] customs.
22 What then [is best that] should be done? A multitude will come together, for they will surely hear that you have arrived.
23 Therefore do just what we tell you. With us are four men who have taken a vow upon themselves.
24 Take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses [for the temple offering], so that they may have their heads shaved. Thus everybody will know that there is no truth in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself walk in observance of the Law.
25 But with regard to the Gentiles who have believed (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on Christ), we have sent them a letter with our decision that they should keep themselves free from anything that has been sacrificed to idols and from [tasting] blood and [eating the meat of animals] which have been strangled and from all impurity and sexual immorality.
26 Then Paul took the [four] men with him and the following day [he went through the rites of] purifying himself along with them. And they entered the temple to give notice when the days of purification (the ending of each vow) would be fulfilled and the usual offering could be presented on behalf of each of them.
27 When the seven days were drawing to a close, some of the Jews from [the province of] Asia, who had caught sight of Paul in the temple, incited all the rabble and laid hands on him,
28 Shouting, Men of Israel, help! [Help!] This is the man who is teaching everybody everywhere against the people and the Law and this place! Moreover, he has also [actually] brought Greeks into the temple; he has desecrated and polluted this holy place!
29 For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with Paul and they supposed that he had brought the man into the temple [into the inner court forbidden to Gentiles].
30 Then the whole city was aroused and thrown into confusion, and the people rushed together; they laid hands on Paul and dragged him outside the temple, and immediately the gates were closed.
31 Now while they were trying to kill him, word came to the commandant of the regular Roman garrison that the whole of Jerusalem was in a state of ferment.
32 So immediately he took soldiers and centurions and hurried down among them; and when the people saw the commandant and the troops, they stopped beating Paul.
33 Then the commandant approached and arrested Paul and ordered that he be secured with two chains. He then inquired who he was and what he had done.
34 Some in the crowd kept shouting back one thing and others something else, and since he could not ascertain the facts because of the furor, he ordered that Paul be removed to the barracks.
35 And when [Paul] came to mount the steps, he was actually being carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob;
36 For the mass of the people kept following them, shouting, Away with him! [Kill him!]
37 Just as Paul was about to be taken into the barracks, he asked the commandant, May I say something to you? And the man replied, Can you speak Greek?
38 Are you not then [as I supposed] the Egyptian who not long ago stirred up a rebellion and led those 4,000 men who were cutthroats out into the wilderness (desert)?
39 Paul answered, I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant or undistinguished city. I beg you, allow me to address the people.
40 And when the man had granted him permission, Paul, standing on the steps, gestured with his hand to the people; and there was a great hush. Then he spoke to them in the Hebrew dialect, saying:
30 The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord:
2 Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Write all the words that I have spoken to you in a book.
3 For, note well, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will release from captivity My people Israel and Judah, says the Lord, and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they will possess it.
4 And these are the words the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah:
5 Thus says the Lord: We have heard a voice of trembling and panic—of terror, and not peace.
6 Ask now and see whether a man can give birth to a child? Why then do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor? Why are all faces turned pale?
7 Alas! for that day will be great, so that none will be like it; it will be the time of Jacob’s [unequaled] trouble, but he will be saved out of it.(A)
8 For it will come to pass in that day, says the Lord of hosts, that I will break [the oppressor’s] yoke from your neck, and I will burst your bonds; and strangers will no more make slaves of [the people of Israel].
9 But they will serve the Lord their God and David’s [descendant] their King, Whom I will raise up for them.(B)
10 Therefore fear not, O My servant Jacob, says the Lord, nor be dismayed or cast down, O Israel; for behold, I will save you out of a distant land [of exile] and your posterity from the land of their captivity. Jacob will return and will be quiet and at ease, and none will make him afraid or cause him to be terrorized and to tremble.
11 For I am with you, says the Lord, to save you; for I will make a full and complete end of all the nations to which I have scattered you, but I will not make a full and complete end of you. But I will correct you in measure and with judgment and will in no sense hold you guiltless or leave you unpunished.
12 For thus says the Lord: Your hurt is incurable and your wound is grievous.
13 There is none to plead your cause; for [the pressing together of] your wound you have no healing [device], no binding plaster.
14 All your lovers (allies) have forgotten you; they neither seek, inquire of, or require you. For I have hurt you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel and merciless foe, because of the greatness of your perversity and guilt, because your sins are glaring and innumerable.
