M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The Children of Jacob
| Leah | Zilpah | Bilhah | Rachel |
| 1 Reuben | 7 Gad | 5 Dan | 11 Joseph |
| 2 Simeon | 8 Asher | 6 Naphtali | 12 Benjamin |
| 3 Levi | |||
| 4 Judah | |||
| 9 Issachar | |||
| 10 Zebulun | |||
| Dinah |
The Children of Joseph
| Asenath |
| 1 Manasseh |
| 2 Ephraim |
49 After this, Jacob called all of his sons to him.
Jacob: 2 Gather near to me, so I can let you know what to expect in the days to come.
Gather around and pay attention, you sons of Jacob.
Listen carefully, my sons, to Israel, your father.
3 Reuben, you are my firstborn son,
my power and the vigor of my youth,
first in rank and first in power.
4 But you are out of control, like floodwaters; you have forfeited your place
because you have lain with your father’s wife
and defiled his bed—you climbed onto my couch!
5 Simeon and Levi are indeed brothers, kindred spirits
who use their swords[a] for cruelty and violence.
6 May I never enter their confidence;
from the two of them I must part company to retain my honor.
Because in their anger, they’ve killed men,
and they’ve hamstrung oxen on a whim.
7 Their anger be cursed, for they have fierce tempers.
Their wrath be cursed, for they can be cruel.
I will scatter their children among Jacob’s descendants
and spread them throughout the land of Israel.
8 But Judah, your brothers will praise you.
Your hand will firmly grasp the neck of your enemy,
and your brothers will bow down before you in respect.
9 Judah is a lion cub;
my son, who rises from the prey,
Who crouches down and stretches out like a lion,
and like a lioness—who dares to rouse him?
10 The scepter will not depart from Judah;
the ruler’s staff will rest securely between his feet.
Until the One comes to whom true royalty belongs,
all people will honor and obey him.
11 He ties his foal to the vine
and his donkey’s colt to the choicest vine.
He washes his clothing in wine
and dips his robe in the blood of grapes.
12 His eyes are darker than wine,
and his teeth are whiter than milk.
Israel’s blessing speaks not only what is but what will be. His words establish Judah as the father to the royal line from which King David and his dynasty will one day come. They anticipate God’s eternal covenant with David that brings peace and prosperity to the entire world. It is little wonder that early Christians referred to the risen Jesus as “the lion of the tribe of Judah,” for they found in Him the fulfillment of Israel’s blessing.
13 Jacob: Zebulun will settle near the shores of the sea,
and he will be a safe harbor for ships.
His border will extend to Sidon.
14 Issachar is a strong donkey,
lying down between its saddlebags.[b]
15 He saw a good place to rest
and a land that seemed pleasant,
So he bent down to shoulder another load
and embraced a life of hard labor.
16 Dan will judge his people,
as one of the tribes of Israel.
17 Yet Dan will also be a snake by the road,
a viper along the path
That strikes at the horse’s heels as it goes by
so that its rider falls backward.
18 I wait patiently for Your salvation, Eternal One!
19 Gad will be raided by thieves,
but he will raid them in return.
20 Asher’s food will be rich and delicious,
and he will produce royal delicacies.
21 Naphtali is a beautiful doe, wild and free,
that bears lovely fawns.[c]
22 Joseph is a fruitful plant[d] that grows beside a spring,
its fruitful branches reaching over the wall.
23 The archers fiercely attacked him,
shot at him, and pressed hard against him.
24 But his bow remained taut and strong,
his arms firm and agile.
They were made so by the strong hands of God—
by the Mighty One of Jacob, by the Shepherd of the Rock of Israel,
25 By the God of your father, who will come to your aid,
by the All-Powerful One[e] who will bless you
With the blessings from heaven above,
blessings of the deep that lie beneath,
and blessings of the breasts and womb.
26 May the blessings of your father be more potent
than the blessings of the ancient mountains.
May they extend to the heights of the everlasting hills,
and may these blessings now rest on the head of Joseph,
on the brow of him who was set apart from his brothers.
27 Benjamin is a ravenous wolf,
devouring prey by morning
and dividing spoil in the evening.
28 Now all these are the heads of the twelve tribes of Israel. This is how their father described them when he blessed them—blessing each one with a blessing that suited each son.
When Israel’s inheritance of the land is divided, Levi is not included; but Joseph’s two sons become the leaders of two tribes descended from Joseph. Manasseh and Ephraim take Joseph’s and Levi’s places, filling out the twelve tribes.
