M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

2 A man from the family of Levi took a woman also descended from Levi as his wife. ² When she conceived and had a son, upon seeing what a fine child he was, she hid him for three months. ³ When she could no longer hide him, she took a papyrus basket, coated it with clay and tar, put the child in it and placed it among the reeds on the riverbank. ⁴ His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

⁵ The daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe in the river while her maids-in-attendance walked along the riverside. Spotting the basket among the reeds, she sent her slave-girl to get it. ⁶ She opened it and looked inside, and there in front of her was a crying baby boy! Moved with pity, she said, “This must be one of the Hebrews’ children.” ⁷ At this point, his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Would you like me to go and find you one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” ⁸ Pharaoh’s daughter answered, “Yes, go.” So the girl went and called the baby’s own mother. ⁹ Pharaoh’s daughter told her, “Take this child away, and nurse it for me, and I will pay you for doing it.” So the woman took the child and nursed it. ¹⁰ Then, when the child had grown some, she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter; and she began to raise him as her son. She called him Moshe [pull out], explaining, “Because I pulled him out of the water.”

(iii) ¹¹ One day, when Moshe was a grown man, he went out to visit his kinsmen; and he watched them struggling at forced labor. He saw an Egyptian strike a Hebrew, one of his kinsmen. ¹² He looked this way and that; and when he saw that no one was around, he killed the Egyptian and hid his body in the sand. ¹³ The next day, he went out and saw two Hebrew men fighting with each other. To the one in the wrong he said, “Why are you hitting your companion?” ¹⁴ He retorted, “Who appointed you ruler and judge over us? Do you intend to kill me the way you killed the Egyptian?” Moshe became frightened. “Clearly,” he thought, “the matter has become known.” ¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of it, he tried to have Moshe put to death. But Moshe fled from Pharaoh to live in the land of Midyan.

One day, as he was sitting by a well, ¹⁶ the seven daughters of the priest of Midyan came to draw water. They had filled the troughs to water their father’s sheep, ¹⁷ when the shepherds came and tried to drive them away. But Moshe got up and defended them; then he watered their sheep. ¹⁸ When they came to Re‘u’el their father, he said, “How come you’re back so soon today?” ¹⁹ They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds; more than that, he drew water for us and watered the sheep.” ²⁰ He asked his daughters, “Where is he? Why did you leave the man there? Invite him to have something to eat.”

²¹ Moshe was glad to stay on with the man, and he gave Moshe his daughter Tzipporah in marriage. ²² She gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom [foreigner there], for he said, “I have been a foreigner in a foreign land.”

²³ Sometime during those many years the king of Egypt died, but the people of Isra’el still groaned under the yoke of slavery, and they cried out, and their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov. ²⁵ God saw the people of Isra’el, and God acknowledged them.

5 One day, as Yeshua was standing on the shore of Lake Kinneret, with the people pressing in around him in order to hear the word of God, ² he noticed two boats pulled up on the beach, left there by the fishermen, who were cleaning their nets. ³ He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Shim‘on, and asked him to put out a little way from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

⁴ When he had finished speaking, he said to Shim‘on, “Put out into deep water, and let down your nets for a catch.” ⁵ Shim‘on answered, “We’ve worked hard all night long, Rabbi, and haven’t caught a thing! But if you say so, I’ll let down the nets.” ⁶ They did this and took in so many fish that their nets began to tear. ⁷ So they motioned to their partners in the other boat to come and help them; and they came and filled both boats to the point of sinking. ⁸ When he saw this, Shim‘on Kefa fell at Yeshua’s knees and said, “Get away from me, sir, because I’m a sinner!” ⁹ For astonishment had seized him and everyone with him at the catch of fish they had taken, ¹⁰ and likewise both Ya‘akov and Yochanan, Shim‘on’s partners. “Don’t be frightened,” Yeshua said to Shim‘on, “from now on you will be catching men — alive!” ¹¹ And as soon as they had beached their boats, they left everything behind and followed him.

¹² Once, when Yeshua was in one of the towns, there came a man completely covered with tzara‘at. On seeing Yeshua, he fell on his face and begged him, “Sir, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” ¹³ Yeshua reached out his hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing! Be cleansed!” Immediately the tzara‘at left him. ¹⁴ Then Yeshua warned him not to tell anyone. “Instead, as a testimony to the people, go straight to the cohen and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moshe commanded.” ¹⁵ But the news about Yeshua kept spreading all the more, so that huge crowds would gather to listen and be healed of their sicknesses. ¹⁶ However, he made a practice of withdrawing to remote places in order to pray.

