M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
22 Josiah was 8 years old when he inherited the throne. His reign in Jerusalem lasted 31 years. His mother was Jedidah (daughter of Adaiah from Bozkath). 2 Josiah was righteous in the Eternal’s eyes. He continually did what was right, just as his ancestor David had. He did not ever step away from the righteous path.
3 During Josiah’s 18th year as king, he dispatched his minister of state,[a] Shaphan (son of Azaliah and grandson of Meshullam), to the Eternal’s house with instructions.
Josiah: 4 Visit the priest, Hilkiah, and ask him to give us an account of the finances that have been collected by the doorkeepers from those who enter the Eternal’s temple. 5 Tell them to give it to the workers who watch over the Eternal’s temple, to the repairmen who keep the place in good condition, 6 to the carpenters and builders and masons for purchasing the wood and cut stones to keep the temple in working order. 7 There is no need to document the financial exchange with these workers because they are honest in their dealings.
Hilkiah (to Shaphan): 8 I have discovered the book of the law in the Eternal’s house.
Hilkiah then handed the book of the law to Shaphan, and Shaphan read through it. 9 Shaphan the secretary returned to the king with a report.
The discovery of the book of the law which has been forgotten for a long time serves two purposes: it rewards Josiah for the work he’s already done, and it pushes him toward more reforms. Besides its positive effect on Judah, not much is known about the book of the law, except that it isn’t a book at all. It is probably a scroll with two columns of writing, much like the Dead Sea Scrolls. The exact content is unknown, but it is probable that the book of the law was the foundational text for the compiler of Deuteronomy. Assuming this, the laws from Deuteronomy explain why Josiah destroys any object that could be used in pagan worship.
Shaphan: Those who serve you in the Eternal’s house have given every last cent of the money to the workers who keep the Eternal’s house in good condition.
10 (continuing) While I was delivering your instructions, Hilkiah the priest handed me an old book.
Shaphan then read the old book aloud to the king. 11 While the king listened to the words of the book of law, he was filled with sorrow, and he tore his garments. 12 Then the king gave a command to Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam (Shaphan’s son), Achbor (Micaiah’s son), Shaphan the minister of state, and Asaiah (one of the king’s advisors).
Josiah: 13 Go and speak to the Eternal One on my behalf, and also on behalf of the people and all of Judah. Speak to Him about this book and all that it commands. There is a wrathful fire on its way to us from Him, all because our ancestors before us did not obey the instructions of this book or do all that is written concerning us.
14 Hilkiah the priest, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah went to visit the prophetess Huldah (Shallum’s wife). Shallum was Tikvah’s son, and Tikvah was the son of Harhas, who was in charge of the clothing and garments. Huldah lived in the second quarter of Jerusalem. Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah spoke to her.
Huldah: 15 This is the message of the Eternal God of Israel: “Go back and speak to the one who told you to speak to Me that 16 the Eternal says, ‘I will bring a wicked cloud of disaster over this land and those who live within it. It will be just as it is written in all the words of the book read by the king of Judah. 17 Because they have turned their backs on Me and have been promiscuous with other gods, burning incense for them and causing My anger to boil with all their wicked deeds, the fire of My wrath will consume them and be inextinguishable.’”
18 But tell Judah’s king, the one who told you to visit me and speak to the Eternal One on his behalf, “This is the message of the Eternal God of Israel: ‘Concerning what you have heard, 19 your heart was gentle and concerned about My commands. You were humble before the Eternal because of the warnings of desolation I gave to this place and to those who dwell within it. You even tore your garments and cried before Me. Because you have done all this, I have certainly heard your sincerity,’ proclaims the Eternal One.
20 “‘Observe! I am going to bring you to be with your ancestors, and you will meet the grave peacefully, so that you will not have to witness the wicked cloud of disaster I will bring to shadow this land and all those who dwell within it.’”
Then Hilkiah, Ahikam, Achbor, Shaphan, and Asaiah returned to the king and gave him the Lord’s message, as sent through Huldah the prophetess.
