M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

The Dedication of the Temple^(A)

7 ^(B)When King Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and burned up the sacrifices that had been offered, and the dazzling light of the Lord's presence filled the Temple. ² Because the Temple was full of the dazzling light, the priests could not enter it. ^3 (C)When the people of Israel saw the fire fall from heaven and the light fill the Temple, they fell face downward on the pavement, worshiping God and praising him for his goodness and his eternal love. ⁴ Then Solomon and all the people offered sacrifices to the Lord. ⁵ He sacrificed 22,000 head of cattle and 120,000 sheep as fellowship offerings. And so he and all the people dedicated the Temple. ⁶ The priests stood in the places that were assigned to them, and facing them stood the Levites, praising the Lord with the musical instruments that King David had provided and singing the hymn, “His Love Is Eternal!” as they had been commissioned by David. The priests blew trumpets while all the people stood.

⁷ Solomon consecrated the central part of the courtyard, the area in front of the Temple, and then offered there the sacrifices burned whole, the grain offerings, and the fat from the fellowship offerings. He did this because the bronze altar which he had made was too small for all these offerings.

⁸ Solomon and all the people of Israel celebrated the Festival of Shelters for seven days. There was a huge crowd of people from as far away as Hamath Pass in the north and the Egyptian border in the south. ⁹ They had spent seven days for the dedication of the altar and then seven more days for the festival. On the last day they had a closing celebration, ¹⁰ and on the following day, the twenty-third day of the seventh month, Solomon sent the people home. They were happy about all the blessings that the Lord had given to his people Israel, to David, and to Solomon.

God Appears to Solomon Again^(D)

¹¹ After King Solomon had finished the Temple and the palace, successfully completing all his plans for them, ¹² the Lord appeared to him at night. He said to him, “I have heard your prayer, and I accept this Temple as the place where sacrifices are to be offered to me. ¹³ Whenever I hold back the rain or send locusts to eat up the crops or send an epidemic on my people, ¹⁴ if they pray to me and repent and turn away from the evil they have been doing, then I will hear them in heaven, forgive their sins, and make their land prosperous again. ¹⁵ I will watch over this Temple and be ready to hear all the prayers that are offered here, ¹⁶ because I have chosen it and consecrated it as the place where I will be worshiped forever. I will watch over it and protect it for all time. ¹⁷ If you serve me faithfully as your father David did, obeying my laws and doing everything I have commanded you, ^18 (E)I will keep the promise I made to your father David when I told him that Israel would always be ruled by his descendants. ¹⁹ But if you and your people ever disobey the laws and commands I have given you and worship other gods, ²⁰ then I will remove you from the land that I gave you, and I will abandon this Temple that I have consecrated as the place where I am to be worshiped. People everywhere will ridicule it and treat it with contempt.

²¹ “The Temple is now greatly honored, but then everyone who passes by it will be amazed and will ask, ‘Why did the Lord do this to this land and this Temple?’ ²² People will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the Lord their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt. They gave their allegiance to other gods and worshiped them. That is why the Lord has brought this disaster on them.’”

¹ From the Elder—

To the dear Lady and to her children,^[a] whom I truly love. And I am not the only one, but all who know the truth love you, ² because the truth remains in us and will be with us forever.

³ May God the Father and Jesus Christ, the Father's Son, give us grace, mercy, and peace; may they be ours in truth and love.

Truth and Love

⁴ How happy I was to find that some of your children live in the truth, just as the Father commanded us. ^5 (A)And so I ask you, dear Lady: let us all love one another. This is no new command I am writing you; it is the command which we have had from the beginning. ⁶ This love I speak of means that we must live in obedience to God's commands. The command, as you have all heard from the beginning, is that you must all live in love.

⁷ Many deceivers have gone out over the world, people who do not acknowledge that Jesus Christ came as a human being. Such a person is a deceiver and the Enemy of Christ. ⁸ Be on your guard, then, so that you will not lose what we^[b] have worked for, but will receive your reward in full.

⁹ Anyone who does not stay with the teaching of Christ, but goes beyond it, does not have God. Whoever does stay with the teaching has both the Father and the Son. ¹⁰ So then, if some come to you who do not bring this teaching, do not welcome them in your homes; do not even say, “Peace be with you.” ¹¹ For anyone who wishes them peace becomes their partner in the evil things they do.

Final Words

¹² I have so much to tell you, but I would rather not do it with paper and ink; instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you personally, so that we shall be completely happy.

¹³ The children of your dear Sister^[c] send you their greetings.

The Lord's Answer to Habakkuk

2 I will climb my watchtower and wait to see what the Lord will tell me to say and what answer he^[a] will give to my complaint.

² The Lord gave me this answer: “Write down clearly on tablets what I reveal to you, so that it can be read at a glance. ^3 (A)Put it in writing, because it is not yet time for it to come true. But the time is coming quickly, and what I show you will come true. It may seem slow in coming, but wait for it; it will certainly take place, and it will not be delayed. ^4 (B)And this is the message: ‘Those who are evil will not survive,^[b] but those who are righteous will live because they are faithful to God.’”

Doom on the Unrighteous

⁵ Wealth is deceitful. Greedy people are proud and restless—like death itself they are never satisfied. That is why they conquer nation after nation for themselves. ⁶ The conquered people will taunt their conquerors and show their scorn for them. They will say, “You take what isn't yours, but you are doomed! How long will you go on getting rich by forcing your debtors to pay up?”