Jacob (charging his sons): 29-30 I am about to join my ancestors in death. Please do as I ask, and bury me with my ancestors in the cave at Machpelah, near Mamre in the land of Canaan. It is located at the edge of a field owned by Ephron the Hittite. Abraham acquired the field from Ephron as a burial site for his family. 31 This is where Abraham and his wife Sarah are buried, also Isaac and his wife Rebekah. I buried Leah there myself. 32 The field and cave were purchased from the Hittites long ago.
33 After Jacob finished with these instructions to his sons, he pulled his feet up onto the bed, breathed his last breath, and joined his ancestors in death.
2 Around the time of Elizabeth’s amazing pregnancy and John’s birth, the emperor in Rome, Caesar Augustus, required everyone in the Roman Empire to participate in a massive census— 2 the first census since Quirinius had become governor of Syria. 3 Each person had to go to his or her ancestral city to be counted.
This political background isn’t incidental: it is crucial to the story. Conquering nations in the ancient world work in various ways. Some brutally destroy and plunder the nations they conquer. Some conquer people as slaves or servants. Other empires allow the people to remain in their land and work as before, but with one major change: the conquered people have to pay taxes to their rulers. The purpose of a census like the one Luke de-scribes is to be sure that everyone is appropriately taxed and knows who is in charge.
4-5 Mary’s fiancé Joseph, from Nazareth in Galilee, had to participate in the census in the same way everyone else did. Because he was a descendant of King David, his ancestral city was Bethlehem, David’s birthplace. Mary, who was now late in her pregnancy that the messenger Gabriel had predicted, 6 accompanied Joseph. While in Bethlehem, she went into labor 7 and gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped the baby in a blanket and laid Him in a feeding trough because the inn had no room for them.
8 Nearby, in the fields outside of Bethlehem, a group of shepherds were guarding their flocks from predators in the darkness of night. 9 Suddenly a messenger of the Lord stood in front of them, and the darkness was replaced by a glorious light—the shining light of God’s glory. They were terrified!
Messenger: 10 Don’t be afraid! Listen! I bring good news, news of great joy, news that will affect all people everywhere. 11 Today, in the city of David, a Liberator has been born for you! He is the promised Anointed One, the Supreme Authority! 12 You will know you have found Him when you see a baby, wrapped in a blanket, lying in a feeding trough.
13 At that moment, the first heavenly messenger was joined by thousands of other messengers—a vast heavenly choir. They praised God.
14 Heavenly Choir: To the highest heights of the universe, glory to God!
And on earth, peace among all people who bring pleasure to God!
15 As soon as the heavenly messengers disappeared into heaven, the shepherds were buzzing with conversation.
Shepherds: Let’s rush down to Bethlehem right now! Let’s see what’s happening! Let’s experience what the Lord has told us about!
16 So they ran into town, and eventually they found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in the feeding trough. After they saw the baby, 17 they spread the story of what they had experienced and what had been said to them about this child. 18 Everyone who heard their story couldn’t stop thinking about its meaning. 19 Mary, too, pondered all of these events, treasuring each memory in her heart.
20 The shepherds returned to their flocks, praising God for all they had seen and heard, and they glorified God for the way the experience had unfolded just as the heavenly messenger had predicted.
Here again is Luke’s fascination with disadvantaged people. Jesus’ first visitors are not ambassadors, dignitaries, or wealthy landowners. The first to pay Him homage are simple shepherds, minimum-wage workers in the ancient agrarian economy. They have little to no status in the world. They are the humble and the poor whom God is now raising up to receive heavenly messages and an audience with the great King. This theme recurs as the story continues.
21 Eight days after His birth, the baby was circumcised in keeping with Jewish religious requirements, and He was named Jesus, the name the messenger had given Him before His conception in Mary’s womb. 22 After Mary had observed the ceremonial days of postpartum purification required by Mosaic law, she and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord. 23 They were fulfilling the Lord’s requirement that “every firstborn Israelite male will be dedicated to the Eternal One as holy.”[a] 24 They also offered the sacrifice required by the law of the Lord, “two turtledoves or two young pigeons.”[b]
25 While fulfilling these sacred obligations at the temple, they encountered a man in Jerusalem named Simeon. He was a just and pious man, anticipating the liberation of Israel from her troubles. He was a man in touch with the Holy Spirit. 26 The Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Anointed One. 27 The Spirit had led him to the temple that day, and there he saw the child Jesus in the arms of His parents, who were fulfilling their sacred obligations. 28 Simeon took Jesus into his arms and blessed God.
29 Simeon: Now, Lord and King, You can let me, Your humble servant, die in peace.
30 You promised me that I would see with my own eyes
what I’m seeing now: Your freedom,
31 Raised up in the presence of all peoples.
32 He is the light who reveals Your message to the other nations,
and He is the shining glory of Your covenant people, Israel.