15 Why do you cry out because of your hurt [the natural result of your sins]? Your pain is deadly (incurable). Because of the greatness of your perversity and guilt, because your sins are glaring and innumerable, I have done these things to you.
16 Therefore all who devour you will be devoured; and all your adversaries, every one of them, will go into captivity. And they who despoil you will become a spoil, and all who prey upon you will I give for a prey.
17 For I will restore health to you, and I will heal your wounds, says the Lord, because they have called you an outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no one seeks after and for whom no one cares!
18 Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will release from captivity the tents of Jacob and have mercy on his dwelling places; the city will be rebuilt on its own [old] moundlike site, and the palace will be dwelt in after its former fashion.
19 Out of them [city and palace] will come songs of thanksgiving and the voices of those who make merry. And I will multiply them, and they will not be few; I will also glorify them, and they will not be small.
20 Their children too shall be as in former times, and their congregation shall be established before Me, and I will punish all who oppress them.
21 And their prince will be one of them, and their ruler will come from the midst of them. I will cause him to draw near and he will approach Me, for who is he who would have the boldness and would dare [on his own initiative] to approach Me? says the Lord.
22 Then you will be My people, and I will be your God.(C)
23 Behold, the tempest of the Lord has gone forth with wrath, a sweeping and gathering tempest; it shall whirl and burst upon the heads of the wicked.
24 The fierce anger and indignation of the Lord shall not turn back until He has executed and accomplished the thoughts and intents of His mind and heart. In the latter days you shall understand this.
31 At that time, says the Lord, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they will be My people.
2 Thus says the Lord: The people who survived the sword found favor in the wilderness [place of exile]—when Israel sought to find rest.
3 The Lord appeared from of old to me [Israel], saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn you and continued My faithfulness to you.(D)
4 Again I will build you and you will be built, O Virgin Israel! You will again be adorned with your timbrels [small one-headed drums] and go forth in the dancing [chorus] of those who make merry.(E)
5 Again you shall plant vineyards upon the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and make the fruit common and enjoy it [undisturbed].
6 For there shall be a day when the watchmen on the hills of Ephraim shall cry out, Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.
7 For thus says the Lord: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and shout for the head of the nations [on account of the chosen people, Israel]. Proclaim, praise, and say, The Lord has saved His people, the remnant of Israel!
8 Behold, I will bring them from the north country and gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth, and among them will be the blind and the lame, the woman with child and she who labors in childbirth together; a great company, they will return here to Jerusalem.
9 They will come with weeping [in penitence and for joy], pouring out prayers [for the future]. I will lead them back; I will cause them to walk by streams of water and bring them in a straight way in which they will not stumble, for I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim [Israel] is My firstborn.
10 Hear the word of the Lord, O you nations, and declare it in the isles and coastlands far away, and say, He Who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock.
11 For the Lord has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from the hand of him who was too strong for him.
12 They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion and shall flow together and be radiant with joy over the goodness of the Lord—for the corn, for the juice [of the grape], for the oil, and for the young of the flock and the herd. And their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow or languish any more at all.
13 Then will the maidens rejoice in the dance, and the young men and old together. For I will turn their mourning into joy and will comfort them and make them rejoice after their sorrow.
14 I will satisfy fully the life of the priests with abundance [of offerings shared with them], and My people will be satisfied with My goodness, says the Lord.
15 Thus says the Lord: A [a]voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.(F)
16 Thus says the Lord: Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord; and [your children] shall return from the enemy’s land.
17 And there is hope for your future, says the Lord; your children shall come back to their own country.
18 I have surely heard Ephraim [Israel] moaning thus: You have chastised me, and I was chastised, like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; bring me back, that I may be restored, for You are the Lord my God.
19 Surely after I [Ephraim] was turned [from You], I repented; and after I was instructed, I penitently smote my thigh. I was ashamed, yes, even confounded, because I bore the disgrace of my youth [as a nation].
20 Is Ephraim My dear son? Is he a darling child and beloved? For as often as I speak against him, I do [earnestly] remember him still. Therefore My affection is stirred and My heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy, pity, and loving-kindness for him, says the Lord.
21 Set up for yourselves highway markers [back to Canaan], make for yourselves guideposts; turn your thoughts and attention to the way by which you went [into exile]. Retrace your steps, O Virgin Israel, return to these your cities.
22 How long will you waver and hesitate [to return], O you backsliding daughter? For the Lord has created a [b]new thing in the land [of Israel]: a female shall compass (woo, win, and protect) a man.