⁷ But before you know it, you that have conquered others will be in debt yourselves and be forced to pay interest. Enemies will come and make you tremble. They will plunder you! ⁸ You have plundered the people of many nations, but now those who have survived will plunder you because of the murders you have committed and because of your violence against the people of the world and its cities.^[c]

⁹ You are doomed! You have made your family rich with what you took by violence, and have tried to make your own home safe from harm and danger! ¹⁰ But your schemes have brought shame on your family; by destroying many nations you have only brought ruin on yourself. ¹¹ Even the stones of the walls cry out against you, and the rafters echo the cry.

¹² You are doomed! You founded a city on crime and built it up by murder. ^13 (C)The nations you conquered wore themselves out in useless labor, and all they have built goes up in flames. The Lord Almighty has done this. ^14 (D)But the earth will be as full of the knowledge of the Lord's glory as the seas are full of water.

¹⁵ You are doomed! In your fury you humiliated and disgraced your neighbors; you made them stagger as though they were drunk. ¹⁶ You in turn will be covered with shame instead of honor. You yourself will drink and stagger. The Lord will make you drink your own cup of punishment, and your honor will be turned to disgrace. ¹⁷ You have cut down the forests of Lebanon; now you will be cut down. You killed its animals; now animals will terrify you. This will happen because of the murders you have committed and because of your violence against the people of the world and its cities.^[d]

¹⁸ What's the use of an idol? It is only something that a human being has made, and it tells you nothing but lies. What good does it do for its maker to trust it—a god that can't even talk! ¹⁹ You are doomed! You say to a piece of wood, “Wake up!” or to a block of stone, “Get up!” Can an idol reveal anything to you? It may be covered with silver and gold, but there is no life in it.

²⁰ The Lord is in his holy Temple; let everyone on earth be silent in his presence.

The Widow's Offering^(A)

21 Jesus looked around and saw rich people dropping their gifts in the Temple treasury, ² and he also saw a very poor widow dropping in two little copper coins. ³ He said, “I tell you that this poor widow put in more than all the others. ⁴ For the others offered their gifts from what they had to spare of their riches; but she, poor as she is, gave all she had to live on.”

Jesus Speaks of the Destruction of the Temple^(B)

⁵ Some of the disciples were talking about the Temple, how beautiful it looked with its fine stones and the gifts offered to God. Jesus said, ⁶ “All this you see—the time will come when not a single stone here will be left in its place; every one will be thrown down.”

Troubles and Persecutions^(C)

^7 (D)“Teacher,” they asked, “when will this be? And what will happen in order to show that the time has come for it to take place?”

⁸ Jesus said, “Watch out; don't be fooled. Many men, claiming to speak for me, will come and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time has come!’ But don't follow them. ⁹ Don't be afraid when you hear of wars and revolutions; such things must happen first, but they do not mean that the end is near.”

¹⁰ He went on to say, “Countries will fight each other; kingdoms will attack one another. ¹¹ There will be terrible earthquakes, famines, and plagues everywhere; there will be strange and terrifying things coming from the sky. ¹² Before all these things take place, however, you will be arrested and persecuted; you will be handed over to be tried in synagogues and be put in prison; you will be brought before kings and rulers for my sake. ¹³ This will be your chance to tell the Good News. ^14 (E)Make up your minds ahead of time not to worry about how you will defend yourselves, ¹⁵ because I will give you such words and wisdom that none of your enemies will be able to refute or contradict what you say. ¹⁶ You will be handed over by your parents, your brothers, your relatives, and your friends; and some of you will be put to death. ¹⁷ Everyone will hate you because of me. ¹⁸ But not a single hair from your heads will be lost. ¹⁹ Stand firm, and you will save yourselves.

Jesus Speaks of the Destruction of Jerusalem^(F)

²⁰ “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that it will soon be destroyed. ²¹ Then those who are in Judea must run away to the hills; those who are in the city must leave, and those who are out in the country must not go into the city. ^22 (G)For those will be ‘The Days of Punishment,’ to make come true all that the Scriptures say. ²³ How terrible it will be in those days for women who are pregnant and for mothers with little babies! Terrible distress will come upon this land, and God's punishment will fall on this people. ²⁴ Some will be killed by the sword, and others will be taken as prisoners to all countries; and the heathen will trample over Jerusalem until their time is up.

The Coming of the Son of Man^(H)

^25 (I)“There will be strange things happening to the sun, the moon, and the stars. On earth whole countries will be in despair, afraid of the roar of the sea and the raging tides. ²⁶ People will faint from fear as they wait for what is coming over the whole earth, for the powers in space will be driven from their courses. ^27 (J)Then the Son of Man will appear, coming in a cloud with great power and glory. ²⁸ When these things begin to happen, stand up and raise your heads, because your salvation is near.”

The Lesson of the Fig Tree^(K)

²⁹ Then Jesus told them this parable: “Think of the fig tree and all the other trees. ³⁰ When you see their leaves beginning to appear, you know that summer is near. ³¹ In the same way, when you see these things happening, you will know that the Kingdom of God is about to come.

³² “Remember that all these things will take place before the people now living have all died. ³³ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

The Need to Watch

³⁴ “Be careful not to let yourselves become occupied with too much feasting and drinking and with the worries of this life, or that Day may suddenly catch you ³⁵ like a trap. For it will come upon all people everywhere on earth. ³⁶ Be on watch and pray always that you will have the strength to go safely through all those things that will happen and to stand before the Son of Man.”

^37 (L)Jesus spent those days teaching in the Temple, and when evening came, he would go out and spend the night on the Mount of Olives. ³⁸ Early each morning all the people went to the Temple to listen to him.