M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

Chapter 7

¹ Some men from Kiriath-jearim came and took the Ark of the Lord away. They brought it to the house of Abinadab on the hill, and they consecrated Eleazar, his son, to take care of the Ark of the Lord.

Samuel the Judge.^{[a] 2} The Ark remained at Kiriath-jearim for a long time, for twenty years. All of the people of Israel lamented after the Lord.

³ Samuel said to all the people of Israel, “If you intend to return to the Lord with your whole heart, then rid yourselves of the foreign gods you have among you, the Astartes, and commit your hearts to serve the Lord alone, then he will deliver you out of the hands of the Philistines.” ⁴ So the Israelites threw away their Baals and Astartes,^[b] and served the Lord alone.

⁵ Samuel then said, “Assemble all of the Israelites at Mizpah,^[c] and I will intercede to the Lord for you.” ⁶ When they had gathered at Mizpah, they drew water and poured it^[d] before the Lord. They fasted that day and confessed, “We have sinned against the Lord.” Now, Samuel was the judge of the Israelites at Mizpah.

Defeat of the Philistines. ⁷ When the Philistines heard that the Israelites had gathered at Mizpah, the lords of the Philistines went up to attack them. When the Israelites heard about this, they were afraid of the Philistines. ⁸ The Israelites said to Samuel, “Intercede for us unceasingly with the Lord, our God, that he might deliver us from the power of the Philistines.”

⁹ So Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it as a burnt offering to the Lord. Samuel cried out to the Lord for the sake of Israel, and the Lord heard him.

¹⁰ While Samuel was performing the sacrifice, the Philistines drew near to engage the Israelites in combat. The Lord boomed with a loud thunder that day, and the Philistines panicked and they were defeated by the Israelites. ¹¹ The men of Israel rushed out from Mizpah and pursued the Philistines. They slaughtered them all the way to Beth-car. ¹² Samuel then took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Shen. He called it “Ebenezer,” saying “the Lord helped us here.”^[e]

¹³ Thus the Philistines were defeated and they no longer raided the territory of Israel. The hand of the Lord was raised against the Philistines as long as Samuel lived. ¹⁴ The towns that lay between Ekron and Gath that the Philistines had captured from Israel were restored to the Israelites, and Israel was able to deliver its borderlands from the hands of the Philistines. There was even peace between Israel and the Amorites.

¹⁵ Samuel continued to serve as the judge of Israel throughout his entire lifetime. ¹⁶ Each year he made a circuit among Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpah, judging Israel in all of those places, ¹⁷ but he always returned to Ramah, for that was his home, and he judged Israel there, too. He built an altar to Yahweh there.

The Inauguration of the Monarchy^[f]

Chapter 8

The People Request a King. ¹ When Samuel grew old, he appointed his sons as judges over Israel. ² The name of the older was Joel, and the name of the younger was Abijah, and they were judges at Beer-sheba. ³ The sons did not walk in his ways. They sought dishonest gains, took bribes, and perverted justice.

⁴ All of the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. ⁵ They said to him, “You are now old, and your sons are not following in your path. Appoint a king over us, just like all the other nations have.”

⁶ It displeased Samuel when they said to him, “Appoint a king over us,” so Samuel prayed to the Lord. ⁷ The Lord said to him, “Listen to everything that the people have requested of you. It is not you whom the people have rejected, they have rejected me as their king. ⁸ They have done this from the day that I brought them up out of Egypt to this very day. They have rejected me and served other gods, just as they have rejected you. ⁹ So grant their request, but warn them solemnly and inform them what the king who reigns over them will do.”

