M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
32 When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, [they] gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, Up, make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
2 So Aaron replied, Take the gold rings from the ears of your wives, your sons, and daughters, and bring them to me.
3 So all the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.
4 And he received the gold at their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it a molten calf; and they said, These are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!
5 And when Aaron saw the molten calf, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.
6 And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
7 The Lord said to Moses, Go down, for your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves;
8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, These are your gods, O Israel, that brought you up out of the land of Egypt!
9 And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people;
10 Now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and that I may destroy them; but I will make of you a great nation.
11 But Moses besought the Lord his God, and said, Lord, why does Your wrath blaze hot against Your people, whom You have brought forth out of the land of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?
12 Why should the Egyptians say, For evil He brought them forth, to slay them in the mountains and consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from Your fierce wrath, and change Your mind concerning this evil against Your people.
13 [Earnestly] remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants, to whom You swore by Your own self and said to them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give to your seed, and they shall inherit it forever.
14 Then the Lord turned from the evil which He had thought to do to His people.
15 And Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tables of the Testimony in his hand, tables or tablets that were written on both sides.
16 The tables were the work of God; the writing was the writing of God, graven upon the tables.
17 And when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, There is a noise of war in the camp.
18 But Moses said, It is not the sound of shouting for victory, neither is it the sound of the cry of the defeated, but the sound of singing that I hear.
19 And as soon as he came near to the camp he saw the calf and the dancing. And Moses’ anger blazed hot and he cast the tables out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.
20 And he took the calf they had made and burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the Israelites drink it.
21 And Moses said to Aaron, What did this people do to you, that you have brought so great a sin upon them?
22 And Aaron said, Let not the anger of my lord blaze hot; you know the people, that they are set on evil.
23 For they said to me, Make us gods which shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.
24 I said to them, Those who have any gold, let them take it off. So they gave it to me; then I cast it into the fire, and there came out this calf.
25 And when Moses saw that the people were unruly and unrestrained (for Aaron had let them get out of control, so that they were a derision and object of shame among their enemies),
26 Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Whoever is on the Lord’s side, let him come to me. And all the Levites [the priestly tribe] gathered together to him.
27 And he said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Every man put his sword on his side and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.
28 And the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses; and there fell of the people that day about 3000 men.
29 And Moses said [to the Levites, By your obedience to God’s command] you have consecrated yourselves today [as priests] to the Lord, each man [at the cost of being] against his own son and his own brother, that the Lord may restore and bestow His blessing upon you this day.
30 The next day Moses said to the people, You have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.
31 So Moses returned to the Lord, and said, Oh, these people have sinned a great sin and have made themselves gods of gold!
32 Yet now, if You will forgive their sin—and if not, blot me, I pray You, out of Your book which You have written!
33 But the Lord said to Moses, Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him [not you] out of My book.(A)
34 But now go, lead the people to the place of which I have told you. Behold, My [a]Angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I punish I will visit their sin upon them!(B)
35 And the Lord sent a plague upon the people because they made the calf which Aaron fashioned for them.
11 Now a certain man named Lazarus was ill. He was of Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived.
2 This Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped His feet with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus who was [now] sick.
3 So the sisters sent to Him, saying, Lord, he whom You love [so well] is sick.
4 When Jesus received the message, He said, This sickness is not to end in death; but [on the contrary] it is to honor God and to promote His glory, that the Son of God may be glorified through (by) it.
5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. [They were His dear friends, and He held them in loving esteem.]
6 Therefore [even] when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He still stayed two days longer in the same place where He was.
7 Then after that interval He said to His disciples, Let us go back again to Judea.
8 The disciples said to Him, Rabbi, the Jews only recently were intending and trying to stone You, and are You [thinking of] going back there again?
9 Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? Anyone who walks about in the daytime does not stumble, because he sees [by] the light of this world.
10 But if anyone walks about in the night, he does stumble, because there is no light in him [the light is lacking to him].
11 He said these things, and then added, Our friend Lazarus is at rest and sleeping; but I am going there that I may awaken him out of his sleep.
12 The disciples answered, Lord, if he is sleeping, he will recover.
13 However, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He referred to falling into a refreshing and natural sleep.
14 So then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus is dead,
15 And for your sake I am glad that I was not there; it will help you to believe (to trust and rely on Me). However, let us go to him.
16 Then Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, Let us go too, that we may die [be killed] along with Him.
17 So when Jesus arrived, He found that he [Lazarus] had already been in the tomb four days.
18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away,
19 And a considerable number of the Jews had gone out to see Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.
20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet Him, while Mary remained sitting in the house.
21 Martha then said to Jesus, Master, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.
22 And even now I know that whatever You ask from God, He will grant it to You.
23 Jesus said to her, Your brother shall rise again.
24 Martha replied, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
25 Jesus said to her, I am [Myself] the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in (adheres to, trusts in, and relies on) Me, although he may die, yet he shall live;
26 And whoever continues to live and believes in (has faith in, cleaves to, and relies on) Me shall never [actually] die at all. Do you believe this?