4 That’s why, as long as that promise of entering God’s rest remains open to us, we should be careful that none of us seem to fall short ourselves. 2 Those people in the wilderness heard God’s good news, just as we have heard it, but the message they heard didn’t do them any good since it wasn’t combined with faith. 3 We who believe are entering into salvation’s rest, as He said,
That is why I swore in anger
they would never enter salvation’s rest,[a]
even though God’s works were finished from the very creation of the world. 4 (For didn’t God say that on the seventh day of creation He rested from all His works?[b] 5 And doesn’t God say in the psalm that they would never enter into salvation’s rest?[c])
There is much discussion of “rest” in what we are calling the First Testament of Scripture. God rests on the seventh day after creation. In the Ten Commandments God commands His people to remember the Sabbath day, keep it holy, and do no work. By letting go of daily work, they declared their absolute dependence on God to meet their needs. We do not live by the work of our hands, but by the bread and Word that God supplies.
But a greater rest is yet to come when we will be released from all suffering, and when we will inherit the earth. Jesus embodies this greater rest that still awaits the people of God, a people fashioned through obedience and faith. If some of us fail to enter that rest, it is because we fail to answer the call.
6 So if God prepared a place of rest, and those who were given the good news didn’t enter because they chose disobedience over faith, then it remains open for us to enter. 7 Once again, God has fixed a day; and that day is “today,” as David said so much later when he wrote in the psalm quoted earlier:
Today, if you listen to His voice,
Don’t harden your hearts.[d]
8 Now if Joshua had been able to lead those who followed him into God’s rest, would God then have spoken this way? 9 There still remains a place of rest, a true Sabbath, for the people of God 10 because those who enter into salvation’s rest lay down their labors in the same way that God entered into a Sabbath rest from His.
11 So let us move forward to enter this rest, so that none of us fall into the kind of faithless disobedience that prevented them from entering. 12 The word of God, you see, is alive and moving; sharper than a double-edged sword; piercing the divide between soul and spirit, joints and marrow; able to judge the thoughts and will of the heart. 13 No creature can hide from God: God sees all. Everyone and everything is exposed, opened for His inspection; and He’s the One we will have to explain ourselves to.
By God’s word, everything finds a rhythm, a place. It fills, empowers, enlivens, and redeems us. But it also divides and destroys. It pierces and exposes our disobedience and unfaithfulness.
14 Since we have a great High Priest, Jesus, the Son of God who has passed through the heavens from death into new life with God, let us hold tightly to our faith. 15 For Jesus is not some high priest who has no sympathy for our weaknesses and flaws. He has already been tested in every way that we are tested; but He emerged victorious, without failing God. 16 So let us step boldly to the throne of grace, where we can find mercy and grace to help when we need it most.
1 This is the word of the Eternal One that came to Joel, Pethuel’s son:
2 Hear this, elders and leaders.
All who live in the land should pay close attention.
Has anything like this ever happened?
No, not in your lifetimes or your fathers’.
3 So be sure to tell this story to your sons and daughters.
Your sons should tell their sons and so on, for generations.
4 We have been invaded!
What the cutting locusts left,
the swarming locusts consumed;
What the swarming locusts left,
the creeping locusts consumed;
What the creeping locusts left,
the stripping locusts finished off.[a]
These four locusts are probably not different species of insect. Joel is describing four different locust invasions and how each ravages the land.
5 All you drunks, get up and cry!
Weep and wail, all of you wine drinkers.
Your sweet wine
has been snatched from your mouths.
6 Eternal One: For a people invaded My land.
Their army is strong; their numbers cannot be counted.
They attack with teeth as sharp as a lion’s;
they bare their fangs like a lioness.
7 My vines are ruined.
My fig trees are reduced to stumps now.
These enemy insects have stripped off the bark and tossed My trees aside like refuse.
The branches lie bare, broken and white.
8 Wail like a bride dressed in sackcloth instead of her gown, as a virgin
mourning the death of the groom she’d long been betrothed to.
9 Those who serve the Eternal One,
His priests, are in mourning too—
Because no one is able to bring grain or wine to offer
in the Eternal’s temple.
The priests are mourning because they have no offerings to make, but they are more concerned for themselves because without these offerings the priests lose their main source of food.
10 The fields lie desolate.
The earth herself mourns the loss,
For her golden grain is ruined.
The fruits of her vines have withered.
Her gift of oil has dried up.
11 Wilt in shame, you farmers. Wail with screams, you vinedressers.
Grieve for the wheat and the barley;
Grieve, for the crops in the field are ruined.
12 The grapevines have withered and died.
The fig trees have dried up.
