M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

7 ^(A)So the people of Kiriath Jearim got the Lord's Covenant Box and took it to the house of a man named Abinadab, who lived on a hill. They consecrated his son Eleazar to be in charge of it.

Samuel Rules Israel

² The Covenant Box of the Lord stayed in Kiriath Jearim a long time, some twenty years. During this time all the Israelites cried to the Lord for help.

³ Samuel said to the people of Israel, “If you are going to turn to the Lord with all your hearts, you must get rid of all the foreign gods and the images of the goddess Astarte. Dedicate yourselves completely to the Lord and worship only him, and he will rescue you from the power of the Philistines.” ⁴ So the Israelites got rid of their idols of Baal and Astarte, and worshiped only the Lord.

⁵ Then Samuel called for all the Israelites to meet at Mizpah, telling them, “I will pray to the Lord for you there.” ⁶ So they all gathered at Mizpah. They drew some water and poured it out as an offering to the Lord and fasted that whole day. They said, “We have sinned against the Lord.” (It was at Mizpah where Samuel settled disputes among the Israelites.)

⁷ When the Philistines heard that the Israelites had gathered at Mizpah, the five Philistine kings started out with their men to attack them. The Israelites heard about it and were afraid, ⁸ and said to Samuel, “Keep praying to the Lord our God to save us from the Philistines.” ^9 (B)Samuel killed a young lamb and burned it whole as a sacrifice to the Lord. Then he prayed to the Lord to help Israel, and the Lord answered his prayer. ¹⁰ While Samuel was offering the sacrifice, the Philistines moved forward to attack; but just then the Lord thundered from heaven against them. They became completely confused and fled in panic. ¹¹ The Israelites marched out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines almost as far as Bethcar, killing them along the way.

¹² Then Samuel took a stone, set it up between Mizpah and Shen, and said, “The Lord has helped us all the way”—and he named it “Stone of Help.” ¹³ So the Philistines were defeated, and the Lord prevented them from invading Israel's territory as long as Samuel lived. ¹⁴ All the cities which the Philistines had captured between Ekron and Gath were returned to Israel, and so Israel got back all its territory. And there was peace also between the Israelites and the Canaanites.

¹⁵ Samuel ruled Israel as long as he lived. ¹⁶ Every year he would go around to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, and in these places he would settle disputes. ¹⁷ Then he would go back to his home in Ramah, where also he would serve as judge. In Ramah he built an altar to the Lord.

The People Ask for a King

8 When Samuel grew old, he made his sons judges in Israel. ² The older son was named Joel and the younger one Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba. ³ But they did not follow their father's example; they were interested only in making money, so they accepted bribes and did not decide cases honestly.

⁴ Then all the leaders of Israel met together, went to Samuel in Ramah, ^5 (C)and said to him, “Look, you are getting old and your sons don't follow your example. So then, appoint a king to rule over us, so that we will have a king, as other countries have.” ⁶ Samuel was displeased with their request for a king; so he prayed to the Lord, ⁷ and the Lord said, “Listen to everything the people say to you. You are not the one they have rejected; I am the one they have rejected as their king. ⁸ Ever since I brought them out of Egypt, they have turned away from me and worshiped other gods; and now they are doing to you what they have always done to me. ⁹ So then, listen to them, but give them strict warnings and explain how their kings will treat them.”

¹⁰ Samuel told the people who were asking him for a king everything that the Lord had said to him. ¹¹ “This is how your king will treat you,” Samuel explained. “He will make soldiers of your sons; some of them will serve in his war chariots, others in his cavalry, and others will run before his chariots. ¹² He will make some of them officers in charge of a thousand men, and others in charge of fifty men. Your sons will have to plow his fields, harvest his crops, and make his weapons and the equipment for his chariots. ¹³ Your daughters will have to make perfumes for him and work as his cooks and his bakers. ¹⁴ He will take your best fields, vineyards, and olive groves, and give them to his officials. ¹⁵ He will take a tenth of your grain and of your grapes for his court officers and other officials. ¹⁶ He will take your servants and your best cattle^[a] and donkeys, and make them work for him. ¹⁷ He will take a tenth of your flocks. And you yourselves will become his slaves. ¹⁸ When that time comes, you will complain bitterly because of your king, whom you yourselves chose, but the Lord will not listen to your complaints.”

¹⁹ The people paid no attention to Samuel, but said, “No! We want a king, ²⁰ so that we will be like other nations, with our own king to rule us and to lead us out to war and to fight our battles.” ²¹ Samuel listened to everything they said and then went and told it to the Lord. ²² The Lord answered, “Do what they want and give them a king.” Then Samuel told all the men of Israel to go back home.

Dead to Sin but Alive in Union with Christ

6 What shall we say, then? Should we continue to live in sin so that God's grace will increase? ² Certainly not! We have died to sin—how then can we go on living in it? ³ For surely you know that when we were baptized into union with Christ Jesus, we were baptized into union with his death. ^4 (A)By our baptism, then, we were buried with him and shared his death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from death by the glorious power of the Father, so also we might live a new life.

⁵ For since we have become one with him in dying as he did, in the same way we shall be one with him by being raised to life as he was. ⁶ And we know that our old being has been put to death with Christ on his cross, in order that the power of the sinful self might be destroyed, so that we should no longer be the slaves of sin. ⁷ For when we die, we are set free from the power of sin. ⁸ Since we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ For we know that Christ has been raised from death and will never die again—death will no longer rule over him. ¹⁰ And so, because he died, sin has no power over him; and now he lives his life in fellowship with God. ¹¹ In the same way you are to think of yourselves as dead, so far as sin is concerned, but living in fellowship with God through Christ Jesus.

