M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
14 Shimshon went down to Timnah, and in Timnah he saw a woman who was one of the P’lishtim. 2 He came up and told his father and mother, “I saw a woman in Timnah, one of the P’lishtim. Now get her for me to be my wife.” 3 His father and mother replied, “Isn’t there any woman from the daughters of your kinsmen or among all my people? Must you go to the uncircumcised P’lishtim to find a wife?” Shimshon said to his father, “Get her for me. I like her.” 4 His father and mother didn’t know that all this came from Adonai, who was seeking grounds for a quarrel with the P’lishtim. (At that time the P’lishtim were ruling Isra’el.)
5 Shimshon went down with his father and mother to Timnah. When they came to the vineyards of Timnah, a young lion roared at him. 6 The Spirit of Adonai came powerfully upon Shimshon, and barehanded he tore the lion to pieces as easily as if it had been a young goat. But he didn’t tell his father or mother what he had done. 7 Then he went down and talked with the woman and found he still liked her.
8 Awhile later, as he was returning to claim his bride, he turned aside to look at the carcass of the lion and saw that there was now a swarm of bees in the body of the lion, and honey. 9 He scraped the honey out into his hands and went on, eating as he went; and when he came to his father and mother, he gave them some; and they ate too. But he didn’t tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the body of the lion.
10 His father went down to the woman, and there Shimshon gave a banquet — this is what the young men used to do. 11 When the P’lishtim saw him, they provided thirty companions to be with him. 12 Shimshon said to them, “Let me present you with a riddle. If you can solve it within the seven days of the banquet and tell me the solution, I will give you thirty linen shirts and thirty changes of good clothes. 13 But if you can’t solve it, you give me thirty linen shirts and thirty changes of good clothes.” They answered, “Tell us the riddle, we want to hear it.” 14 So he said to them,
“Out of the eater came food;
out of the strong came sweetness.”
Three days passed, and they couldn’t solve the riddle. 15 On the seventh day, they said to Shimshon’s wife, “Coax your husband into telling us the solution to the riddle. Otherwise we’ll burn down your father’s house and you with it. You two called us here to turn us into paupers, didn’t you?” 16 Shimshon’s wife went to him in tears and said, “You don’t love me, you hate me! You told a riddle to my fellow countrymen, and you haven’t told me the answer.” He said to her, “Look, I haven’t even told it to my father and mother! Should I tell you?” 17 But she had been crying throughout the seven days of the banquet; so on the seventh day, because she had kept pressing him, he told her the solution; and she passed it on to her people. 18 Then, before sundown on the seventh day, the men of the city said to him,
“What is sweeter than honey?
and what is stronger than a lion?”
Shimshon answered,
“If you hadn’t plowed with my young cow,
you wouldn’t have solved my riddle now.”
19 Then the Spirit of Adonai came over him powerfully. He went down to Ashkelon, killed thirty of their men, took their good clothes, and gave them to the men who had “solved” the riddle. He was boiling with rage, so he went straight up to his father’s house, 20 and his wife was given to the companion who had been best man at the wedding.
18 After this, Sha’ul left Athens and went to Corinth, 2 where he met a Jewish man named Aquila, originally from Pontus but having recently come with his wife Priscilla from Italy, because Claudius had issued a decree expelling all the Jews from Rome. Sha’ul went to see them; 3 and because he had the same trade as they, making tents, he stayed on with them; and they worked together.
4 Sha’ul also began carrying on discussions every Shabbat in the synagogue, where he tried to convince both Jews and Greeks. 5 But after Sila and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Sha’ul felt pressed by the urgency of the message and testified in depth to the Jews that Yeshua is the Messiah. 6 However when they set themselves against him and began hurling insults, he shook out his clothes and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! For my part, I am clean; from now on, I will go to the Goyim!”
7 So he left them and went into the home of a “God-fearer” named Titius Justus, whose house was right next door to the synagogue. 8 Crispus, the president of the synagogue, came to trust in the Lord, along with his whole household; also many of the Corinthians who heard trusted and were immersed.
9 One night, in a vision, the Lord said to Sha’ul, “Don’t be afraid, but speak right up, and don’t stop, 10 because I am with you. No one will succeed in harming you, for I have many people in this city.” 11 So Sha’ul stayed there for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God.
