M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Chapter 34
Canaan’s Boundaries. 1 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Command the people of Israel and say to them, ‘When you come into the land of Canaan, this is the land that will fall to you as an inheritance: the land of Canaan to its borders.
3 “ ‘Your southern section will run from the Desert of Zin along the border of Edom. Your southern border will be along the eastern coast of the Salt Sea. 4 Your border in the south will extend from the Ascent of Akrabbim on to Zin, and then passing on the south of Kadesh-barnea on to Hazar-addar and Azmon. 5 From Azmon the border will stretch to the Wadi of Egypt,[a] ending where it enters the sea.
6 “ ‘Your western border will be the great sea. This will be your western border.
7 “ ‘Your northern border will run from the great sea to Mount Hor. 8 From Mount Hor it will run to the Pass of Hamath. The border will then run to Zedad. 9 The border will continue on to Ziphron and it will end at Hazar-enan. This will be your northern border.
10 “ ‘Your eastern border will run from Hazar-enan to Shepham. 11 The border will run down from Shepham to Riblah on the eastern side of Ain. The border will run down until it reaches the eastern shore of the Sea of Chinnereth.[b] 12 The border will run down along the Jordan until it enters the Salt Sea. This will be your land, with your borders on every side.’ ”
13 Moses commanded the people of Israel, saying, “This is the land that you will inherit by lot, as the Lord commanded. Give it to the nine and one-half tribes. 14 The tribe of the Reubenites, according to their ancestral tribe, has received their inheritance. The tribe of the Gadites, according to their ancestral tribe, as well as the half-tribe of Manasseh, have received their inheritance. 15 The two and one-half tribes have received their inheritance across the Jordan, opposite Jericho, to the east, toward the direction of sunrise.”
16 Appointed Leaders.[c] The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 17 “The names of the men who will divide the land for you are: Eleazar the priest and Joshua, the son of Nun. 18 You will choose one leader from each tribe to divide the land for inheritance. 19 These are the names of the men: from the tribe of Judah: Caleb, the son of Jephunneh; 20 from the tribe of Simeon: Samuel, the son of Ammihud; 21 from the tribe of Benjamin: Elidad, the son of Chislon; 22 from the tribe of Dan, a leader: Bukki, the son of Jogli; 23 from the tribe of Joseph, from the tribe of Manasseh, a leader: Hanniel, the son of Ephod; 24 from the tribe of Ephraim, a leader: Kemuel, the son of Shiphtan; 25 from the tribe of Zebulun, a leader: Elizaphan, the son of Parnach; 26 from the tribe of Issachar, a leader: Paltiel, the son of Azzan; 27 from the tribe of Asher, a leader: Ahihud, the son of Shelomi; 28 from the tribe of Naphtali, a leader: Pedahel, the son of Ammihud.” 29 These are the ones whom the Lord commanded to divide the inheritance of the people of Israel in the land of Canaan.
38 Even so, he was compassionate toward them;
he forgave their guilt
and did not destroy them.
Time after time he held back his anger,
unwilling to stir up his rage.
39 For he remembered that they were flesh,
like a breath of wind that does not return.
40 [a]How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness
and pained him in the wasteland.
41 Again and again they tested God’s patience,
provoking the Holy One of Israel.[b]
42 They did not keep in mind his power
or the day when he delivered them from their oppressor,
43 when he manifested his wonders in Egypt
and his portents in the Plain of Zoan.
44 [c]He turned their rivers into blood;
they could not drink from their streams.
45 He sent swarms of flies that devoured them
and frogs that devastated them.
46 He assigned their harvest to the caterpillars
and their produce to the locusts.
47 He destroyed their vines with hail
and their sycamore trees with frost.
48 He exposed their cattle to hailstones
and their flocks to bolts of lightning.
49 He sent upon them his blazing anger,
wrath, fury, and hostility,
a band of destroying angels.[d]
50 He gave his anger free rein;
he did not spare them from death
but delivered their lives to the plague.
51 He struck down all the firstborn in Egypt,
the firstfruits of their manhood in the tents of Ham.[e]
52 Then he led forth his people like sheep
and guided them through the wilderness like a flock.
53 He led them in safety, and they were not afraid,
while the sea engulfed their enemies.
54 He brought them to his holy land,
to the mountain his right hand had purchased.
55 He drove out the nations before them,
apportioning a heritage for each of them
and settling the tribes of Israel in their tents.[f]
56 [g]Even so, they put God to the test
and rebelled against the Most High,
refusing to observe his decrees.
57 They turned away and were disloyal like their ancestors;
they were as unreliable as a faulty bow.
58 They angered him with their high places[h]
and made him jealous with their idols.
59 When God saw this, he became enraged
and rejected Israel totally.[i]
60 He forsook his dwelling in Shiloh,[j]
the tent where he dwelt among mortals.
61 He surrendered his might into captivity
and his glory[k] into the hands of the enemy.
62 He abandoned his people to the sword
and vented his wrath on his own heritage.
63 Fire devoured their young men,
and their maidens had no wedding song.
64 Their priests fell by the sword,
and their widows sang no lamentation.
