M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The Lord's special people
7 The Lord your God will now bring you into the land that will be your home. As you go in, he will chase out seven nations that now live there. Those nations are larger and more powerful than you are. They are the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. 2 The Lord your God will put those people under your power so that you win against them. When that happens, you must destroy them completely as a gift to God. Do not make any agreement with them to keep them safe. Do not be kind to them. 3 You must not marry any of these people. Do not let your daughters marry their sons. Do not take their daughters to marry your sons. 4 If that happens, your children may turn away from the Lord. They will start to worship other gods. Then the Lord will be very angry with you. He will immediately destroy you.
5 This is what you must do to the people of those nations: Break their altars and their stone pillars into pieces. Cut down their Asherah poles. Burn their idols with fire.[a] 6 Remember that you are a special people who belong to the Lord your God. He has chosen you for himself out of all the other people who live on the earth. He loves you as his special people.
7 Why did the Lord choose you as the people who would give him pleasure? It was not because you were the largest nation on the earth. No, you were the smallest of all nations! 8 Instead, it was because of the Lord's love for you. Also, he had made a serious promise to your ancestors and he was faithful to that promise. So he used his great power to bring you out of Egypt, where you were slaves. He rescued you from the power of Pharaoh, Egypt's king.
9 Remember that the Lord your God is the only true God. So love him and obey his commands. Then you can trust him to be faithful to his covenant. He made that covenant with you, his people, and with your descendants for ever. 10 But if his people turn against him, he will punish them as they deserve. He will quickly destroy them.
11 So be careful to obey all the commands, rules and laws that I am teaching you today.
The Lord's blessings
12 Listen to these rules and be careful to obey them. If you do that, the Lord your God will be faithful to the covenant that he has made with you. He promised your ancestors that he would do this. 13 He will love you and he will bless you. He will give you many children so that you become a large nation. He will cause your fields to give you plenty of food: grain, wine and olive oil. He will cause your cows, sheep and goats to have many babies. That is how he will bless you in the land that he promised your ancestors to give you. 14 God will bless you more than any other people on the earth. All your people and all your animals will have children of their own. 15 The Lord will keep you safe from all kinds of disease. He will not give you any of the terrible diseases that you saw in Egypt. Instead, he will cause those diseases to hurt the people who hate you.
16 You must remove the people of every nation that the Lord your God will put under your power. Do not be kind to them. Do not worship their gods. If you do that, they will make you turn away from God.
17 Perhaps you will say to each other, ‘The people of these nations are stronger than we are. We cannot chase them away.’ 18 But do not be afraid of them. Remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all the Egyptian people. 19 You saw how he punished them. You saw how he used his strength and power to do great miracles. The Lord your God did all those things to rescue you from Egypt. He will use the same power against all the people that make you afraid. 20 Also, the Lord your God will send great fear among these people.[b] Even those people who hide from you will soon die. 21 When you fight against them, do not let them frighten you. The Lord your God is there to help you. He is a great and powerful God. 22 He will chase out the people of those nations, one at a time. He will not let you destroy them all immediately. If you did that, wild animals would become so many that they would be a danger to you.
23 But the Lord your God will put your enemies under your power. He will cause them to become completely confused, so that you can destroy them. 24 He will put their kings under your power. No one will remember their names any more. No one will be able to stop you. You will destroy them all. 25 You must burn the images of their gods with fire. Do not try to keep the silver or gold from those idols. The Lord your God hates those things. If you take it for yourselves, it will catch you like a trap. 26 Do not bring anything that God hates into your house. If you do that, God will be ready to destroy you as well as the thing itself. God has said that he hates things like that, so you must hate them too.
A prayer of Moses, God's servant.
God lives for ever![a]
90 Lord, from long ago,
you have always been a safe home for us.[b]
2 From before the mountains began,
and before you made the world,
you were already there, as God.
You have no beginning and no end.
3 People return to dust in the ground when they die.
You say, ‘Become dust again, you people.’[c]
4 For you, a thousand years is only a short time.
They pass as quickly as a day for you,
or just a few hours in the night.
5 You cause people's lives to end,
as a dream finishes when you wake up.
People are like grass that appears in the morning.
6 During the morning, it grows well.
By the evening,
it becomes dry and it dies.
7 Your anger destroys us,
and we become very afraid.
8 All our sins are there for you to see.
You even see the sins that we have tried to hide.
9 Your anger gives us trouble all through our lives.
Then our lives end in a short groan.
10 The number of our days make 70 years,
or maybe 80 years if we are strong enough.
But even in the best years of our lives,
we have trouble and pain.
Our lives quickly pass,
and we hurry towards death.
11 Lord, nobody knows all the power of your anger.
It is your anger that causes people to be afraid of you.