12 But when Gallio became the Roman governor of Achaia, the unbelieving Jews made a concerted attack on Sha’ul and took him to court, 13 saying, “This man is trying to persuade people to worship God in ways that violate the Torah.” 14 Sha’ul was just about to open his mouth, when Gallio said to the Jews, “Listen, you Jews, if this were a case of inflicted injury or a serious crime, I could reasonably be expected to hear you out patiently. 15 But since it involves questions about words and names and your own law, then you must deal with it yourselves. I flatly refuse to judge such matters.” 16 And he had them ejected from the court. 17 They all grabbed Sosthenes, the president of the synagogue, and gave him a beating in full view of the bench; but Gallio showed no concern whatever.
18 Sha’ul remained for some time, then said good-bye to the brothers and sailed off to Syria, after having his hair cut short in Cenchrea, because he had taken a vow; with him were Priscilla and Aquila.
19 They came to Ephesus, and he left them there; but he himself went into the synagogue and held dialogue with the Jews. 20 When they asked him to stay with them longer, he declined; 21 however, in his farewell he said, “God willing, I will come back to you.” Then he set sail from Ephesus.
22 After landing at Caesarea, he went up to Yerushalayim and greeted the Messianic community. Then he came down to Antioch, 23 spent some time there, and afterwards set out and passed systematically through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the talmidim.
24 Meanwhile, a Jewish man named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was an eloquent speaker with a thorough knowledge of the Tanakh. 25 This man had been informed about the Way of the Lord, and with great spiritual fervor he spoke and taught accurately the facts about Yeshua, but he knew only the immersion of Yochanan. 26 He began to speak out boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the Way of God in fuller detail. 27 When he made plans to cross over into Achaia, the brothers encouraged him and wrote the talmidim there to welcome him. On arrival, he greatly helped those who through grace had come to trust; 28 for he powerfully and conclusively refuted the unbelieving Jews in public, demonstrating by the Tanakh that Yeshua is the Messiah.
27 At the beginning of the reign of Y’hoyakim the son of Yoshiyahu, king of Y’hudah, this word came to Yirmeyahu from Adonai: 2 “Adonai says this to me: ‘Make yourself a yoke of straps and crossbars, and put it on your neck. 3 Send [similar yokes] to the kings of Edom, of Mo’av, of the people of ‘Amon, of Tzor, and of Tzidon by means of the envoys they send to Yerushalayim, and to Tzidkiyahu king of Y’hudah. 4 Give them this message for their masters by telling their envoys that Adonai-Tzva’ot, the God of Isra’el, says for them to tell their masters:
5 “‘“I made the earth, humankind, and the animals on the earth by my great power and my outstretched arm; and I give it to whom it seems right to me. 6 For now, I have given over all these lands to my servant N’vukhadnetzar the king of Bavel; I have also given him the wild animals to serve him. 7 All the nations will serve him, his son and his grandson, until his own country gets its turn — at which time many nations and great kings will make him their slave. 8 The nation and kingdom that refuses to serve this N’vukhadnetzar king of Bavel, that will not put their necks under the yoke of the king of Bavel, I will punish,” says Adonai “with sword, famine and plague, until I have put an end to them through him.
9 “‘“You, therefore, don’t listen to your prophets, diviners, dreamers, magicians or sorcerers, when they tell you that you won’t be subject to the king of Bavel; 10 for they are prophesying lies to you that will result in your being removed far from your land, with my driving you out, so that you perish. 11 But the nation that puts its neck under the yoke of the king of Bavel and serves him, that nation I will allow to remain on their own soil,” says Adonai. “They will farm it and live there.”’”
12 Then I spoke to Tzidkiyahu king of Y’hudah in just the same way: “Put your necks under the yoke of the king of Bavel, serve him and his people, and you will live. 13 Why would you want to die, you and your people, by sword, famine and plague — which is what Adonai has decreed for the nation that will not serve the king of Bavel? 14 Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who say to you, ‘You will not serve the king of Bavel’; because they are prophesying lies to you. 15 ‘For I have not sent them,’ says Adonai, ‘and they are prophesying falsely in my name, with the result that I will drive you out, and you will perish — you and the prophets prophesying to you.’”
16 I also spoke to the cohanim and to all this people; I said, “This is what Adonai says: ‘Don’t listen to the words of the prophets prophesying to you that the articles from Adonai’s house will soon be returned from Bavel; because they are prophesying lies to you. 17 Don’t listen to them. Serve the king of Bavel, and stay alive; why should this city become a ruin?’ 18 But if they are in fact prophets, and if the word of Adonai is with them, then let them now intercede with Adonai-Tzva’ot that the articles still remaining in the house of Adonai and in the palace of the king of Y’hudah will not go off to Bavel. 19 For this is what Adonai-Tzva’ot says concerning the columns, the Sea, the bases and the rest of the articles still here in this city, 20 that N’vukhadnetzar, king of Bavel did not seize when he carried off captive Y’khanyahu the son of Y’hoyakim, king of Y’hudah, from Yerushalayim to Bavel, along with all the leading men of Y’hudah and Yerushalayim — 21 yes, this is what Adonai Shaddai, the God of Isra’el, says about the things remaining in the house of Adonai, in the palace of the king of Y’hudah and in Yerushalayim: 22 ‘They will be carried to Bavel; and there they will stay until the day I remember them, bring them back and restore them to this place,’ says Adonai.”
13 As Yeshua came out of the Temple, one of the talmidim said to him, “Look, Rabbi! What huge stones! What magnificent buildings!” 2 “You see all these great buildings?” Yeshua said to him, “They will be totally destroyed — not a single stone will be left standing!”
3 As he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple, Kefa, Ya‘akov, Yochanan and Andrew asked him privately, 4 “Tell us, when will these things happen? And what sign will show when all these things are about to be accomplished?”
5 Yeshua began speaking to them: “Watch out! Don’t let anyone fool you! 6 Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will fool many people. 7 When you hear the noise of wars nearby and the news of wars far off, don’t become frightened. Such things must happen, but the end is yet to come. 8 For peoples will fight each other, and nations will fight each other, there will be earthquakes in various places, there will be famines; this is but the beginning of the ‘birth pains.’
9 “But you, watch yourselves! They will hand you over to the local Sanhedrins, you will be beaten up in synagogues, and on my account you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. 10 Indeed, the Good News has to be proclaimed first to all the Goyim. 11 Now when they arrest you and bring you to trial, don’t worry beforehand about what to say. Rather, say whatever is given you when the time comes; for it will not be just you speaking, but the Ruach HaKodesh. 12 Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will turn against their parents and have them put to death; 13 and everyone will hate you because of me. But whoever holds out till the end will be delivered.
14 “Now when you see the abomination that causes devastation[a] standing where it ought not to be” (let the reader understand the allusion), “that will be the time for those in Y’hudah to escape to the hills. 15 If someone is on the roof, he must not go down and enter his house to take any of his belongings; 16 if someone is in the field, he must not turn back to get his coat. 17 What a terrible time it will be for pregnant women and nursing mothers! 18 Pray that it may not happen in winter. 19 For there will be worse trouble at that time than there has ever been from the very beginning, when God created the universe, until now; and there will be nothing like it again.[b] 20 Indeed, if God had not limited the duration of the trouble, no one would survive; but for the sake of the elect, those whom he has chosen, he has limited it.
21 “At that time, if anyone says to you, ‘Look! Here’s the Messiah!’ or, ‘See, there he is!’ — don’t believe him! 22 There will appear false Messiahs and false prophets performing signs and wonders for the purpose, if possible, of misleading the chosen. 23 But you, watch out! I have told you everything in advance! 24 In those days, after that trouble,
the sun will grow dark,
the moon will stop shining,
25 the stars will fall from the sky,
and the powers in heaven will be shaken.[c]
26 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with tremendous power and glory.[d] 27 He will send out his angels and gather together his chosen people from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.
28 “Now let the fig tree teach you its lesson: when its branches begin to sprout and leaves appear, you know that summer is approaching. 29 In the same way, when you see all these things happening, you are to know that the time is near, right at the door. 30 Yes! I tell you that this people will certainly not pass away before all these things happen. 31 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will certainly not pass away. 32 However, when that day and hour will come, no one knows — not the angels in heaven, not the Son, just the Father. 33 Stay alert! Be on your guard! For you do not know when the time will come.
34 “It’s like a man who travels away from home, puts his servants in charge, each with his own task, and tells the doorkeeper to stay alert. 35 So stay alert! for you don’t know when the owner of the house will come, 36 whether it will be evening, midnight, cockcrow or morning — you don’t want him to come suddenly and find you sleeping! 37 And what I say to you, I say to everyone: stay alert!”
Copyright © 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.