M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
18 After God blessed David’s monarchy, King David conquered the Philistines—defeating them and seizing their capital city of Gath and its towns.
2 He defeated the Moabites, who were his relatives through his ancestor Ruth, and the Moabites served David and brought him tribute.
3 He defeated Hadadezer (king of Zobah) as far as Hamath in Aram, extending the borders of Israel to the Euphrates River. 4 From Hadadezer David seized 1,000 chariots, 7,000 horsemen, and 20,000 foot soldiers. He cut the leg muscles of all the chariot horses, reserving only 100 for future use with the chariots. 5 When the armies of Damascus in Aram came to help their kinsman Hadadezer, David killed 22,000 Arameans. 6 Then David built garrisons in Damascus, and the Arameans served him and brought him tribute. The Eternal helped David, ensuring his victory, wherever he went. 7 David seized the golden shields from the servants of Hadadezer and brought them to Jerusalem. 8 He seized large quantities of bronze from Hadadezer’s cities of Tibhath and Cun (which Solomon later used to cast the bronze basin, pillars, and utensils for the temple). 9 When Tou (king of Hamath in Aram) heard that David had defeated Hadadezer king of Zobah, 10 he was overjoyed since he had been fighting with Hadadezer himself. Tou sent his son, Hadoram, to King David to greet him and to bless him with gold, silver, and bronze, for David had fought Hadadezer and had won the victory. 11 King David then dedicated these gifts to the Eternal along with the silver and gold he had seized from these nations: Edom, Moab, Ammon, Philistia, and Amalek.
These weren’t just any surrounding nations; these nations each have long histories as adversaries of Israel. Edom, descended from Jacob’s older brother Esau, lost any chance of being God’s chosen people when Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for stew. Moab and Ammon were formed by the descendants of an incestuous relationship between Abraham’s nephew Lot and Lot’s daughters. The Philistines, although not related to the Israelites, were frequent enemies whose military prowess threatened Israelite tribes on many occasions. And the Amalekites, also descended from Esau, were almost constant enemies of the Israelites, employing ruthless tactics in their war mongering. By subduing these nations, David not only secures the safety of Israel, but he reaffirms God’s selection of Israel as His people over all the other nations in the land.
12 One of David’s chiefs, Abishai (son of Zeruiah), defeated 18,000 Edomites in the valley of Salt. 13 He built garrisons in Edom, and all the people of that nation served David. The Eternal helped David wherever he went.
14 David was a just and righteous ruler over all Israel—over his people and the lands he conquered. 15 Joab (son of Zeruiah) led the army; Jehoshaphat (son of Ahilud) was the recorder; 16 Zadok (son of Ahitub) and Abimelech (son of Abiathar) were priests; Shavsha was secretary; 17 Benaiah (son of Jehoiada) governed the Cherethites and the Pelethites. David’s own sons were his trusted chiefs giving him advice.
5 Hey, you rich folk, misery is on its way; so cry and moan 2 because you will watch your riches rot before your eyes as the moths devour your fine clothes. 3 Your stockpile of silver and gold is tarnished and corroded, and this rust will stand up in the final judgment and testify against you. It will eat your flesh like fire and become a permanent and painful reminder that you have hoarded your wealth through these last days. 4 Listen. You held back a just wage from the laborers who mowed your fields, and that money is crying out against you, demanding that justice be done. The cries of the people who harvested your crops and made you a profit have fallen upon the ears of the supreme Lord of heavenly armies. 5 Your life on the earth has been one of luxury, pleasure, and endless consumption; you have feasted to your hearts’ content on animals you slaughtered, but now the day of slaughter comes for you. 6 You have condemned and murdered the righteous man, and he did not defend himself.
7 For this reason, my brothers and sisters, be patient as you wait for the return of the Lord. Look! The farmer knows how to wait patiently for the land to produce vegetables and fruits. He cannot harvest a freshly planted seed. Instead, he waits for the early and the late showers to nourish the soil. 8 You need this same kind of patience, so in the meantime, strengthen your resolve because the Lord will be coming soon.
9 Brothers and sisters, don’t waste your breath complaining about one another. If you judge others, you will be judged yourself. Be very careful! You will face the one true Judge who is right outside the door. 10 The prophets who declared the word of the Lord are your role models, my brothers and sisters, for what it means to live patiently in the face of suffering. 11 Look, we bless and honor the memory of those who persevered under hardship. Remember how Job endured and how the Lord orchestrated the triumph of his final circumstances as a grand display of His mercy and compassion.
12 It is even more important, my brothers and sisters, that you remember not to make a vow by the heavens or the earth or by anything. When you say “yes,” it should always mean “yes,” and “no” should always mean “no.” If you can keep your word, you will avoid judgment.