27 She said to Him, Yes, Lord, I have believed [I do believe] that You are the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One), the Son of God, [even He] Who was to come into the world. [It is for Your coming that the world has waited.]
28 After she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, privately whispering to her, The Teacher is close at hand and is asking for you.
29 When she heard this, she sprang up quickly and went to Him.
30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the same spot where Martha had met Him.
31 When the Jews who were sitting with her in the house and consoling her saw how hastily Mary had arisen and gone out, they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to pour out her grief there.
32 When Mary came to the place where Jesus was and saw Him, she dropped down at His feet, saying to Him, Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.
33 When Jesus saw her sobbing, and the Jews who came with her [also] sobbing, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. [He chafed in spirit and sighed and was disturbed.]
34 And He said, Where have you laid him? They said to Him, Lord, come and see.
35 Jesus wept.
36 The Jews said, See how [tenderly] He loved him!
37 But some of them said, Could not He Who opened a blind man’s eyes have prevented this man from dying?
38 Now Jesus, again sighing repeatedly and deeply disquieted, approached the tomb. It was a cave (a hole in the rock), and a boulder lay against [the entrance to close] it.
39 Jesus said, Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, exclaimed, But Lord, by this time he [is decaying and] throws off an offensive odor, for he has been dead four days!
40 Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you and [a]promise you that if you would believe and rely on Me, you would see the glory of God?
41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.
42 Yes, I know You always hear and listen to Me, but I have said this on account of and for the benefit of the people standing around, so that they may believe that You did send Me [that You have made Me Your Messenger].
43 When He had said this, He shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out!
44 And out walked the man who had been dead, his hands and feet wrapped in burial cloths (linen strips), and with a [burial] napkin bound around his face. Jesus said to them, Free him of the burial wrappings and let him go.
45 Upon seeing what Jesus had done, many of the Jews who had come with Mary believed in Him. [They trusted in Him and adhered to Him and relied on Him.]
46 But some of them went back to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
47 So the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting of the council (the Sanhedrin) and said, What are we to do? For this Man performs many signs (evidences, miracles).
48 If we let Him alone to go on like this, everyone will believe in Him and adhere to Him, and the Romans will come and suppress and destroy and take away our [holy] place and our nation [[b]our temple and city and our civil organization].
49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, declared, You know nothing at all!
50 Nor do you understand or reason out that it is expedient and better for your own welfare that one man should die on behalf of the people than that the whole nation should perish (be destroyed, ruined).
51 Now he did not say this simply of his own accord [he was not self-moved]; but being the high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was to die for the nation,(A)
52 And not only for the nation but also for the purpose of uniting into one body the children of God who have been scattered far and wide.(B)
53 So from that day on they took counsel and plotted together how they might put Him to death.
54 For that reason Jesus no longer appeared publicly among the Jews, but left there and retired to the district that borders on the wilderness (the desert), to a village called Ephraim, and there He stayed with the disciples.
55 Now the Jewish Passover was at hand, and many from the country went up to Jerusalem in order that they might purify and consecrate themselves before the Passover.
56 So they kept looking for Jesus and questioned among themselves as they were standing about in the temple [[c]area], What do you think? Will He not come to the Feast at all?
57 Now the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where He was, he should report it to them, so that they might arrest Him.
8 Does not skillful and godly Wisdom cry out, and understanding raise her voice [in contrast to the loose woman]?
2 On the top of the heights beside the way, where the paths meet, stands Wisdom [skillful and godly];
3 At the gates at the entrance of the town, at the coming in at the doors, she cries out:
4 To you, O men, I call, and my voice is directed to the sons of men.
5 O you simple and thoughtless ones, understand prudence; you [self-confident] fools, be of an understanding heart.(A)
6 Hear, for I will speak excellent and princely things; and the opening of my lips shall be for right things.
7 For my mouth shall utter truth, and wrongdoing is detestable and loathsome to my lips.
8 All the words of my mouth are righteous (upright and in right standing with God); there is nothing contrary to truth or crooked in them.
9 They are all plain to him who understands [and opens his heart], and right to those who find knowledge [and live by it].
10 Receive my instruction in preference to [striving for] silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold,
11 For skillful and godly Wisdom is better than rubies or pearls, and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.(B)
12 I, Wisdom [from God], make prudence my dwelling, and I find out knowledge and discretion.(C)
13 The reverent fear and worshipful awe of the Lord [includes] the hatred of evil; pride, arrogance, the evil way, and perverted and twisted speech I hate.