65 [l]Then the Lord awakened as from sleep,
like a warrior flushed from the effects of wine.
66 He struck his enemies and routed them,
inflicting perpetual shame on them.
67 He rejected the tent of Joseph
and did not choose the tribe of Ephraim.
68 Rather, he chose the tribe of Judah,
Mount Zion,[m] which he loved.
69 He built his sanctuary like the high heavens,
and like the earth[n] that he founded forever.
70 He chose David[o] to be his servant
and took him from the sheepfolds.
71 From tending sheep he brought him
to be the shepherd of his people Jacob,
of Israel, his heritage.
72 He shepherded them with an unblemished heart
and guided them with a knowing hand.[p]
Chapter 26
A Song of Victory. 1 On that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:
We have a strongly fortified city,
with walls and ramparts established to protect us.
2 Open the gates
to allow the upright nation to enter,
the nation that keeps faith.
3 O Lord, you grant peace to those who are steadfast
because of their trust in you.
4 Trust in the Lord forever,
for the Lord is an eternal rock.
5 He has brought low those in high places
and leveled their citadel,
casting it down to the ground
and flinging it down to the dust,
6 to be trampled underfoot
by the feet of the poor and the oppressed.
7 The path of the righteous is smooth,
for you make level the way of the just.
8 As we proceed in the path of your judgments,
we wait for you, O Lord;
your name and your renown
are all that our heart desires.
9 My soul longs for you throughout the night,
and my spirit within me seeks your presence.
For when your judgments are revealed to the earth,
the inhabitants of the world learn to practice justice.
10 If favor is granted to the wicked,
they will never learn justice.
In the presence of the upright they will act perversely
and fail to behold the majesty of the Lord.
11 O Lord, your hand is raised high
but they fail to see it.
Let them be ashamed
when they behold your zeal for your people;
let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.
12 O Lord, you will grant us peace;
everything we have accomplished you have done for us.
13 O Lord, our God,
other lords besides you have ruled us,
but we acknowledge only your name.
14 The dead will not come back to life;
their departed spirits will not rise again.
For you have punished and destroyed them
and eradicated all memory of them.
15 O Lord, you have enlarged the nation,
and in enlarging it you have been glorified;
you have extended all the frontiers of the country.
16 O Lord, in our distress we cried out to you,
pouring forth our prayers
as we suffered your chastisement.
17 As a woman who is pregnant
writhes and cries out in her agony
when her time of delivery is near,
so were we because of you, O Lord.
18 We were with child and writhed with pain,
but we gave birth only to wind.
We have achieved no salvation for the earth,
and no one has been born to inhabit the world.
19 But your dead will live
and their bodies will rise again.
Awake and sing for joy,
you who sleep in the dust.
For your dew will be radiant,
and the earth will give birth again
to those who have long been dead.
The Lord’s Vindication
20 Go forth, my people, enter your chambers,
and shut your doors behind you.
Withdraw for a short while
until the wrath has subsided.
21 For the Lord emerges from his dwelling place
to punish the inhabitants of the earth
for their wickedness.
The earth will reveal the blood shed upon it
and will no longer hide its slain.
Chapter 4
The Spirit of the Antichrist in the World[a]
1 Beloved,
do not trust every spirit,
but test the spirits
to see whether they are from God.
For many false prophets
have gone out into the world.
2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God:
every spirit that acknowledges
that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh[b]
is from God,
3 and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus
is not from God.
This is the spirit of the Antichrist,
about whose coming you have been told,
and that it is already in the world.
4 Dear children,
you are from God[c]
and you have conquered them,
for the one who is in you is greater
than the one who is in the world.
5 They are from the world;
therefore, what they say is from the world,
and the world listens to them.
6 We are from God.
Anyone who knows God listens to us,
while anyone who is not from God
refuses to listen to us.
This is how we can distinguish
the spirit of truth from the spirit of falsehood.[d]
Remain in Love[e]
What Love Is
7 Beloved,
let us love one another,
because love is from God.[f]
Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love
does not know God,
because God is love.
9 God’s love was revealed to us in this way:
God sent his only-begotten Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
10 This is what love is:
not that we have loved God,
but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.[g]
11 Beloved,
since God loved us so much,
we should love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God,
but if we love one another,
God abides in us,
and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we can be certain
that we abide in him
and that he abides in us:
he has given us a share in his Spirit.[h]
14 Moreover, we have seen for ourselves
and can testify
that the Father has sent the Son
as the Savior of the world.
15 God abides in anyone who acknowledges
that Jesus is the Son of God,
and that person abides in God.
16 We have come to know
and to believe in
the love that God has for us.
God is love,
and whoever abides in love
abides in God,
and God in him.
17 This is how love is made perfect in us,
enabling us to have confidence
on the Day of Judgment,
because even in this world
we have become like him.
18 In love there is no fear;
indeed, perfect love casts out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment,
and whoever fears
has not yet achieved perfection in love.
19 Therefore, we love because he first loved us.
20 If someone says, “I love God,”
but at the same time hates his brother,
he is a liar.
For whoever does not love the brother
whom he has seen
cannot love God whom he has not seen.
21 This is the commandment
we have received from him:
whoever loves God
must also love his brother.
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