M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

The Capture of the Covenant Box

4 At that time the Philistines gathered to go to war against Israel, so^[a] the Israelites set out to fight them. The Israelites set up their camp at Ebenezer and the Philistines at Aphek. ² The Philistines attacked, and after fierce fighting they defeated the Israelites and killed about four thousand men on the battlefield. ³ When the survivors came back to camp, the leaders of Israel said, “Why did the Lord let the Philistines defeat us today? Let's go and bring the Lord's Covenant Box from Shiloh, so that he^[b] will go with us and save us from our enemies.” ^4 (A)So they sent messengers to Shiloh and got the Covenant Box of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned above the winged creatures.^[c] And Eli's two sons, Hophni and Phinehas, came along with the Covenant Box.

⁵ When the Covenant Box arrived, the Israelites gave such a loud shout of joy that the earth shook. ⁶ The Philistines heard the shouting and said, “Listen to all that shouting in the Hebrew camp! What does it mean?” When they found out that the Lord's Covenant Box had arrived in the Hebrew camp, ⁷ they were afraid, and said, “A god has come into their camp! We're lost! Nothing like this has ever happened to us before! ⁸ Who can save us from those powerful gods? They are the gods who slaughtered the Egyptians in the desert! ⁹ Be brave, Philistines! Fight like men, or we will become slaves to the Hebrews, just as they were our slaves. So fight like men!”

¹⁰ The Philistines fought hard and defeated the Israelites, who went running to their homes. There was a great slaughter: thirty thousand Israelite soldiers were killed. ¹¹ God's Covenant Box was captured, and Eli's sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were both killed.

The Death of Eli

¹² A man from the tribe of Benjamin ran all the way from the battlefield to Shiloh and arrived there the same day. To show his grief, he had torn his clothes and put dirt on his head. ¹³ Eli, who was very worried about the Covenant Box, was sitting in his seat beside the road, staring. The man spread the news throughout the town, and everyone cried out in fear. ¹⁴ Eli heard the noise and asked, “What is all this noise about?” The man hurried to Eli to tell him the news. (¹⁵ Eli was now ninety-eight years old and almost completely blind.) ¹⁶ The man said, “I have escaped from the battle and have run all the way here today.”

Eli asked him, “What happened, my son?”

¹⁷ The messenger answered, “Israel ran away from the Philistines; it was a terrible defeat for us! Besides that, your sons Hophni and Phinehas were killed, and God's Covenant Box was captured!”

¹⁸ When the man mentioned the Covenant Box, Eli fell backward from his seat beside the gate. He was so old and fat that the fall broke his neck, and he died. He had been a leader in Israel for forty years.

The Death of the Widow of Phinehas

¹⁹ Eli's daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, was pregnant, and it was almost time for her baby to be born. When she heard that God's Covenant Box had been captured and that her father-in-law and her husband were dead, she suddenly went into labor and gave birth. ²⁰ As she was dying, the women helping her said to her, “Be brave! You have a son!” But she paid no attention and did not answer. ²¹ She named the boy Ichabod,^[d] explaining, “God's glory has left Israel”—referring to the capture of the Covenant Box and the death of her father-in-law and her husband. ²² “God's glory has left Israel,” she said, “because God's Covenant Box has been captured.”

The Example of Abraham

4 What shall we say, then, of Abraham, the father of our race? What was his experience? ² If he was put right with God by the things he did, he would have something to boast about—but not in God's sight. ^3 (A)The scripture says, “Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous.” ⁴ A person who works is paid wages, but they are not regarded as a gift; they are something that has been earned. ⁵ But those who depend on faith, not on deeds, and who believe in the God who declares the guilty to be innocent, it is this faith that God takes into account in order to put them right with himself. ⁶ This is what David meant when he spoke of the happiness of the person whom God accepts as righteous, apart from anything that person does:

⁹ Does this happiness that David spoke of belong only to those who are circumcised? No indeed! It belongs also to those who are not circumcised. For we have quoted the scripture, “Abraham believed God, and because of his faith God accepted him as righteous.” ¹⁰ When did this take place? Was it before or after Abraham was circumcised? It was before, not after. ^11 (C)He was circumcised later, and his circumcision was a sign to show that because of his faith God had accepted him as righteous before he had been circumcised. And so Abraham is the spiritual father of all who believe in God and are accepted as righteous by him, even though they are not circumcised. ¹² He is also the father of those who are circumcised, that is, of those who, in addition to being circumcised, also live the same life of faith that our father Abraham lived before he was circumcised.

