M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

42 Now Ya‘akov saw that there was grain in Egypt; so Ya‘akov said to his sons, “Why are you staring at each other? ² Look,” he said, “I’ve heard that there’s grain in Egypt. Go down there and buy some for us from there, so that we can stay alive and not die!” ³ Thus Yosef’s ten brothers went down to buy grain from Egypt, ⁴ except for Binyamin, Yosef’s brother. Ya‘akov did not send him with his brothers, because he was afraid something might happen to him.

⁵ The sons of Isra’el came to buy along with the others that came, since the famine extended to the land of Kena‘an. ⁶ Yosef was governor over the land; it was he who sold to all the people of the land. Now when Yosef’s brothers came and prostrated themselves before him on the ground, ⁷ Yosef saw his brothers and recognized them; but he acted toward them as if he were a stranger and spoke harshly with them. He asked them, “Where are you from?” They answered, “From the land of Kena‘an to buy food.” ⁸ So Yosef recognized his brothers, but they didn’t recognize him.

⁹ Remembering the dreams he had had about them, Yosef said to them, “You are spies! You’ve come to spot our country’s weaknesses!” ¹⁰ “No, my lord,” they replied, “your servants have come to buy food. ¹¹ We’re all the sons of one man, we’re upright men; your servants aren’t spies.” ¹² “No,” he said to them, “you’ve come to spy out our country’s weaknesses.” ¹³ They said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Kena‘an; the youngest stayed with our father, and another one is gone.” ¹⁴ “Just as I said,” replied Yosef, “you’re spies! ¹⁵ Here’s how you can prove you’re not lying: as Pharaoh lives, you will not leave here unless your youngest brother comes here. ¹⁶ Send one of you, and let him bring your brother. Meanwhile, you will be kept in custody. This will prove whether there is any truth in what you say. Otherwise, as Pharaoh lives, you are certainly spies.” ¹⁷ Then he put all of them together in prison for three days.

¹⁸ On the third day, Yosef said to them, “Do what I say, and stay alive, for I fear God. (v) ¹⁹ If you are upright men, let one of your brothers remain incarcerated in the prison you’re being kept in, while you go and carry grain back to relieve the famine in your homes. ²⁰ But bring your youngest brother to me. In this way your statements will be verified, and you won’t die.”

So they did it. ²¹ They said to each other, “We are in fact guilty concerning our brother. He was in distress and pleaded with us; we saw it and wouldn’t listen. That’s why this distress has come upon us now.” ²² Re’uven answered them, “Didn’t I tell you, ‘Don’t wrong the boy’? But you wouldn’t hear of it. Now comes the reckoning for his blood!” ²³ They had no idea that Yosef understood them, since an interpreter was translating for them. ²⁴ Yosef turned away from them and wept; then he returned and spoke to them. He took Shim‘on from among them and put him in prison before their eyes. ²⁵ Next he ordered that their containers be filled with grain, that every man’s money be put back in his pack and that they be given provisions for the journey. When these things had been done for them, ²⁶ they loaded their grain on their donkeys and departed.

²⁷ But at camp that night, as one of them opened his pack to give fodder to his donkey, he noticed his money — there it was, just inside his pack. ²⁸ He said to his brothers, “My money has been restored — there it is, right in my pack!” At that, their hearts sank; they turned, trembling, to one another and said, “What is this that God has done to us?”

²⁹ They returned to Ya‘akov their father in the land of Kena‘an and told him all that had happened to them. ³⁰ “The man, the lord of the land, spoke harshly with us. He took us for spies in his country. ³¹ We said to him, ‘We are upright men, we’re not spies; ³² we are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is gone, and the youngest stayed with our father in the land of Kena‘an.’ ³³ But the man, the lord of the land, said to us, ‘Here is how I will know that you are upright men: leave one of your brothers with me, take grain to relieve the famine in your homes, and go on your way; ³⁴ but bring your youngest brother to me. By this I will know that you aren’t spies, but are upright men; then I will return your brother to you; and you will do business in the land.’”

³⁵ Next, as they emptied their packs, there was each man’s bag of money in his pack; and when they and their father saw their bags of money, they became afraid. ³⁶ Ya‘akov their father said to them, “You have robbed me of my children! Yosef is gone, Shim‘on is gone, now you’re taking Binyamin away — it all falls on me!” ³⁷ Re’uven said to his father, “If I don’t bring him back to you, you can kill my own two sons! Put him in my care; I will return him to you.” ³⁸ But he replied, “My son will not go down with you. His brother is dead, and he alone is left. If anything were to happen to him while traveling with you, you would bring my gray hair down to Sh’ol with grief.”

12 Yeshua began speaking to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the wine press and built a tower; then he rented it to tenant-farmers and left. ² When harvest-time came, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect his share of the crop from the vineyard. ³ But they took him, beat him up and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴ So he sent another servant; this one they punched in the head and insulted. ⁵ He sent another one, and him they killed; and so with many others — some they beat up, others they killed. ⁶ He had still one person left, a son whom he loved; in the end, he sent him to them, saying, ‘My son they will respect.’ ⁷ But the tenants said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ ⁸ So they seized him, killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. ⁹ What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others! ¹⁰ Haven’t you read the passage in the Tanakh that says,

¹² They set about to arrest him, for they recognized that he had told the parable with reference to themselves. But they were afraid of the crowd, so they left him and went away.