¹⁰ The Rule of a King. Samuel told the people who were asking for a king everything that the Lord had said. ¹¹ He said, “This is what the king who reigns over you will do. He will take away your sons to serve him on his chariots and his horses, and they will run in front of his chariots.^{[g] 12} He will appoint some as commanders of groups of thousands, and others as commanders of groups of fifty. He will set some to plowing his fields and reaping his harvests. Others will make weapons and equipment for his chariots. ¹³ He will take your daughters to be makers of perfumes and cooks and bakers. ¹⁴ He will take the best of your fields, vineyards, and olive groves and he will give them to his attendants. ¹⁵ He will take a tenth of your grain harvest and the harvest of your vineyards and give it to his officials and his attendants. ¹⁶ He will take your menservants and your maidservants, the best of your cattle and donkeys, and use them for his own work. ¹⁷ He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you, yourselves, will become his slaves. ¹⁸ When that day comes, you will cry out for help because of the king that you have chosen, but on that day the Lord will not listen to you.”^[h]

¹⁹ But the people refused to listen to Samuel. They said, “No! We want a king over us! ²⁰ Then we will be like every other nation, with a king to lead us and to go out before us to fight in our battles.”

²¹ When Samuel heard everything that the people had said, he repeated it to the Lord. ²² So the Lord said to Samuel, “Listen to them and appoint a king over them.” Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Let each man go back to his own town.”

Death and Life with Christ^[a]

Chapter 6

Baptized in Christ Jesus.^{[b] 1} What then shall we say? Should we persist in sin in order that grace may abound? ² Of course not! We have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Through that baptism into his death we were buried with him, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,^[c] so we too might begin to live a new life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall also be united with him in his resurrection. ⁶ We know that our old^[d] self was crucified with him, so that our sinful body might be destroyed and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For whoever has died has been freed from sin.

⁸ However, if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.^{[e] 9} We know that Christ, once raised from the dead, will never die again. Death no longer has power over him. ¹⁰ When he died, he died to sin once and for all. However, the life he lives, he lives for God. ¹¹ In the same way, you must regard yourselves as being dead to sin and alive for God in Christ Jesus.

¹² Therefore, do not allow sin to reign over your mortal body and make you obey its desires. ¹³ Nor should you present any part of your body as an instrument for wickedness leading to sin. Rather, present yourselves to God as having been raised from death to life and the parts of your body to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin is no longer to have any power over you, since you are not under the Law but under grace.

¹⁵ A Slave of Righteousness. What then? Should we sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? Of course not! ¹⁶ Do you not know that if you offer yourself as an obedient slave, you are the slave of the one you obey—either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

¹⁷ Once you were slaves of sin, but, thanks be to God, you have become obedient in your heart to that pattern of teaching to which you have been delivered. ¹⁸ Now, having been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms because you are still weak human beings. For just as you once offered your bodies as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to greater iniquity, so now present them as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

²⁰ When you were slaves of sin, you were free from the restraints of righteousness. ²¹ But what advantage did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. ²² However, now that you have been freed from sin and bound to the service of God, the benefit you receive is sanctification, and the end is eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift freely given by God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Chapter 44

¹ This is the word that came to Jeremiah for all the Judeans who were living in the land of Egypt, at Migdol, at Tahpanhes, at Memphis, and in the district of Pathros. ² Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: You have seen the immense disaster that I have inflicted on Jerusalem and all the towns of Judah. Today they lie in ruins and are left uninhabited. ³ This was the result of all the wicked deeds your ancestors committed that provoked me to anger, as they went forth to serve other gods and offer sacrifices to them whom neither they, nor you, nor your ancestors ever had known before.

⁴ Even though I continued to send to them all my servants the prophets with this plea, “Do not do this abominable thing that I hate,” ⁵ they would not listen or pay any heed to my warning to refrain from their wicked deeds and cease to offer sacrifices to other gods. ⁶ Therefore, my fury and my wrath poured forth, burning to ashes the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem and reducing them to the desolate wasteland they are today.

⁷ And now this is what the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel, has to say: Why are you inflicting such a total disaster upon yourselves? Why are you uprooting men and women, children and babies, from Judah, thus leaving yourselves without a remnant? ⁸ Will you continue to provoke me to anger by the works of your hands as you make sacrifices to strange gods in Egypt where you have come to settle, cutting yourselves off and becoming an object of cursing and ridicule among all the nations of the earth?

⁹ Have you forgotten the wicked crimes committed by your ancestors and by the kings of Judah and their wives, and also your own crimes and those of your wives, all of them committed in the land of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? ¹⁰ To this very day they have shown no remorse or fear, nor have they observed my law and my statutes which I prescribed for you and for your ancestors.

¹¹ Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I am determined to inflict disaster upon you and to destroy Judah completely. ¹² I will take the remnant of Judah who were determined to come to the land of Egypt and settle there, and in Egypt, they will all perish. They will fall by the sword and by famine. From the least to the greatest they will die by the sword and by famine, and they will become an object of execration and horror, a curse and a reproach.

¹³ I will punish those who live in the land of Egypt as I punished Jerusalem, with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence. ¹⁴ None of the remnant of Judah who have come to settle in the land of Egypt will escape or survive to return to the land of Judah, even though they may long to return and live there. None will be allowed to return, except for a few refugees.

¹⁵ Then all the men who were aware that their wives had been burning incense to other gods, and all the women who were standing there in a great assemblage, and all the people who lived in Pathros in the land of Egypt replied to Jeremiah, ¹⁶ “We have no intention of giving credence to the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord. ¹⁷ Rather, we will continue to do everything we have vowed to do. We will make offerings to the queen of heaven and pour out libations to her, as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. In those days we used to have an abundance of food; we prospered and endured no misfortune. ¹⁸ But from the time we ceased to make offerings to the queen of heaven and to pour out libations to her, we have been in great need, and we have perished by the sword and by famine.”

¹⁹ The women added, “When we made offerings to the queen of heaven and poured out libations to her, do you think that our husbands were not aware that we made cakes depicting her image and that we poured out libations to her?”^[a]

²⁰ Then to all the people, both men and women, who had given him this answer, Jeremiah said, ²¹ “In regard to the incense offerings that you and your ancestors, your kings and your officials, and the people of the land burned in the cities of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, the Lord certainly remembered them and kept them in mind. ²² When the Lord could no longer endure your wicked deeds and your loathsome practices, your land became a desolate waste, an accursed object of horror without inhabitants, as it is to this day. ²³ The disaster you are now enduring has befallen you because you burned incense and sinned against the Lord, refusing to obey the voice of the Lord and failing to live in accordance with his law, his statutes, and his decrees.”

²⁴ Jeremiah then said further to all the people, and in particular to all the women, “Listen to the word of the Lord, all you Judeans in the land of Egypt. ²⁵ Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: You and your wives have accomplished with your hands what you promised with your mouths when you said, ‘We are determined to fulfill the vows we have made to burn incense to the queen of heaven and to pour out libations to her.’ Very well, keep your vows and do what you promised.

²⁶ “However, listen attentively to the word of the Lord, all you people of Judah who are living in the land of Egypt. I swear by my great name, says the Lord, that my name will never issue forth from the lips of any of the people of Judah throughout the land of Egypt. No one of them will ever say, ‘As the Lord God lives.’

²⁷ “I intend to watch over them to ensure their harm rather than their well-being. All the people of Judah who have settled in the land of Egypt will perish either by the sword or by famine, until not a single one remains. ²⁸ Those who escape the sword and return from the land of Egypt to Judah will be few in number. Then the entire remnant of Judah who were determined to settle in Egypt will come to the realization that it has been my word that prevailed, and not theirs.

^29 [b]“This is the sign from me to you that I will punish you in this place, says the Lord, in order that you may realize that my promise to you will be carried out. ³⁰ Thus says the Lord: Behold, I will hand over Pharaoh Hophra, the king of Egypt, to his enemies, to those who seek his life, just as I handed over Zedekiah, the king of Judah, to his enemy who sought his life, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.”

Psalm 20^[a]

Prayer in Praise of the Messiah King

¹ For the director.^[b] A psalm of David.

Psalm 21^[k]

Thanksgiving for Messianic Blessings

¹ For the director.^[l] A psalm of David.