God's Promise Is Received through Faith

^13 (D)When God promised Abraham and his descendants that the world would belong to him, he did so, not because Abraham obeyed the Law, but because he believed and was accepted as righteous by God. ^14 (E)For if what God promises is to be given to those who obey the Law, then faith means nothing and God's promise is worthless. ¹⁵ The Law brings down God's anger; but where there is no law, there is no disobeying of the law.

^16 (F)And so the promise was based on faith, in order that the promise should be guaranteed as God's free gift to all of Abraham's descendants—not just to those who obey the Law, but also to those who believe as Abraham did. For Abraham is the spiritual father of us all; ^17 (G)as the scripture says, “I have made you father of many nations.” So the promise is good in the sight of God, in whom Abraham believed—the God who brings the dead to life and whose command brings into being what did not exist. ^18 (H)Abraham believed and hoped, even when there was no reason for hoping, and so became “the father of many nations.” Just as the scripture says, “Your descendants will be as many as the stars.” ^19 (I)He was then almost one hundred years old; but his faith did not weaken when he thought of his body, which was already practically dead, or of the fact that Sarah could not have children. ²⁰ His faith did not leave him, and he did not doubt God's promise; his faith filled him with power, and he gave praise to God. ²¹ He was absolutely sure that God would be able to do what he had promised. ²² That is why Abraham, through faith, “was accepted as righteous by God.” ²³ The words “he was accepted as righteous” were not written for him alone. ²⁴ They were written also for us who are to be accepted as righteous, who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from death. ^25 (J)Because of our sins he was given over to die, and he was raised to life in order to put us right with God.

The People Ask Jeremiah to Pray for Them

42 Then all the army leaders, including Johanan son of Kareah and Azariah^[a] son of Hoshaiah, came with people of every class ² and said to me, “Please do what we ask you! Pray to the Lord our God for us. Pray for all of us who have survived. Once there were many of us; but now only a few of us are left, as you can see. ³ Pray that the Lord our God will show us the way we should go and what we should do.”

⁴ I answered, “Very well, then. I will pray to the Lord our God, just as you have asked, and whatever he says, I will tell you. I will not keep back anything from you.”

⁵ Then they said to me, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not obey all the commands that the Lord our God gives you for us. ⁶ Whether it pleases us or not, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are asking you to pray. All will go well with us if we obey him.”

The Lord's Answer to Jeremiah's Prayer

⁷ Ten days later the Lord spoke to me; ⁸ so I called together Johanan, all the army leaders who were with him, and all the other people. ⁹ I said to them, “The Lord, the God of Israel, to whom you sent me with your request has said, ¹⁰ ‘If you are willing to go on living in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down; I will plant you and not pull you up. The destruction I brought on you has caused me great sorrow. ¹¹ Stop being afraid of the king of Babylonia. I am with you, and I will rescue you from his power. ¹² Because I am merciful, I will make him have mercy on you and let you go back home. I, the Lord, have spoken.’

^13-15 “But you people who are left in Judah must not disobey the Lord your God and refuse to live in this land. You must not say, ‘No, we will go and live in Egypt, where we won't face war any more or hear the call to battle or go hungry.’ If you say this, then the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says, ‘If you are determined to go and live in Egypt, ¹⁶ then the war that you fear will overtake you, and the hunger you dread will follow you, and you will die there in Egypt. ¹⁷ All the people who are determined to go and live in Egypt will die either in war or of starvation or disease. Not one of them will survive, not one will escape the disaster that I am going to bring on them.’

¹⁸ “The Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Just as my anger and fury were poured out on the people of Jerusalem, so my fury will be poured out on you if you go to Egypt. You will be a horrifying sight; people will make fun of you and use your name as a curse. You will never see this place again.’”

¹⁹ Then I continued, “The Lord has told you people who are left in Judah not to go to Egypt. And so I warn you now ²⁰ that you are making a fatal mistake. You asked me to pray to the Lord our God for you, and you promised that you would do everything that he commands. ²¹ And now I have told you, but you are disobeying everything that the Lord our God sent me to tell you. ²² So then, remember this: you will die in war or of starvation or disease in the land where you want to go and live.”

David's Song of Victory^{[a] (A)}