12 Teach us to count carefully the days of our short lives.
Then we will be wise in how we live.
13 Lord, return to help us!
How long will you be angry with us?
Please be kind to us, your servants!
14 Show your faithful love to us every morning.
Then we will sing with joy,
and we will be happy for as long as we live.
15 For many years you have sent trouble to us.
Now, please make us happy
for as many years as you have given us pain.
16 Do great things again,
so that we, your servants, see them!
Let our children see that you rule as King!
17 Yes, may the Lord our God bless us.
May everything that we do go well!
Yes, may everything go well!
A message of hope
35 The desert and the dry land will be happy!
The wilderness will be happy too,
and beautiful flowers will grow there.
2 Yes, there will be lots of flowers!
The land will sing and shout with joy!
The desert will be as beautiful as Lebanon.
It will seem like lovely places in Carmel and in Sharon.
In those places, people will see the Lord's glory.
They will see that our God is very great.
3 If your hands feel weak,
now be strong!
If your knees are shaking,
now be brave!
4 Say this to people who are afraid:
‘Be strong! Do not be afraid!
Your God is coming now.
He is coming to punish his enemies
for the bad things that they have done.
He is coming to rescue you!’
5 At that time, he will open the eyes of blind people.
Deaf people will hear again.
6 People with weak legs will jump like deer.
People who cannot speak now will shout with joy.
Water will pour from springs in the desert.
Streams of water will run in the wilderness.
7 The hot earth will become a pool of water.
The dry ground will have springs of water.
In the places where jackals made their homes,
there will now be grasses and reeds.
8 There will be a great road there.
It will be called ‘The Holy Way’.
People who are unclean will not travel on it.
It will be for those people who know God's way.
Evil fools will not walk on it.
9 No lions will be there.
No dangerous wild animals will come onto it.
They will not come near to it.
It is the people that the Lord has rescued
who will travel on that road.
10 He has paid the price to rescue them,
and they will return home along it.
They will be happy and they will sing,
as they go into Zion city.
They will be very happy for ever.
They will never again be sad or upset.
All the time they will be completely happy.
The book and the Lamb
5 Then I looked at the one who was sitting on the throne. I saw that he held a book in his right hand.[a] Words were written on both sides, the inside and the outside. Seven seals kept the book closed. 2 Then I saw a powerful angel. He said with a loud voice, ‘Who is so good that they can break the seals? Who can open the book?’ 3 But nobody in heaven could open the book and look inside it. Neither could anyone on the earth or anyone under the earth open it.[b]
4 I wept much because there was nobody who was good enough. Nobody was so good that they could open the book. Nobody could look inside it. 5 Then one of the leaders said to me, ‘Do not weep! Look! There is someone who can break the seven seals and then open the book. His name is the Lion from Judah's tribe. He is called the Root of King David. He has won over all his enemies.’[c]
6 Then I saw a Lamb. He was standing in the middle of the throne. The four beings that are alive and the leaders were around him. The Lamb appeared to be like a lamb that someone had killed. He had seven horns and seven eyes. His eyes are the seven spirits of God, that God has sent into all parts of the world. 7 The Lamb came and he took the book. He took it from the right hand of the one who was sitting on the throne. 8 When he had taken the book, the four beings and the 24 leaders fell down to the ground in front of the Lamb. They worshipped him. Each leader had a harp to make music. They were also holding gold bowls which were full of incense. That nice smell shows what it is like when God's people pray to him. 9 The beings that are alive and the leaders sang a new song. They sang:
‘You are so good!
You are good enough to take the book.
You can break its seals and open it.
You can do this because they killed you.
When you died, you bought people for God with your blood.
You bought them from every tribe,
from every language and every nation.
10 You have caused them to belong to the kingdom of our God.
You have made them priests,
so that they serve God.
And they will rule on the earth.’
11 Then I looked again, and I heard the voices of many angels. There were thousands and millions of them. They were standing around the throne, with the beings that are alive and the leaders. 12 They all sang with loud voices:
‘The Lamb that people killed is completely good!
He has all authority, and all things belong to him.
He is wise and powerful.
Everyone must agree that he is great!
Everyone must praise him and worship him!’
13 Then I heard everything that is alive singing. That was everything in heaven and everything on the earth, and everything under the earth and everything in the sea. They were singing:
‘We praise the one who sits on the throne.
We praise the one who is the Lamb.
We say that they are great! We worship them!
They have power to rule for ever!’
14 The four beings that are alive agreed. They said, ‘Yes, this is true.’ The leaders fell down and they worshipped God and the Lamb.[d]
EasyEnglish Bible Copyright © MissionAssist 2019 - Charitable Incorporated Organisation 1162807. Used by permission. All rights reserved.