23 Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Once more they shall use these words in the land of Judah and in her cities when I release them from exile: The Lord bless you, O habitation of justice and righteousness, O holy mountain!
24 And [the people of] Judah and all its cities shall dwell there together—[nomad] farmers and those who wander about with their flocks.
25 For I will [fully] satisfy the weary soul, and I will replenish every languishing and sorrowful person.
26 Thereupon I [Jeremiah] awoke and looked, and my [trancelike] sleep was sweet [in the assurance it gave] to me.
27 Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed (offspring) of man and of beast.
28 And it will be that as I have watched over them to pluck up and to break down, and to overthrow, destroy, and afflict [with evil], so will I watch over them to build and to plant [with good], says the Lord.
29 In those days they shall say no more, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.(G)
30 But everyone shall die for his own iniquity [only]; every man who eats sour grapes—his [own] teeth shall be set on edge.
31 Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah,(H)
32 Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was their Husband, says the Lord.
33 But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, says the Lord, I will put My law within them, and on their hearts will I write it; and I will be their God, and they will be My people.
34 And they will no more teach each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they will all know Me [recognize, understand, and be acquainted with Me], from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will [seriously] remember their sin no more.(I)
35 Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for a light by day and the fixed order of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, Who stirs up the sea’s roaring billows or stills the waves when they roar—the Lord of hosts is His name:
36 If these ordinances [of fixed order] depart from before Me, says the Lord, then the posterity of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me throughout the ages.
37 Thus says the Lord: If the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, then I will cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord.
38 Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when the city [of Jerusalem] shall be built [again] for the Lord from the [c]Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate.
39 And the measuring line shall go out farther straight onward to the hill Gareb and shall then turn to Goah [exact location unknown].
40 And the whole valley [Hinnom] of the dead bodies and [the hill] of the ashes [long dumped there from the temple sacrifices], and all the fields as far as the brook Kidron, to the corner of the Horse Gate toward the east, shall be holy to the Lord. It [the city] shall not be plucked up or overthrown any more to the end of the age.(J)
16 And when the Sabbath was past [that is, after the sun had set], Mary Magdalene, and Mary [the mother] of James, and Salome purchased sweet-smelling spices, so that they might go and anoint [Jesus’ body].
2 And very early on the first day of the week they came to the tomb; [by then] the sun had risen.
3 And they said to one another, Who will roll back the stone for us out of [the groove across the floor at] the door of the tomb?
4 And when they looked up, they [distinctly] saw that the stone was already rolled back, for it was very large.
5 And going into the tomb, they saw a young man sitting [there] on the right [side], clothed in a [[a]long, stately, sweeping] robe of white, and they were utterly amazed and struck with terror.
6 And he said to them, Do not be amazed and terrified; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, Who was crucified. He has risen; He is not here. See the place where they laid Him.(A)
7 But be going; tell the disciples and Peter, He goes before you into Galilee; you will see Him there, [just] as He told you.(B)
8 Then they went out [and] fled from the tomb, for trembling and bewilderment and consternation had seized them. And they said nothing about it to anyone, for they were held by alarm and fear.
9 [b]Now Jesus, having risen [[c]from death] early on the first day of the week, appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom He had driven out seven demons.
10 She went and reported it to those who had been with Him, as they grieved and wept.
11 And when they heard that He was alive and that she had seen Him, they did not believe it.
12 After this, He appeared in a different form to two of them as they were walking [along the way] into the country.
13 And they returned [to Jerusalem] and told the others, but they did not believe them either.
14 Afterward He appeared to the Eleven [apostles themselves] as they reclined at table; and He reproved and reproached them for their unbelief (their lack of faith) and their hardness of heart, because they had refused to believe those who had seen Him and looked at Him attentively after He had risen [[d]from death].
15 And He said to them, Go into all the world and preach and publish openly the good news (the Gospel) to every creature [of the whole [e]human race].
16 He who believes [who adheres to and trusts in and relies on the Gospel and Him Whom it sets forth] and is baptized will be saved [[f]from the penalty of eternal death]; but he who does not believe [who does not adhere to and trust in and rely on the Gospel and Him Whom it sets forth] will be condemned.
17 And these attesting signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages;
18 They will pick up serpents; and [even] if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will get well.
19 So then the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and He sat down at the right hand of God.(C)
20 And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord kept working with them and confirming the message by the attesting signs and miracles that closely accompanied [it]. Amen (so be it).
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation