M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan

God’s Covenant with Abram

15 After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” ² But Abram said, “O Lord God, what wilt thou give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Elie′zer of Damascus?” ³ And Abram said, “Behold, thou hast given me no offspring; and a slave born in my house will be my heir.” ⁴ And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; your own son shall be your heir.” ⁵ And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” ⁶ And he believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness.

⁷ And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you from Ur of the Chalde′ans, to give you this land to possess.” ⁸ But he said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” ⁹ He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ And he brought him all these, cut them in two, and laid each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. ¹¹ And when birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram; and lo, a dread and great darkness fell upon him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know of a surety that your descendants will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs, and will be slaves there, and they will be oppressed for four hundred years; ¹⁴ but I will bring judgment on the nation which they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. ¹⁶ And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

¹⁷ When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphra′tes, ¹⁹ the land of the Ken′ites, the Ken′izzites, the Kad′monites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Per′izzites, the Reph′aim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Gir′gashites and the Jeb′usites.”

The Death of John the Baptist

14 At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the fame of Jesus; ² and he said to his servants, “This is John the Baptist, he has been raised from the dead; that is why these powers are at work in him.” ³ For Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison, for the sake of Hero′di-as, his brother Philip’s wife;^{[a] 4} because John said to him, “It is not lawful for you to have her.” ⁵ And though he wanted to put him to death, he feared the people, because they held him to be a prophet. ⁶ But when Herod’s birthday came, the daughter of Hero′di-as danced before the company, and pleased Herod, ⁷ so that he promised with an oath to give her whatever she might ask. ⁸ Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me the head of John the Baptist here on a platter.” ⁹ And the king was sorry; but because of his oaths and his guests he commanded it to be given; ¹⁰ he sent and had John beheaded in the prison, ¹¹ and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. ¹² And his disciples came and took the body and buried it; and they went and told Jesus.

Feeding the Five Thousand

¹³ Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a lonely place apart. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. ¹⁴ As he went ashore he saw a great throng; and he had compassion on them, and healed their sick. ¹⁵ When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a lonely place, and the day is now over; send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” ¹⁶ Jesus said, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” ¹⁷ They said to him, “We have only five loaves here and two fish.” ¹⁸ And he said, “Bring them here to me.” ¹⁹ Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass; and taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. ²⁰ And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. ²¹ And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.

Jesus Walks on the Water

²² Then he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. ²³ And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, ²⁴ but the boat by this time was many furlongs distant from the land,^[b] beaten by the waves; for the wind was against them. ²⁵ And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. ²⁶ But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out for fear. ²⁷ But immediately he spoke to them, saying, “Take heart, it is I; have no fear.”

²⁸ And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, bid me come to you on the water.” ²⁹ He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus; ³⁰ but when he saw the wind,^[c] he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” ³¹ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?” ³² And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. ³³ And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Jesus Heals the Sick in Gennesaret

³⁴ And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennes′aret. ³⁵ And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent round to all that region and brought to him all that were sick, ³⁶ and besought him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment; and as many as touched it were made well.

Hostile Plots Thwarted

4 ^[a] Now when Sanbal′lat heard that we were building the wall, he was angry and greatly enraged, and he ridiculed the Jews. ² And he said in the presence of his brethren and of the army of Samar′ia, “What are these feeble Jews doing? Will they restore things? Will they sacrifice? Will they finish up in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, and burned ones at that?” ³ Tobi′ah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, “Yes, what they are building—if a fox goes up on it he will break down their stone wall!” ⁴ Hear, O our God, for we are despised; turn back their taunt upon their own heads, and give them up to be plundered in a land where they are captives. ⁵ Do not cover their guilt, and let not their sin be blotted out from thy sight; for they have provoked thee to anger before the builders.

⁶ So we built the wall; and all the wall was joined together to half its height. For the people had a mind to work.

^7 [b] But when Sanbal′lat and Tobi′ah and the Arabs and the Ammonites and the Ash′dodites heard that the repairing of the walls of Jerusalem was going forward and that the breaches were beginning to be closed, they were very angry; ⁸ and they all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and to cause confusion in it. ⁹ And we prayed to our God, and set a guard as a protection against them day and night.

¹⁰ But Judah said, “The strength of the burden-bearers is failing, and there is much rubbish; we are not able to work on the wall.” ¹¹ And our enemies said, “They will not know or see till we come into the midst of them and kill them and stop the work.” ¹² When the Jews who lived by them came they said to us ten times, “From all the places where they live^[c] they will come up against us.”^{[d] 13} So in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, in open places, I stationed the people according to their families, with their swords, their spears, and their bows. ¹⁴ And I looked, and arose, and said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons, your daughters, your wives, and your homes.”

¹⁵ When our enemies heard that it was known to us and that God had frustrated their plan, we all returned to the wall, each to his work. ¹⁶ From that day on, half of my servants worked on construction, and half held the spears, shields, bows, and coats of mail; and the leaders stood behind all the house of Judah, ¹⁷ who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were laden in such a way that each with one hand labored on the work and with the other held his weapon. ¹⁸ And each of the builders had his sword girded at his side while he built. The man who sounded the trumpet was beside me. ¹⁹ And I said to the nobles and to the officials and to the rest of the people, “The work is great and widely spread, and we are separated on the wall, far from one another. ²⁰ In the place where you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there. Our God will fight for us.”

²¹ So we labored at the work, and half of them held the spears from the break of dawn till the stars came out. ²² I also said to the people at that time, “Let every man and his servant pass the night within Jerusalem, that they may be a guard for us by night and may labor by day.” ²³ So neither I nor my brethren nor my servants nor the men of the guard who followed me, none of us took off our clothes; each kept his weapon in his hand.^[e]

Paul and Barnabas in Iconium

14 Now at Ico′nium they entered together into the Jewish synagogue, and so spoke that a great company believed, both of Jews and of Greeks. ² But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren. ³ So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. ⁴ But the people of the city were divided; some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles. ⁵ When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to molest them and to stone them, ⁶ they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycao′nia, and to the surrounding country; ⁷ and there they preached the gospel.

Paul and Barnabas in Lystra and Derbe

⁸ Now at Lystra there was a man sitting, who could not use his feet; he was a cripple from birth, who had never walked. ⁹ He listened to Paul speaking; and Paul, looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, ¹⁰ said in a loud voice, “Stand upright on your feet.” And he sprang up and walked. ¹¹ And when the crowds saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in Lycao′nian, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” ¹² Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, because he was the chief speaker, they called Hermes. ¹³ And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was in front of the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the people. ¹⁴ But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their garments and rushed out among the multitude, crying, ¹⁵ “Men, why are you doing this? We also are men, of like nature with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. ¹⁶ In past generations he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways; ¹⁷ yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good and gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.” ¹⁸ With these words they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them.

The Return to Antioch in Syria

¹⁹ But Jews came there from Antioch and Ico′nium; and having persuaded the people, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. ²⁰ But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up and entered the city; and on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe. ²¹ When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Ico′nium and to Antioch, ²² strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God. ²³ And when they had appointed elders for them in every church, with prayer and fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they believed.

²⁴ Then they passed through Pisid′ia, and came to Pamphyl′ia. ²⁵ And when they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attali′a; ²⁶ and from there they sailed to Antioch, where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work which they had fulfilled. ²⁷ And when they arrived, they gathered the church together and declared all that God had done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. ²⁸ And they remained no little time with the disciples.