14 I have counsel and sound knowledge, I have understanding, I have might and power.
15 By me kings reign and rulers decree justice.(D)
16 By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges and governors of the earth.
17 I love those who love me, and those who seek me early and diligently shall find me.(E)
18 Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness (uprightness in every area and relation, and right standing with God).(F)
19 My fruit is better than gold, yes, than refined gold, and my increase than choice silver.
20 I [Wisdom] walk in the way of righteousness (moral and spiritual rectitude in every area and relation), in the midst of the paths of justice,
21 That I may cause those who love me to inherit [true] riches and that I may fill their treasuries.
22 The Lord formed and brought me [Wisdom] forth at the beginning of His way, before His acts of old.
23 I [Wisdom] was inaugurated and ordained from everlasting, from the beginning, before ever the earth existed.(G)
24 When there were no deeps, I was brought forth, when there were no fountains laden with water.
25 Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, I was brought forth,(H)
26 While as yet He had not made the land or the fields or the first of the dust of the earth.
27 When He prepared the heavens, I [Wisdom] was there; when He drew a circle upon the face of the deep and stretched out the firmament over it,
28 When He made firm the skies above, when He established the fountains of the deep,
29 When He gave to the sea its limit and His decree that the waters should not transgress [across the boundaries set by] His command, when He appointed the foundations of the earth—(I)
30 Then I [Wisdom] was [a]beside Him as a master and director of the work; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing before Him always,(J)
31 Rejoicing in His inhabited earth and delighting in the sons of men.(K)
32 Now therefore listen to me, O you sons; for blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are those who keep my ways.(L)
33 Hear instruction and be wise, and do not refuse or neglect it.
34 Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors.
35 For whoever finds me [Wisdom] finds life and draws forth and obtains favor from the Lord.
36 But he who misses me or sins against me wrongs and injures himself; all who hate me love and court death.
1 Paul, an apostle (special messenger) of Christ Jesus (the Messiah), by the divine will (the purpose and the choice of God) to the saints (the consecrated, set-apart ones) [a]at Ephesus who are also faithful and loyal and steadfast in Christ Jesus:
2 May grace (God’s unmerited favor) and spiritual peace [which means peace with God and harmony, unity, and undisturbedness] be yours from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 May blessing (praise, laudation, and eulogy) be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) Who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual (given by the Holy Spirit) blessing in the heavenly realm!
4 Even as [in His love] He chose us [actually picked us out for Himself as His own] in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love.
5 For He foreordained us (destined us, planned in love for us) to be adopted (revealed) as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the purpose of His will [[b]because it pleased Him and was His kind intent]—
6 [So that we might be] to the praise and the commendation of His glorious grace (favor and mercy), which He so freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
7 In Him we have redemption (deliverance and salvation) through His blood, the remission (forgiveness) of our offenses (shortcomings and trespasses), in accordance with the riches and the generosity of His gracious favor,
8 Which He lavished upon us in every kind of wisdom and understanding (practical insight and prudence),
9 Making known to us the mystery (secret) of His will (of His plan, of His purpose). [And it is this:] In accordance with His good pleasure (His merciful intention) which He had previously purposed and set forth in [c]Him,
10 [He planned] for the maturity of the times and the climax of the ages to unify all things and head them up and consummate them in Christ, [both] things in heaven and things on the earth.
11 In Him we also were made [God’s] heritage (portion) and we obtained an inheritance; for we had been foreordained (chosen and appointed beforehand) in accordance with His purpose, Who works out everything in agreement with the counsel and design of His [own] will,
12 So that we who first hoped in Christ [who first put our confidence in Him have been destined and appointed to] live for the praise of His glory!
13 In Him you also who have heard the Word of Truth, the glad tidings (Gospel) of your salvation, and have believed in and adhered to and relied on Him, were stamped with the seal of the long-promised Holy Spirit.
14 That [Spirit] is the guarantee of our inheritance [the firstfruits, the pledge and foretaste, the down payment on our heritage], in anticipation of its full redemption and our acquiring [complete] possession of it—to the praise of His glory.
15 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints (the people of God),
16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.
17 [For I always pray to] the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, that He may grant you a spirit of wisdom and revelation [of insight into mysteries and secrets] in the [deep and intimate] knowledge of Him,
18 By having the eyes of your heart flooded with light, so that you can know and understand the hope to which He has called you, and how rich is His glorious inheritance in the saints (His set-apart ones),
19 And [so that you can know and understand] what is the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power in and for us who believe, as demonstrated in the working of His mighty strength,
20 Which He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His [own] right hand in the heavenly [places],
21 Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named [above every title that can be conferred], not only in this age and in this world, but also in the age and the world which are to come.
22 And He has put all things under His feet and has appointed Him the universal and supreme Head of the church [a headship exercised throughout the church],(A)
23 Which is His body, the fullness of Him Who fills all in all [for in that body lives the full measure of Him Who makes everything complete, and Who fills everything everywhere with Himself].
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