¹³ Next they sent some P’rushim and some members of Herod’s party to him in order to trap him with a sh’eilah. ¹⁴ They came and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you tell the truth and are not concerned with what people think about you, since you pay no attention to a person’s status but really teach what God’s way is. Does Torah say that taxes are to be paid to the Roman Emperor, or not?” ¹⁵ But he, knowing their hypocrisy, said to them, “Why are you trying to trap me? Bring me a denarius so I can look at it.” ¹⁶ They brought one; and he asked them, “Whose name and picture are these?” “The Emperor’s,” they replied. ¹⁷ Yeshua said, “Give the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor. And give to God what belongs to God!” And they were amazed at him.

¹⁸ Then some Tz’dukim came to him. They are the ones who say there is no such thing as resurrection, so they put to him a sh’eilah: ¹⁹ “Rabbi, Moshe wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and have children to preserve the man’s family line.^{[b] 20} There were seven brothers. The first one took a wife, and when he died, he left no children. ²¹ Then the second one took her and died without leaving children, and the third likewise, ²² and none of the seven left children. Last of all, the woman also died. ²³ In the Resurrection, whose wife will she be? For all seven had her as wife.”

²⁴ Yeshua said to them, “Isn’t this the reason that you go astray? because you are ignorant both of the Tanakh and of the power of God? ²⁵ For when people rise from the dead, neither men nor women marry — they are like angels in heaven. ²⁶ And as for the dead being raised, haven’t you read in the book of Moshe, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Avraham, the God of Yitz’chak and the God of Ya‘akov’?^{[c] 27} He is God not of the dead, but of the living! You are going far astray!”

²⁸ One of the Torah-teachers came up and heard them engaged in this discussion. Seeing that Yeshua answered them well, he asked him, “Which is the most important mitzvah of them all?” ²⁹ Yeshua answered, “The most important is,

³¹ The second is this:

There is no other mitzvah greater than these.” ³² The Torah-teacher said to him, “Well said, Rabbi; you speak the truth when you say that he is one, and that there is no other besides him; ³³ and that loving him with all one’s heart, understanding and strength, and loving one’s neighbor as oneself, mean more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.” ³⁴ When Yeshua saw that he responded sensibly, he said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” And after that, no one dared put to him another sh’eilah.

³⁵ As Yeshua was teaching in the Temple, he asked, “How is it that the Torah-teachers say the Messiah is the Son of David? ³⁶ David himself, inspired by the Ruach HaKodesh, said,

³⁷ David himself calls him ‘Lord’; so how is he his son?”

The great crowd listened eagerly to him. ³⁸ As he taught them, he said, “Watch out for the kind of Torah-teachers who like to walk around in robes and be greeted deferentially in the marketplaces, ³⁹ who like to have the best seats in the synagogues and take the places of honor at banquets, ⁴⁰ who like to swallow up widows’ houses while making a show of davvening at great length. Their punishment will be all the worse!”

⁴¹ Then Yeshua sat down opposite the Temple treasury and watched the crowd as they put money into the offering-boxes. Many rich people put in large sums, ⁴² but a poor widow came and put in two small coins. ⁴³ He called his talmidim to him and said to them, “Yes! I tell you, this poor widow has put more in the offering-box than all the others making donations. ⁴⁴ For all of them, out of their wealth, have contributed money they can easily spare; but she, out of her poverty, has given everything she had to live on.”

12 I exhort you, therefore, brothers, in view of God’s mercies, to offer yourselves as a sacrifice, living and set apart for God. This will please him; it is the logical “Temple worship” for you. ² In other words, do not let yourselves be conformed to the standards of the ‘olam hazeh. Instead, keep letting yourselves be transformed by the renewing of your minds; so that you will know what God wants and will agree that what he wants is good, satisfying and able to succeed. ³ For I am telling every single one of you, through the grace that has been given to me, not to have exaggerated ideas about your own importance. Instead, develop a sober estimate of yourself based on the standard which God has given to each of you, namely, trust. ⁴ For just as there are many parts that compose one body, but the parts don’t all have the same function; ⁵ so there are many of us, and in union with the Messiah we comprise one body, with each of us belonging to the others. ⁶ But we have gifts that differ and which are meant to be used according to the grace that has been given to us. If your gift is prophecy, use it to the extent of your trust; ⁷ if it is serving, use it to serve; if you are a teacher, use your gift in teaching; ⁸ if you are a counselor, use your gift to comfort and exhort; if you are someone who gives, do it simply and generously; if you are in a position of leadership, lead with diligence and zeal; if you are one who does acts of mercy, do them cheerfully.

⁹ Don’t let love be a mere outward show. Recoil from what is evil, and cling to what is good. ¹⁰ Love each other devotedly and with brotherly love; and set examples for each other in showing respect. ¹¹ Don’t be lazy when hard work is needed, but serve the Lord with spiritual fervor. ¹² Rejoice in your hope, be patient in your troubles, and continue steadfastly in prayer. ¹³ Share what you have with God’s people, and practice hospitality.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you — bless them, don’t curse them! ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Be sensitive to each other’s needs — don’t think yourselves better than others, but make humble people your friends. Don’t be conceited. ¹⁷ Repay no one evil for evil, but try to do what everyone regards as good. ¹⁸ If possible, and to the extent that it depends on you, live in peace with all people. ¹⁹ Never seek revenge, my friends; instead, leave that to God’s anger; for in the Tanakh it is written,

²¹ Do not be conquered by evil, but conquer evil with good.