¹² Sin must no longer rule in your mortal bodies, so that you obey the desires of your natural self. ¹³ Nor must you surrender any part of yourselves to sin to be used for wicked purposes. Instead, give yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life, and surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes. ¹⁴ Sin must not be your master; for you do not live under law but under God's grace.

Slaves of Righteousness

¹⁵ What, then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law but under God's grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Surely you know that when you surrender yourselves as slaves to obey someone, you are in fact the slaves of the master you obey—either of sin, which results in death, or of obedience, which results in being put right with God. ¹⁷ But thanks be to God! For though at one time you were slaves to sin, you have obeyed with all your heart the truths found in the teaching you received. ¹⁸ You were set free from sin and became the slaves of righteousness. ¹⁹ (I use everyday language because of the weakness of your natural selves.) At one time you surrendered yourselves entirely as slaves to impurity and wickedness for wicked purposes. In the same way you must now surrender yourselves entirely as slaves of righteousness for holy purposes.

²⁰ When you were the slaves of sin, you were free from righteousness. ²¹ What did you gain from doing the things that you are now ashamed of? The result of those things is death! ²² But now you have been set free from sin and are the slaves of God. Your gain is a life fully dedicated to him, and the result is eternal life. ²³ For sin pays its wage—death; but God's free gift is eternal life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Lord's Message to the Israelites in Egypt

44 The Lord spoke to me concerning all the Israelites living in Egypt, in the cities of Migdol, Tahpanhes, and Memphis, and in the southern part of the country. ² The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, said, “You yourselves have seen the destruction I brought on Jerusalem and all the other cities of Judah. Even now they are still in ruins, and no one lives in them ³ because their people had done evil and had made me angry. They offered sacrifices to other gods and served gods that neither they nor you nor your ancestors ever worshiped. ⁴ I kept sending you my servants the prophets, who told you not to do this terrible thing that I hate. ⁵ But you would not listen or pay any attention. You would not give up your evil practice of sacrificing to other gods. ⁶ So I poured out my anger and fury on the towns of Judah and on the streets of Jerusalem, and I set them on fire. They were left in ruins and became a horrifying sight, as they are today.

⁷ “And so I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, now ask why you are doing such an evil thing to yourselves. Do you want to bring destruction on men and women, children and babies, so that none of your people will be left? ⁸ Why do you make me angry by worshiping idols and by sacrificing to other gods here in Egypt, where you have come to live? Are you doing this just to destroy yourselves, so that every nation on earth will make fun of you and use your name as a curse? ⁹ Have you forgotten all the wicked things that have been done in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem by your ancestors, by the kings of Judah and their wives, and by you and your wives? ¹⁰ But to this day you have not humbled yourselves. You have not honored me or lived according to all the laws that I gave you and your ancestors.

¹¹ “So then, I, the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, will turn against you and destroy all Judah. ¹² As for the people of Judah who are left and are determined to go and live in Egypt, I will see to it that all of them are destroyed. All of them, great and small, will die in Egypt, either in war or of starvation. They will be a horrifying sight; people will make fun of them and use their name as a curse. ¹³ I will punish those who live in Egypt, just as I punished Jerusalem—with war, starvation, and disease. ¹⁴ None of the people of Judah who are left and have come to Egypt to live will escape or survive. Not one of them will return to Judah, where they long to live once again. No one will return except a few refugees.”

¹⁵ Then all the men who knew that their wives offered sacrifices to other gods, and all the women who were standing there, including the Israelites who lived in southern Egypt—a large crowd in all—said to me, ¹⁶ “We refuse to listen to what you have told us in the name of the Lord. ¹⁷ We will do everything that we said we would. We will offer sacrifices to our goddess, the Queen of Heaven, and we will pour out wine offerings to her, just as we and our ancestors, our king and our leaders, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. Then we had plenty of food, we were prosperous, and had no troubles. ¹⁸ But ever since we stopped sacrificing to the Queen of Heaven and stopped pouring out wine offerings to her, we have had nothing, and our people have died in war and of starvation.”

¹⁹ And the women added, “When we baked cakes shaped like the Queen of Heaven, offered sacrifices to her, and poured out wine offerings to her, our husbands approved of what we were doing.”

²⁰ Then I said to all the men and the women who had answered me in this way, ²¹ “As for the sacrifices which you and your ancestors, your kings and your leaders, and the people of the land offered in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem—do you think that the Lord did not know about them or that he forgot them? ²² This very day your land lies in ruins and no one lives in it. It has become a horrifying sight, and people use its name as a curse because the Lord could no longer endure your wicked and evil practices. ²³ This present disaster has come on you because you offered sacrifices to other gods and sinned against the Lord by not obeying all his commands.”

^24-25 I told all the people, especially the women, what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, was saying to the people of Judah living in Egypt: “Both you and your wives have made solemn promises to the Queen of Heaven. You promised that you would offer sacrifices to her and pour out wine offerings to her, and you have kept your promises. Very well, then! Keep your promises! Carry out your vows! ²⁶ But now listen to the vow that I, the Lord, have made in my mighty name to all you Israelites in Egypt: Never again will I let any of you use my name to make a vow by saying, ‘I swear by the living Sovereign Lord!’ ²⁷ I will see to it that you will not prosper, but will be destroyed. All of you will die, either in war or of disease, until not one of you is left. ²⁸ But a few of you will escape death and return from Egypt to Judah. Then the survivors will know whose words have come true, mine or theirs. ²⁹ I, the Lord, will give you proof that I will punish you in this place and that my promise to bring destruction on you will come true. ^30 (A)I will hand over King Hophra of Egypt to his enemies who want to kill him, just as I handed over King Zedekiah of Judah to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, who was his enemy and wanted to kill him.”

A Prayer for Victory^[a]

Praise for Victory^[c]