¹⁷ One day when Yeshua was teaching, there were P’rushim and Torah-teachers present who had come from various villages in the Galil and Y’hudah, also from Yerushalayim; and the power of Adonai was with him to heal the sick. ¹⁸ Some men came carrying a paralyzed man lying on a bed. They wanted to bring him inside and lay him in front of Yeshua, ¹⁹ but they couldn’t find a way to get him in because of the crowd. So they went up onto the roof and lowered him on his mattress through the tiles into the middle of the gathering, right in front of Yeshua. ²⁰ When Yeshua saw their trust, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.” ²¹ The Torah-teachers and the P’rushim began thinking, “Who is this fellow that speaks such blasphemies? Who can forgive sin except God?” ²² But Yeshua, knowing what they were thinking, answered, “Why are you turning over such thoughts in your hearts? ²³ Which is easier to say? ‘Your sins are forgiven you’? or ‘Get up and walk’? ²⁴ But look! I will prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” He then said to the paralytic, “I say to you: get up, pick up your mattress and go home!” ²⁵ Immediately, in front of everyone, he stood up, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home praising God. ²⁶ Amazement seized them all, and they made a b’rakhah to God; they were awestruck, saying, “We have seen extraordinary things today.”

²⁷ Later Yeshua went out and saw a tax-collector named Levi sitting in his tax-collection booth; and he said to him, “Follow me!” ²⁸ He got up, left everything and followed him.

²⁹ Levi gave a banquet at his house in Yeshua’s honor, and there was a large group of tax-collectors and others at the table with them. ³⁰ The P’rushim and their Torah-teachers protested indignantly against his talmidim, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax-collectors and sinners?” ³¹ It was Yeshua who answered them: “The ones who need a doctor aren’t the healthy but the sick. ³² I have not come to call the ‘righteous,’ but rather to call sinners to turn to God from their sins.”

³³ Next they said to him, “Yochanan’s talmidim are always fasting and davvening, and likewise the talmidim of the P’rushim; but yours go on eating and drinking.” ³⁴ Yeshua said to them, “Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is still with them? ³⁵ The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them; and when that time comes, they will fast.” ³⁶ Then he gave them an illustration: “No one tears a piece from a new coat and puts it on an old one; if he does, not only will the new one continue to rip, but the piece from the new will not match the old. ³⁷ Also, no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and be spilled, and the skins too will be ruined. ³⁸ On the contrary, new wine must be put into freshly prepared wineskins. ³⁹ Besides that, after drinking old wine, people don’t want new; because they say, ‘The old is good enough.’”

6 How dare one of you with a complaint against another go to court before pagan judges and not before God’s people? ² Don’t you know that God’s people are going to judge the universe? If you are going to judge the universe, are you incompetent to judge these minor matters? ³ Don’t you know that we will judge angels, not to mention affairs of everyday life? ⁴ So if you require judgments about matters of everyday life, why do you put them in front of men who have no standing in the Messianic Community? ⁵ I say, shame on you! Can it be that there isn’t one person among you wise enough to be able to settle a dispute between brothers? ⁶ Instead, a brother brings a lawsuit against another brother, and that before unbelievers!

⁷ Actually, if you are bringing lawsuits against each other, it is already a defeat for you. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? ⁸ Instead, you yourselves wrong and cheat; and you do it to your own brothers! ⁹ Don’t you know that unrighteous people will have no share in the Kingdom of God? Don’t delude yourselves — people who engage in sex before marriage, who worship idols, who engage in sex after marriage with someone other than their spouse, who engage in active or passive homosexuality, ¹⁰ who steal, who are greedy, who get drunk, who assail people with contemptuous language, who rob — none of them will share in the Kingdom of God. ¹¹ Some of you used to do these things. But you have cleansed yourselves, you have been set apart for God, you have come to be counted righteous through the power of the Lord Yeshua the Messiah and the Spirit of our God.

¹² You say, “For me, everything is permitted”? Maybe, but not everything is helpful. “For me, everything is permitted”? Maybe, but as far as I am concerned, I am not going to let anything gain control over me. ¹³ “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food”? Maybe, but God will put an end to both of them. Anyhow, the body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body. ¹⁴ God raised up the Lord, and he will raise us up too by his power.

¹⁵ Don’t you know that your bodies are parts of the Messiah? So, am I to take parts of the Messiah and make them parts of a prostitute? Heaven forbid! ¹⁶ Don’t you know that a man who joins himself to a prostitute becomes physically one with her? For the Tanakh says, “The two will become one flesh”;^{[a] 17} but the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. ¹⁸ Run from sexual immorality! Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the fornicator sins against his own body. ¹⁹ Or don’t you know that your body is a temple for the Ruach HaKodesh who lives inside you, whom you received from God? The fact is, you don’t belong to yourselves; ²⁰ for you were bought at a price. So use your bodies to glorify God.