33 His father and mother were stunned to hear Simeon say these things. 34 Simeon went on to bless them both, and to Mary in particular he gave predictions.
Simeon: Listen, this child will make many in Israel rise and fall. He will be a significant person whom many will oppose. 35 In the end, He will lay bare the secret thoughts of many hearts. And a sword will pierce even your own soul, Mary.
36 At that very moment, an elderly woman named Anna stepped forward. Anna was a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She had been married for seven years before her husband died 37 and a widow to her current age of 84 years. She was deeply devoted to the Lord, constantly in the temple, fasting and praying. 38 When she approached Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, she began speaking out thanks to God, and she continued spreading the word about Jesus to all those who shared her hope for the rescue of Jerusalem.
39 After fulfilling their sacred duties according to the law of the Lord, Mary and Joseph returned with Jesus to their own city of Nazareth in the province of Galilee. 40 There Jesus grew up, maturing in physical strength and increasing in wisdom, and the grace of God rested on Him.
41 Every year during Jesus’ childhood, His parents traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. 42 When Jesus was 12, He made the journey with them. 43 They spent several days there, participating in the whole celebration. When His parents left for home, Jesus stayed in Jerusalem, but Joseph and Mary were not aware. 44 They assumed Jesus was elsewhere in the caravan that was traveling together. After they had already traveled a full day’s journey toward home, they began searching for Him among their friends and relatives. 45 When no one had seen the boy, Mary and Joseph rushed back to Jerusalem and searched for Him.
46 After three days of separation, they finally found Him—sitting among a group of religious teachers in the temple—asking them questions, listening to their answers. 47 Everyone was surprised and impressed that a 12-year-old boy could have such deep understanding and could answer questions with such wisdom.
48 His parents, of course, had a different reaction.
Mary: Son, why have You treated us this way? Listen, Your father and I have been sick with worry for the last three days, wondering where You were, looking everywhere for You.
Jesus: 49 Why did you need to look for Me? Didn’t you know that I must be working for My Father?
Little is recorded about Jesus’ life between His birth and the age of 30. But this one episode tells so much. First, Jesus’ family life is a lot like anyone’s—full of mishaps and misunderstandings. Second, as Jesus enters young adulthood, He begins manifesting an extraordinary sense of identity. (Remember, a 12-year-old isn’t “just a kid” in Israel—he is becoming a man.) He isn’t just “Mary’s boy” or “Joseph’s stepson.” He has a direct relationship with God as His Father, and He knows His life will follow a path of working for God.
50 Neither Mary nor Joseph really understood what He meant by this. 51 Jesus went back to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. His mother continued to store these memories like treasures in her heart. 52 And Jesus kept on growing—in wisdom, in physical stature, in favor with God, and in favor with others.
15 Eliphaz reiterated his points.
2 Eliphaz: Does a wise man reply with windy knowledge
and fill up his belly with the hot east wind?
3 Does a wise man reason with impotent chatter,
with bankrupt words of no account?
4 Indeed, Job, you have ignored your responsibility to revere God
and depreciated your own thoughts toward God;
5 For your faults inform your speech,
and your language is tricky.
6 Your own mouth condemns you, not I;
your own lips volunteer as witnesses against you.
7 Were you the firstborn among men?
Were you introduced to the earth before the hills were conceived?
8 Were you allowed to listen in on the deliberations in God’s assembly?
Do you imagine all knowledge to be confined to you and you only?
9 What do you know that we don’t know?
Do you have an understanding that has somehow eluded us?
10 We have gray hairs and elders among us
weighed down with years,
heavier than your father.
11 Do you find God’s many comforts too meager
and His gentle speech to you too mild?
12 What has stripped you of your reason, carried away your heart?
Why do your eyes flash with anger—
13 So much so that you unleash your spirit
and spray out such speeches against God?
14 What is humankind, that people would be considered pure?
And among those born of women,
who could possibly be innocent?
15 Look, if God refuses to trust even His holy attendants,
if even the heavens above are impure in His eyes,
16 Then how much less regard must He show for humankind, who is base and corrupt,
or for Adam’s children who drink sin like water.
Genesis 6:1–4 tells the strange story of God’s own heavenly messengers procreating with beautiful human women. Such a union was obviously forbidden, possibly because it endowed the children with eternal life, based on God’s response to the situation—limiting the lifespan of humans to 120 years. As Job has revealed, these heavenly messengers are with God all the time. They do His bidding. No one could possibly know His rules better than they do or have more motivation to follow them, yet they still chose to disobey God. Eliphaz’s point is clear: no human could possibly claim to be above the temptation to sin when God’s heavenly envoys are not.
17 Eliphaz: I will tell it like it is, so listen.
I’ll recount what I have seen:
18 The very things that knowledgeable men have declared
and which they do not hide that they heard from their fathers
19 To whom the land was granted long ago
when no foreigners were among them.
20 The wicked man endures misery his whole life long;
and many years of sorrow are stored up for the ruthless.
21 His ears are assailed by the sounds of terror;
but when he is finally at peace, the destroyer seizes him.
22 Unsure that he will ever escape darkness,
he lives ever-conscious of the sword.
23 He wanders aimlessly in search of food.
“Where is it?” he asks.[a]
He knows all the while that the great day of darkness is imminent.
24 He is addled by strain and anxiety, terrified;
he will be overwhelmed as if by a king about to descend upon his enemy in war.
25 For he raises his fist to God
and acts arrogantly like a hero against the Highest One.[b]
26 He runs at Him, headlong, headstrong,
and leads his charge behind the thick protection of a massive shield.
27 Strong and healthy, he has nourished himself well and prospered
until his face and his thighs are pleasantly fat.
28 He lodges in evacuated towns in empty houses unfit for habitation,
in buildings condemned to rubble and ruin.
29 He will never be rich; his wealth will not last,
nor will he have possessions enough for any to put down roots.
30 He will not manage to escape from darkness,
as it scorches like tender branches that wilt in the flame;
He will blow away like the breath of his mouth.
31 Don’t let him fool himself;
if he trusts in the emptiness of his vanity,
emptiness will be his reward.
32 Before his time is up, it will all be finished
and the branches of his trees will never leaf out.
33 He will be like the vine that drops its immature grapes,
the olive tree that sheds its own blossoms.
34 O the gathering of the godless is unfruitful,
and fire consumes the tents of those who pervert justice by giving bribes.
35 Their intercourse yields only the conception of misconduct,
the birth of sinfulness,
and their wombs carry only lies to term.
3 My brothers and sisters, I cannot address you as people who walk by the Spirit; I have to speak to you as people who tend to think in merely human terms, as spiritual infants in the Anointed One. 2 I nursed you with milk, as a mother would feed her baby, because you were not, and still are not, developed enough to digest complex spiritual food. 3 And here’s why: you are still living in the flesh, not in the Spirit. How do I know? Are you fighting with one another? Are you comparing yourselves to others and becoming consumed with jealousy? Then it sounds like you are living in the flesh, no different from the rest who live by the standards of this rebellious and broken world. 4 If one of you is saying, “I am with Paul,” and the other says, “I am with Apollos,” aren’t you like everybody else? 5 So who is Apollos really? Or Paul for that matter? We are only servants, agents who led you to faith, and the Lord commissioned each of us to do a particular job.
Paul’s test for spiritually immaturity: Do you argue? Do you compare yourself to others? Are you jealous? Answer “yes” to any of these, then you are spiritually immature.
6 My job was to plant the seed, and Apollos was called to water it. Any growth comes from God, 7 so the ones who water and plant have nothing to brag about. God, who causes the growth, is the only One who matters. 8 The one who plants is no greater than the one who waters; both will be rewarded based on their work. 9 We are gardeners and field workers laboring with God. You are the vineyard, the garden, the house where God dwells. 10 Like a skilled architect and master builder, I laid a foundation based upon God’s grace given to me. Now others will come along to build on the foundation. Each serves in a different way and is to build upon it with great care. 11 There is, in fact, only one foundation, and no one can lay any foundation other than Jesus the Anointed. 12 As others build on the foundation (whether with gold, silver, gemstones, wood, hay, or straw), 13 the quality of each person’s work will be revealed in time as it is tested by fire. 14 If a man’s work stands the test of fire, he will be rewarded. 15 If a man’s work is consumed by the fire, his reward will be lost but he will be spared, rescued from the fire. 16 Don’t you understand that together you form a temple to the living God and His Spirit lives among you? 17 If someone comes along to corrupt, vandalize, and destroy the temple of God, you can be sure that God will see to it that he meets destruction because the temple of God is sacred. You, together, are His temple.
18 Don’t let anyone deceive himself. If any one of you thinks he is wise in matters pertaining to this world, he is going to be really disappointed. In fact, one must be deemed a fool by worldly standards in order to become truly wise 19 because the wisdom of this rebellious and broken world looks like foolishness when put next to God. So it stands in Scripture, “He catches the wise in their deceitful plotting.”[a] 20 And the Scriptures add, “The Lord knows the highest thoughts of the wise, and they are worthless.”[b] 21 So there is no reason for anyone to boast in human leaders. You already have it all. 22 So whether it is Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life or death, the present or the future—it all belongs to you. 23 You belong to the Anointed One, and the Anointed One belongs to God.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.