13 Are any in your community suffering? They should pray. Are any celebrating? They should sing praises to God. 14 Are any sick? They should call the elders of your church and ask them to pray. They will gather around and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 Prayers offered in faith will restore them from sickness and bring them to health. The Lord will lift them up from the floor of despair; and if the sickness is due to sin, then God will forgive their sins. 16 So own up to your sins to one another and pray for one another. In the end, you may be healed. Your prayers are powerful when they are rooted in a righteous life. 17 Remember Elijah? He was a man, no different from us. He prayed with great intensity asking God to withhold the rain; God answered his prayers and did not allow a single drop of rain to fall for three and a half years. 18 It did not rain until Elijah prayed again for God to open the skies, when the rain came down and the earth produced a great crop.
Why should we bother to pray if God already knows what we are going to ask for? Prayer involves so much more than making personal requests. It connects us with God and works to bring our wills into conformity with His.
How, then, should we pray? First, James tells us to pray in community, not just by ourselves and for ourselves. When we pray together, life is shared and community is born. We also confess our sins, not just to God, but to each other. Through this vulnerable transparency, God knits souls together in authentic community, and we discover the true benefit of prayer.
19 Brothers and sisters, if someone you know loses his way and rebels against God, pursue him in love and bring him back to the truth. 20 Know this: If you turn a sinner back from the error of his ways, then you will rescue him from the grips of death and cover the pain and consequences of untold sins.
2 To his God, the Eternal, Jonah prayed from inside this great fish.
Jonah reveals in his prayer a change of heart: he thanks God for saving him from the angry sea.
2 Jonah: With desperate cries
I beckoned the Eternal to hear, and He answered me.
From the belly, the place of death, I cried out to You,
and You have responded to my voice.
3 You threw me into the watery depths
and cast me into the middle of the chaotic seas.
The waters closed in around me;
Your waves broke over me;
Your surf swelled as I sank into the depths.
4 But then I said to You,
“I have been driven out from before Your very eyes.
Still, I know I will gaze again on Your holy temple.”
5 The waters swallowed me;
the deep abyss was covering over me.
Seaweeds were wrapped around my head, trapping me
6 as I sank down to where the mountains are rooted to the earth.
I went down to the place where death’s gate would lock me in forever.
Yet You lifted me up from the pit.
Eternal One, You are my God!
7 Only as my life was fading way
did I remember the Eternal;
To Your sacred dwelling, Your holy temple,
my cries did rise to You.
8 Those who worship worthless idols
turn their backs on God and renounce their loyal love.
9 But I will sing to You and sacrifice to You
with a voice filled with thanksgiving;
Whatever I promised, I will certainly pay it
because deliverance is from the Eternal alone.
10 Then the Eternal One directed the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto the shore.
In addition to teaching and healing, Jesus also gathers disciples, who are simply students or apprentices. Their classroom is the world—hillsides and beaches, homes and country roads, fields and city streets. Their subject is life—life in the kingdom of God. Jesus has many students, both men and women, but He forms a special inner circle known as “the twelve.” The number “twelve” is highly symbolic because the Jewish people were originally composed of twelve tribes. However, over the centuries, some of the tribes were decimated. By calling together a new twelve, Jesus seems to be dramatizing a new beginning for the people of God. The original twelve tribes found their identity in the law of Moses, but now Jesus is giving a new way of life for His twelve to learn and follow.
7 Jesus shared all these sayings with the crowd that day on the plain. When He was finished, He went into the town of Capernaum. 2 There, a Centurion had a slave he loved dearly. The slave was sick—about to die— 3 so when the Centurion heard about Jesus, he contacted some Jewish elders. He sent them to ask Jesus to come and heal his dear slave. 4 With great emotion and respect, the elders presented their request to Jesus.
Jewish Elders: This man is worthy of Your help. It’s true that he’s a Centurion, 5 but he loves our nation. In fact, he paid for our synagogue to be built.
6 So Jesus accompanied them. When they approached the Centurion’s home, the Centurion sent out some friends to bring a message to Jesus.
Message of the Centurion: Lord, don’t go to the trouble of coming inside. I am not worthy to have You come under my roof. 7 That’s why I sent others with my request. Just say the word, and that will be enough to heal my servant. 8 I understand how authority works, being under authority myself and having soldiers under my authority. I command to one, “Go,” and he goes. I say to another, “Come,” and he comes. I say to my slave, “Do this,” and he obeys me.
9 Jesus was deeply impressed when He heard this. He turned to the crowd that followed Him.
John, it seems, is having second thoughts. Is Jesus really the One we have expected? Is He the Anointed One? But who can blame John for these doubts? After all, John is in prison, unjustly held by a corrupt, immoral ruler. Ultimately the desert prophet will have his head severed from his body when the drunken, lusty king makes a silly promise in front of dinner guests. So who can blame John for seeking assurance from the Lord? Jesus, realizing fully the kinds of expectations others have, gently reminds John and his disciples of the Scriptures: “the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead live, and the poor receive the good news.” Luke doesn’t say how John responds to the report as he nears his own end. What is clear is that Jesus has the utmost respect for His colleague and cousin. He doesn’t reject him for his doubts but tries to send him reassurance.
Jesus: Listen, everyone. This outsider, this Roman, has more faith than I have found even among our own Jewish people.