The pomegranate, the date-palm, the apple tree—
indeed all the trees of the field—have dried up.
Joy has withered on the branches of the people and turned to shame.
13 You priests, throw off your fine robes. Dress in sackcloth and grieve.
Wail, you servants at the altar.
Come into the temple and spend all night in your sackcloth,
you ministers of my God,
Because no one brings grain and wine
to offer at your God’s house these days.
14 So consecrate a holy fast; call everyone together.
Gather all the elders and leaders and the rest who live in the land.
Call everyone to the temple of your God, the Eternal.
Then cry out to Him with all your heart.
15 But look! It is coming!
The day of the Eternal One is near.
Destruction, not salvation,
will be the sentence from the Highest God.
16 Hasn’t all our food been destroyed right before our eyes?
Haven’t joyful celebrations ceased in God’s house?
17 The seeds the farmers planted have shriveled beneath the ground;[b]
all the storehouses are empty; their supplies are gone.
The barns are breaking down
because there is no more grain to fill them.
18 Now even the beasts groan!
Herds of cattle wander, confused and agitated,
For they have no more pasture to feed in.
Flocks of sheep suffer this ordeal too.
19 I cry out to you, O Eternal One,
along with everyone else.
For the fire of Your wrath has consumed
the open pastures,
And flames have scorched
all the trees in the field.
20 Even the wild beasts call to You:
they are dying of thirst—the streams have dried up;
They are dying of hunger—the fire of Your wrath has consumed open pastures.
Psalm 140
For the worship leader. A song of David.
1 Save me, O Eternal One, from the evil men who seek my life.
Shield me from this band of violent men.
2 Their hearts devise evil! They conspire against me;
they are constantly causing a storm of war.
3 These snakes have sharpened their tongues;
viper venom hides beneath their lips.[a]
[pause][b]
4 Keep me from the grip of these cruel men, O Eternal One.
Shield me from this band of violent men
whose only intention is to trip me up and undermine all I do.
5 Those arrogant people are trying to catch me;
they’ve laid their trap, hiding a net along my path;
their traps are set, and I am the prey.
[pause]
6 “Eternal One,” I said, “You are my one and only God.
Hear me, O Eternal, hear my humble cry for rescue.
7 O Lord, Eternal One, power of my deliverance,
You are my helmet in the day of battle.
8 So do not fulfill the desires of these evildoers, Eternal One;
do not advance their evil schemes, lest they brag about their successes.
[pause]
9 “As for the gang leader of those who surround me,
let their mischievous words cover them; smother them in trouble.
10 Let hot coals fall from heaven upon them
and cast them into the roaring fires.
May they sink into the muddy marsh from which there is no return.
11 Let no liar find a home anywhere in the land;
let evil hunt down the violent man and do him in quickly.”
12 I am certain the Eternal supports the cause of the distressed;
the poor will receive the justice they deserve.
13 Indeed, the just-living will glorify Your name,
and honorable people will be at home in Your presence.
Psalm 141
A song of David.
1 O Eternal One, I call upon You.
Come quickly!
Listen to my voice as I call upon You!
2 Consider my prayer as an offering of incense that rises before You;
when I stand with my hands outstretched pleading toward the heavens,
consider it as an evening offering.
3 Guard my mouth, O Eternal One;
control what I say.
Keep a careful watch on every word I speak.
4 Don’t allow my deepest desires to steer me toward doing what is wrong
or associating with wicked people
Or joining in their wicked works
or tasting any of their pleasures.
5 Let those who do right strike me down in kindness
and correct me in love.
Their kind correction washes over my head like pure oil;
do not let me be foolish and refuse such compassion.
Still my prayer is against the deeds of the wicked:
6 Their judges will be thrown from the edges of cliffs and crushed upon the rocks below,
and the wicked will hear my words and realize that what I said was pleasing.
7 Just as when a farmer plows and breaks open the earth, leaving clumps of dirt scattered along the rows,
our bones are scattered at the mouth of the grave.
8 My gaze is fixed upon You, Eternal One, my Lord;
in You I find safety and protection.
Do not abandon me and leave me defenseless.
9 Protect me from the jaws of the trap my enemies have set for me
and from the snares of those who work evil.
10 May the wicked be caught in their own nets
while I alone escape unharmed.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.