M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

David Defeats the Ammonites and the Syrians^(A)

10 Some time later King Nahash of Ammon died, and his son Hanun became king. ² King David said, “I must show loyal friendship to Hanun, as his father Nahash did to me.” So David sent messengers to express his sympathy.

When they arrived in Ammon, ³ the Ammonite leaders said to the king, “Do you think that it is in your father's honor that David has sent these men to express sympathy to you? Of course not! He has sent them here as spies to explore the city, so that he can conquer us!”

⁴ Hanun seized David's messengers, shaved off one side of their beards, cut off their clothes at the hips, and sent them away. ⁵ They were too ashamed to return home. When David heard about what had happened, he sent word for them to stay in Jericho and not return until their beards had grown again.

⁶ The Ammonites realized that they had made David their enemy, so they hired twenty thousand Syrian soldiers from Bethrehob and Zobah, twelve thousand men from Tob, and the king of Maacah with a thousand men. ⁷ David heard of it and sent Joab against them with the whole army. ⁸ The Ammonites marched out and took up their position at the entrance to Rabbah, their capital city, while the others, both the Syrians and the men from Tob and Maacah, took up their position in the open countryside.

⁹ Joab saw that the enemy troops would attack him in front and from the rear, so he chose the best of Israel's soldiers and put them in position facing the Syrians. ¹⁰ He placed the rest of his troops under the command of his brother Abishai, who put them in position facing the Ammonites. ¹¹ Joab said to him, “If you see that the Syrians are defeating me, come and help me, and if the Ammonites are defeating you, I will go and help you. ¹² Be strong and courageous! Let's fight hard for our people and for the cities of our God. And may the Lord's will be done!”

¹³ Joab and his men advanced to attack, and the Syrians fled. ¹⁴ When the Ammonites saw the Syrians running away, they fled from Abishai and retreated into the city. Then Joab turned back from fighting the Ammonites and went back to Jerusalem.

¹⁵ The Syrians realized that they had been defeated by the Israelites, and so they called all their troops together. ¹⁶ King Hadadezer sent for the Syrians who were on the east side of the Euphrates River, and they came to Helam under the command of Shobach, commander of the army of King Hadadezer of Zobah. ¹⁷ When David heard of it, he gathered the Israelite troops, crossed the Jordan River, and marched to Helam, where the Syrians took up their position facing him. The fighting began, ¹⁸ and the Israelites drove the Syrian army back. David and his men killed seven hundred Syrian chariot drivers and forty thousand cavalry, and they wounded Shobach, the enemy commander, who died on the battlefield. ¹⁹ When the kings who were subject to Hadadezer realized that they had been defeated by the Israelites, they made peace with them and became their subjects. And the Syrians were afraid to help the Ammonites any more.

Servants of the New Covenant

3 Does this sound as if we were again boasting about ourselves? Could it be that, like some other people, we need letters of recommendation to you or from you? ² You yourselves are the letter we have, written on our hearts for everyone to know and read. ^3 (A)It is clear that Christ himself wrote this letter and sent it by us. It is written, not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, and not on stone tablets but on human hearts.

⁴ We say this because we have confidence in God through Christ. ⁵ There is nothing in us that allows us to claim that we are capable of doing this work. The capacity we have comes from God; ^6 (B)it is he who made us capable of serving the new covenant, which consists not of a written law but of the Spirit. The written law brings death, but the Spirit gives life.

^7 (C)The Law was carved in letters on stone tablets, and God's glory appeared when it was given. Even though the brightness on Moses' face was fading, it was so strong that the people of Israel could not keep their eyes fixed on him. If the Law, which brings death when it is in force, came with such glory, ⁸ how much greater is the glory that belongs to the activity of the Spirit! ⁹ The system which brings condemnation was glorious; how much more glorious is the activity which brings salvation! ¹⁰ We may say that because of the far brighter glory now the glory that was so bright in the past is gone. ¹¹ For if there was glory in that which lasted for a while, how much more glory is there in that which lasts forever!

¹² Because we have this hope, we are very bold. ^13 (D)We are not like Moses, who had to put a veil over his face so that the people of Israel would not see the brightness fade and disappear. ¹⁴ Their minds, indeed, were closed; and to this very day their minds are covered with the same veil as they read the books of the old covenant. The veil is removed only when a person is joined to Christ. ¹⁵ Even today, whenever they read the Law of Moses, the veil still covers their minds. ^16 (E)But it can be removed, as the scripture says about Moses: “His veil was removed when he turned to the Lord.”^{[a] 17} Now, “the Lord” in this passage is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is present, there is freedom. ¹⁸ All of us, then, reflect the glory of the Lord with uncovered faces; and that same glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit, transforms us into his likeness in an ever greater degree of glory.

The Parable of the Eagles and the Vine

17 The Lord spoke to me. ² “Mortal man,” he said, “tell the Israelites a parable ³ to let them know what I, the Sovereign Lord, am saying to them: There was a giant eagle with beautiful feathers and huge wings, spread wide. He flew to the Lebanon Mountains and broke off the top of a cedar tree, ⁴ which he carried to a land of commerce and placed in a city of merchants. ⁵ Then he took a young plant from the land of Israel and planted it in a fertile field,^[a] where there was always water to make it grow. ⁶ The plant sprouted and became a low, wide-spreading grapevine. The branches grew upward toward the eagle, and the roots grew deep. The vine was covered with branches and leaves.

⁷ “There was another giant eagle with huge wings and thick plumage. And now the vine sent its roots toward him and turned its leaves toward him, in the hope that he would give it more water than there was in the garden where it was growing.^{[b] 8} But the vine had already been planted in a fertile, well-watered field so that it could grow leaves and bear grapes and be a magnificent vine.

⁹ “So I, the Sovereign Lord, ask: Will this vine live and grow? Won't the first eagle pull it up by its roots, pull off the grapes, and break off the branches and let them wither? It will not take much strength or a mighty nation to pull it up. ¹⁰ Yes, it is planted, but will it live and grow? Won't it wither when the east wind strikes it? Won't it wither there where it is growing?”

The Parable Is Explained

¹¹ The Lord said to me, ^12 (A)“Ask these rebels if they know what the parable means. Tell them that the king of Babylonia came to Jerusalem and took the king and his officials back with him to Babylonia. ¹³ He took one of the king's family, made a treaty with him, and made him swear to be loyal. He took important men as hostages ¹⁴ to keep the nation from rising again and to make sure that the treaty would be kept. ¹⁵ But the king of Judah rebelled and sent agents to Egypt to get horses and a large army. Will he succeed? Can he get away with that? He cannot break the treaty and go unpunished!

¹⁶ “As surely as I am the living God,” says the Sovereign Lord, “this king will die in Babylonia because he broke his oath and the treaty he had made with the king of Babylonia, who put him on the throne. ¹⁷ Even the powerful army of the king of Egypt will not be able to help him fight when the Babylonians build earthworks and dig trenches in order to kill many people. ¹⁸ He broke his oath and the treaty he had made. He did all these things, and now he will not escape.”

¹⁹ The Sovereign Lord says, “As surely as I am the living God, I will punish him for breaking the treaty which he swore in my name to keep. ²⁰ I will spread out a hunter's net and catch him in it. I will take him to Babylonia and punish him there, because he was unfaithful to me. ²¹ His best soldiers will be killed in battle, and the survivors will be scattered in every direction. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken.”

God's Promise of Hope

²² This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

I, the Lord, have spoken. I will do what I have said I would do.”

^(A)A Prayer for Deliverance^[a]

A Prayer for Protection^[d]