10 The friends of the Centurion returned home, and they found the slave was completely healed.
11 It wasn’t long after this when Jesus entered a city called Nain. Again all of His disciples accompanied Him, along with a huge crowd. 12 He was coming near the gate of the city as a corpse was being carried out. This man was the only child and support of his widowed mother, and she was accompanied by a large funeral crowd.
13 As soon as the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her.
Jesus: Don’t weep.
14 Then He came to the stretcher, and those carrying it stood still.
Jesus: Young man, listen! Get up!
15 The dead man immediately sat up and began talking. Jesus presented him to his mother, 16 and everyone was both shocked and jubilant. They praised God.
Funeral Crowd: A tremendous prophet has arisen in our midst! God has visited His people!
17 News of Jesus spread across the whole province of Judea and beyond to the surrounding regions. 18 When these reports reached John’s disciples, they brought news to John himself, who was known for his preaching and ritual cleansing.[a] 19 John sent two of his disciples to ask the Lord, “Are You the Promised One, or shall we keep looking for someone else?”
20 They came to Jesus and asked their question exactly as directed by John the Baptist.
21 Before He answered John’s messengers, Jesus cured many from various diseases, health conditions, and evil spirits. He even caused many blind people to regain their sight.
Jesus (to John’s disciples): 22 Go and tell John what you’ve witnessed with your own eyes and ears: the blind are seeing again, the lame are walking again, the lepers are clean again, the deaf hear again, the dead live again, and good news is preached to the poor.[b] 23 Whoever is not offended by Me is blessed indeed.
24 When John’s messengers left, Jesus talked to the crowds about John.
Jesus: When you went out into the wilderness to see John, what were you expecting? A reed shaking in the wind? 25 What were you looking for? A man in expensive clothing? Look, if you were looking for fancy clothes and luxurious living, you went to the wrong place—you should have gone to the kings’ courts, not to the wilderness! 26 What were you seeking? A prophet? Ah yes, that’s what John is, and even more than a prophet. 27 The prophet Malachi was talking about John when he wrote,
I will send My messenger before You,
to clear Your path in front of You.[c]
28 Listen, there is no human being greater than this man, John the Baptist. Yet even the least significant person in the coming kingdom of God is greater than John.
29 The common people and tax collectors heard God’s own wisdom in Jesus’ assessment of John because they had been ritually cleansed through baptism by John. 30 But the Pharisees and religious scholars hardened their hearts and turned their backs on God’s purposes for them because they had refused John’s baptism.[d]
Jesus: 31 The people of this generation—what are they like? To what can they be compared? 32 I’ll tell you: they’re like spoiled kids sitting in the marketplace playing games, calling out,
We played the pipes for you,
but you didn’t dance to our tune!
We cried like mourners,
but you didn’t cry with us!
33 You can’t win with this generation. John the Baptist comes along, fasting and abstaining from wine, and you say, “This guy is demon-possessed!” 34 The Son of Man comes along, feasting and drinking wine, and you say, “This guy is a glutton and a drunk, a friend of scoundrels and tax collectors!” 35 Well, wisdom’s true children know wisdom when they hear it.
36-40 Once a Pharisee named Simon invited Jesus to be a guest for a meal.
Picture this:
Just as Jesus enters the man’s home and takes His place at the table, a woman from the city—notorious as a woman of ill repute—follows Him in. She has heard that Jesus will be at the Pharisee’s home, so she comes in and approaches Him, carrying an alabaster flask of perfumed oil. Then she begins to cry, she kneels down so her tears fall on Jesus’ feet, and she starts wiping His feet with her own hair. Then she actually kisses His feet, and she pours the perfumed oil on them.
Simon (thinking): Now I know this guy is a fraud. If He were a real prophet, He would have known this woman is a sinner and He would never let her get near Him, much less touch Him . . . or kiss Him!
Jesus (knowing what the Pharisee is thinking): Simon, I want to tell you a story.
Simon: Tell me, Teacher.
Jesus: 41 Two men owed a certain lender a lot of money. One owed 100 weeks’ wages, and the other owed 10 weeks’ wages. 42 Both men defaulted on their loans, but the lender forgave them both. Here’s a question for you: which man will love the lender more?
Simon: 43 Well, I guess it would be the one who was forgiven more.
Jesus: Good answer.
44-46 Now Jesus turns around so He’s facing the woman, although He’s still speaking to Simon.
Jesus: Do you see this woman here? It’s kind of funny. I entered your home, and you didn’t provide a basin of water so I could wash the road dust from My feet. You didn’t give Me a customary kiss of greeting and welcome. You didn’t offer Me the common courtesy of providing oil to brighten My face. But this woman has wet My feet with her own tears and washed them with her own hair. She hasn’t stopped kissing My feet since I came in. And she has applied perfumed oil to My feet. 47 This woman has been forgiven much, and she is showing much love. But the person who has shown little love shows how little forgiveness he has received.
48 (to the woman) Your sins are forgiven.
Simon and Friends (muttering among themselves): 49 Who does this guy think He is? He has the audacity to claim the authority to forgive sins?
Jesus (to the woman): 50 Your faith has liberated you. Go in peace.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.