M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Chapter 17^[a]

Nathan’s Oracle. ¹ After David had moved into his palace, David said to Nathan the prophet, “Behold, I live in a house of cedar, but the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord lives under awnings.” ² Nathan said to David, “Do whatever you want to, for the Lord is with you.”

³ But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying, ⁴ “Go and tell David my servant: Thus says the Lord, ‘You are not to build a house in which I will live. ⁵ I have not dwelt in a house from the time that I brought Israel up from out of Egypt up to the present day. I have traveled around from one tent site to another. ⁶ In the whole time that I have traveled around with Israel, have I ever said to any of the judges of Israel whom I commanded to shepherd my people, Why have you not built me a house made from cedar wood?’

⁷ “Now, therefore, tell my servant David: Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘I took you from the sheepfold, from following after the sheep, to be the ruler over my people Israel. ⁸ I have been with you wherever you have gone, and I have cut down all of your enemies from before you. I have made your name famous, as famous as the great men of the earth. ⁹ I will establish a dwelling place for my people Israel. I will plant them so that they might dwell in their own place. They will not have to move about anymore, nor shall the children of wickedness oppress them as they have done in the past, ¹⁰ from the time that I commanded judges to be over my people Israel. I will humble all of your enemies.

“ ‘Furthermore, it is the Lord who will build you a house. ¹¹ When your days have been fulfilled and you go to be with your fathers, I will raise up your seed after you, one of your sons,^[b] and I will establish his kingdom. ¹² He will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever. ¹³ I will be his father, and he will be my son. I will not withdraw my mercy from him, as I took it away from the one who preceded you.^{[c] 14} I will have him stand firm in my house forever, and his throne will be established forever.’ ”

¹⁵ Nathan reported this entire vision and all of these words to David.

¹⁶ David’s Prayer of Thanksgiving. King David then went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my household that you have brought me to this point? ¹⁷ And as if there were a small thing in your sight, O God, you have spoken about the future of your servant’s house. You have looked upon me, treating me as one who is highly exalted, O Lord God. ¹⁸ What else could David say to you for honoring your servant, for you know your servant well? ¹⁹ O Lord, you have done this great thing and revealed all these great things for the sake of your servant and because you have willed it. ²⁰ There is no one like you, O Lord, and there is no other God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. ²¹ And who is like your people Israel, the one nation upon the earth whose God went forth to redeem his own people, thus making a great name for yourself, and who drove out nations with great wonders from before your people whom you redeemed out of Egypt. ²² You have granted that your people, Israel, will be your own people forever, and you, O Lord, will be their God.

²³ “O Lord, let the things that you have spoken concerning your servant and his household now be established forever, even as you have promised. ²⁴ As it is established, so will your name be forever great. It will be said, ‘The Lord of hosts is the God of Israel, the God of Israel.’ Let the household of David, your servant, be established before you forever. ²⁵ You, O God, have revealed to your servant that you will build him a house. This is why your servant has found it in his heart to say this prayer before you. ²⁶ O Lord, you are God, and you have promised this good thing to your servant. ²⁷ Therefore, may it please you to bless the house of your servant so that it might be before you forever, for you have blessed it, O Lord, and may it be blessed forever.”

Chapter 4

The Need To Control Passions.^{[a] 1} What is the source of these conflicts and quarrels among you? Are they not the result of your passions^[b] that are at war within you? ² You want something that you cannot have, so you commit murder. And you covet something but cannot obtain it, so you engage in quarrels and fights. You do not have because you do not ask. ³ When you ask, you do not get what you want because you do not ask for it with the proper motives, seeking rather to indulge your passions.

⁴ Adulterers! Do you not know that love of the world results in enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a lover of the world makes himself an enemy of God. ⁵ Or do you suppose that it is without reason that Scripture says, “He yearns jealously for the Spirit that he sent to live in us”?^{[c] 6} But he has bestowed an even stronger grace. Therefore, it says,

⁷ Hence, be subject to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸ Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you waverers. ⁹ Be sorrowful, lament, and weep. Let your laughter turn to mourning and your joy to gloom. ¹⁰ Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

¹¹ Do Not Judge Others.^[d] Do not slander one another, my brethren. Whoever speaks ill of a brother or passes judgment on a brother speaks ill of the Law and passes judgment on the Law. But if you judge the Law, you are not keeping it but passing judgment upon it. ¹² There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save or to destroy. Who then are you to pass judgment on a neighbor?

¹³ A Warning against Presumption.^[e] Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we shall head off to this or that town and spend a year doing business there and making money.” ¹⁴ Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.

What is your life, after all? For you are like a mist that appears for a brief time and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, what you ought to say is, “If it is the Lord’s will, we shall live to do this or that.” ¹⁶ But instead you boast in your arrogance, and all such boasting is evil. ¹⁷ Anyone who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it commits a sin.

Recalcitrant Prophet^[a]

Chapter 1

¹ The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai: ² “Go immediately to the great city of Nineveh and denounce it, for their wickedness has revealed itself to me.” ³ But Jonah decided to run away from the Lord and flee to Tarshish.^[b] He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship that was about to sail to Tarshish. He paid his fare and boarded the ship to journey with the sailors to Tarshish, and away from the presence of the Lord.

⁴ However, the Lord caused a violent wind to stir up the sea, and such a furious storm arose that the ship seemed to be on the verge of breaking up. ⁵ The sailors were terror-stricken, and each of them cried out to his god. They also lightened the weight of the ship by throwing the cargo overboard.

Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down into the hold of the ship and was lying there fast asleep. ⁶ The captain found him there and said, “What are you doing there, sound asleep? Get up and call upon your God. Perhaps he will take pity on us and not allow us to perish.”

⁷ The sailors then said to each other, “Let us cast lots so that we can discover who is to blame for bringing us this bad luck.” Therefore, they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸ Then they said to him, “Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? What is your nationality?” ⁹ Jonah replied, “I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

¹⁰ On hearing this, the sailors were even more terrified, and they said to him, “How could you have done this to us?” For they knew that he was fleeing from the Lord because he had told them so. ¹¹ Then they said, “What shall we do with you to make the sea calm down for us?” For the sea was becoming increasingly more turbulent. ¹² Jonah replied, “Pick me up and throw me overboard. Then the sea will calm down for you. I know it is my fault that this great storm has struck you.”

¹³ Even so, the sailors rowed with all their might to reach the shore, but they were unable to do so inasmuch as the sea was becoming increasingly turbulent. ¹⁴ Finally they cried out to the Lord, “Do not allow us to perish, Lord, for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us responsible for causing the death of an innocent man. For you yourself, O Lord, have brought this all about.” ¹⁵ Then they picked up Jonah and threw him into the sea, and the raging of the sea subsided. ¹⁶ On witnessing this, the men were seized by a great fear of the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.

Chapter 6

Picking Grain on the Sabbath.^{[a] 1} On one Sabbath, when Jesus was going through a field of grain, his disciples picked some heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. ² Some of the Pharisees said, “Why are you doing what is forbidden on the Sabbath?”

³ Jesus answered them, “Have you not read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? ⁴ He entered the house of God and took and ate the sacred bread that only the priests were permitted to eat, and he shared it with his companions.” ⁵ Then he said to them, “The Son of Man,^[b] is lord of the Sabbath.”

A Man with a Withered Hand. ⁶ On another Sabbath, Jesus entered the synagogue and began to teach. A man was there whose right hand was withered. ⁷ The scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely to see whether he would cure him on the Sabbath so that they would have a charge to bring against him.

⁸ But Jesus was fully aware of their thoughts, and he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here and stand before us.” The man got up and stood there. ⁹ Then Jesus said to them, “I put this question to you: Is it lawful to do good or to do evil on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” ¹⁰ After looking around at all of them, he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was restored. ¹¹ But they were filled with fury and discussed among themselves what they might do with Jesus.

¹² Jesus Chooses the Twelve Apostles.^[c] It was in those days that he went onto the mountain to pray, and he spent the entire night in prayer to God. ¹³ Then, when it was daylight, he summoned his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he designated as apostles: ¹⁴ Simon, to whom he gave the name Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, ¹⁵ Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon called the Zealot, ¹⁶ Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

¹⁷ The Crowds Seek Out Jesus.^[d] He then came down with them and stood on a spot of level ground, where there was a large crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all sections of Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon. ¹⁸ They had come there to listen to him and to be healed of their diseases. Those who were afflicted by unclean spirits were cured. ¹⁹ And everyone in the crowd was trying to touch him, because power came forth from him and healed them all.

The Sermon on the Plain^[e]

²⁰ The Beatitudes.^[f] Then, turning to his disciples, he began to speak:

²² “Blessed are you when people hate you and ostracize you, when they insult you and denounce your name as evil on account of the Son of Man. ²³ Rejoice on that day and dance for joy, for your reward will be great in heaven. This was the way their ancestors treated the Prophets.

²⁷ Love of Enemies.^[g]“But to those of you who are listening to me, I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If anyone strikes you on one cheek, offer him the other cheek as well, and should someone take your cloak, let him have your tunic as well. ³⁰ Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not demand the return of what is yours from the one who has taken it.

³¹ “Deal with others as you would like them to deal with you. ³² If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do as much. ³⁴ And if you lend only to those from whom you expect to be repaid, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full.

³⁵ “Rather, you must love your enemies and do good to them, and lend without expecting any repayment. In this way, you will receive a great reward. You will be sons of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

³⁷ Relations with Others.^[h]“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. ³⁸ Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap. The measure that you use for others will be used to measure you.”

³⁹ Parable of the Blind Leading the Blind. He also told them a parable: “Can one blind man guide another who is also blind? Will not both of them fall into a pit? ⁴⁰ No student is greater than his teacher, but a fully trained student will be like his teacher.

⁴¹ “Why do you take note of the splinter in your brother’s eye but do not notice the wooden plank in your own eye? ⁴² How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the splinter that is in your eye,’ while all the time you do not notice the wooden plank that is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the wooden plank from your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly enough to remove the splinter that is in your brother’s eye.

⁴³ A Tree Is Known by Its Fruit.^[i]“No healthy tree can bear rotten fruit, nor does a rotting tree bear healthy fruit. ⁴⁴ Every tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not pick figs from thornbushes or grapes from brambles. ⁴⁵ A good man produces good from the store of goodness in his heart, whereas an evil man produces evil from the store of evil within him. For the mouth speaks from the abundance of the heart.

⁴⁶ Parable of the Two Foundations.“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ but fail to do what I tell you? ⁴⁷ I will show you what everyone is like who comes to me and hears my words and acts in accordance with them. ⁴⁸ He is like a man who in building a house dug deeply and laid its foundations on rock. When the flood rose, it burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been solidly constructed. ⁴⁹ In contrast, the one who hears and does not act in accordance with my words is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. As soon as the river burst against it, the house collapsed and was completely destroyed.”