M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
11 Eternal One (to Moses): I am going to strike Pharaoh and his Egypt one more time, and after this final plague, Pharaoh will release you from Egypt. When he finally releases you, he will be so glad to see you go that he will practically force you out of this land. 2 Go now and speak to all the people. Have every man and every woman ask their neighbors to give them items made of silver and gold.
3 Now the Eternal caused the Egyptian people to have a favorable attitude toward His people. And Moses was already highly regarded in the land of Egypt by Pharaoh’s servants and most Egyptians.
Moses (to Pharaoh): 4 This is the message of the Eternal: “About midnight I will move through Egypt, 5 and every firstborn son in every family in Egypt will die—from the firstborn of Pharaoh (who rules from his throne) to the firstborn of the slave girl (who grinds at the mill). The firstborn of all your cattle and livestock will die as well. 6 The air will be heavy with loud wailing throughout the land of Egypt, a deep and dismal mourning unlike any that has been or will ever be again in the land. 7 But among the people of Israel not even a dog’s bark will disturb the night. Then you will know that the Eternal makes a sharp distinction between Egypt and Israel.”
8 All those who are servants to you, Pharaoh, will come down to me and humbly bow before me and beg, “Please go! You and all those who follow you! Leave now!” That is when I will go.
Then Moses, who was boiling with anger, left Pharaoh’s presence.
Eternal One (to Moses): 9 Pharaoh will not pay attention to what you say. As a result, My wonders will increase in all the land of Egypt.
Pharaoh’s stubbornness never frustrates the divine plan. God turns it and uses it to demonstrate to all that He is the one True God.
10 Moses and Aaron performed all of these wonders in the presence of Pharaoh. But the Eternal hardened Pharaoh’s stubborn heart, and Pharaoh refused to release the Israelites from his land.
Perhaps the best way to look at the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh is as a contest to see who truly is God. In Egypt Pharaoh is considered a god. He has certain powers and abilities, and the might of Egypt resides with him. When Moses and Aaron appear before him to demand the release of the Hebrew slaves, each refusal becomes an occasion for the True God to demonstrate His superiority over Pharaoh and all the other gods of Egypt. Each successive miracle attacks deeper into the heart of Pharaoh’s power and politics. Slowly but surely, Pharaoh’s power is subverted until God breaks Pharaoh’s grip on the people of Israel completely. With the final miracle everything begins to unravel: the death of the firstborn is personal for Pharaoh.
12 Eternal One (to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt): 1-2 Mark this month as the first month of all months for you—the first month of your year. 3 Declare this message to the entire community of Israel: “When the tenth day of this month arrives, every family is to select a lamb, one for each household. 4 If there aren’t enough people in the family to eat an entire lamb, then they should share a lamb with their nearest neighbor according to how many people are in the neighbor’s family. Divide the portions of the lamb so that each person has enough to eat. 5 Choose a one-year-old male that is intact and free of blemishes; you can take it from the sheep or the goats. 6 Keep this chosen lamb safe until the fourteenth day of the month, then the entire community of Israel will slaughter their lambs together at twilight. 7 They are to take some of its blood and smear it across the top and down the two sides of the doorframe of the houses where they plan to eat. 8 That night, have them roast the lamb over a fire and feast on it along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast. 9 Do not eat any meat raw or boil it in water; only eat the meat after the entire animal has been roasted over a fire with its head, legs, and intestines attached. 10 Eat whatever you can, but don’t leave any of it until morning; whatever is left over in the morning burn in the fire. 11 Here is how I want you to eat this meal: Be sure you are dressed and ready to go at a moment’s notice—with sandals on your feet and a walking stick in your hand. Eat quickly because this is My Passover.
12 I am going to pass through the land of Egypt during the night and put to death all their firstborn children and animals. I will also execute My judgments against all the gods of the Egyptians, for I am the Eternal One! 13 The blood on the doorframes of your houses will be a sign of where you are. When I pass by and see the blood, I will pass over you. This plague will not afflict you when I strike the land of Egypt with death.
14 This will be a day for you to always remember. I want you and all generations after you to commemorate this day with a festival to Me. Celebrate this feast as a perpetual ordinance, a permanent part of your life together. 15 You are to eat bread made without yeast for seven days. On the first day get rid of any yeast you find in your house. Anyone who eats bread made with yeast during the seven festival days must be cut off from the rest of Israel. 16 On the first day of the festival and again on the seventh, gather the community together for a time of sacred worship. No one may work on those two days except to prepare what every person needs to eat. 17 Celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread because it commemorates the day that I led your forces out of Egypt. Honor and celebrate this day throughout all your generations as a perpetual ordinance, a permanent part of your life together. 18 From the evening of the fourteenth day of that first month to the evening of the twenty-first day of that month, eat bread made without yeast. 19-20 No yeast is to be found in any of your houses during the seven festival days. Whoever eats anything that has yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. It doesn’t matter whether he is a foreigner or a native; the same standards apply. During the seven festival days, do not eat anything made with yeast; wherever you live and gather together, be sure you eat only unleavened bread.
21 Then Moses called all of Israel’s elders together and gave them instructions.
Moses: Go and pick out lambs for each of your families, and then slaughter your family’s Passover lamb.
14 Another Sabbath Day came and Jesus was invited to an official’s home for a meal. This fellow was a leader of the Pharisees, and Jesus was still under close surveillance by them. 2 Jesus noticed a man suffering from a swelling disorder. 3 He questioned the religious scholars and Pharisees.
Jesus: Is it permitted by traditions and the Hebrew Scriptures to heal people on the Sabbath, or is it forbidden?
4 They didn’t reply. Then Jesus healed the man and sent him on his way.
Jesus: 5 Would any single one of you leave his son[a] or even his ox in a well on the Sabbath if he had fallen into it, or would you pull him out immediately?
6 They still didn’t reply.
7 Then He noticed how the guests were jockeying for places of honor at the dinner, so He gave them advice.
Jesus: 8 Whenever someone invites you to a wedding dinner, don’t sit at the head table. Someone more important than you might also have been invited, 9 and your host will have to humiliate you publicly by telling you to give your seat to the other guest and to go find an open seat in the back of the room. 10 Instead, go and sit in the back of the room. Then your host may find you and say, “My friend! Why are you sitting back here? Come up to this table near the front!” Then you will be publicly honored in front of everyone. 11 Listen, if you lift yourself up, you’ll be put down, but if you humble yourself, you’ll be honored.
12 Jesus still wasn’t finished. Now He turned to the host who had invited Him to this gathering.
Jesus: When you host a dinner or banquet, don’t invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors. If you do, they might invite you to a party of their own, and you’ll be repaid for your kindness. 13 Instead, invite the poor, the amputees, the cripples, the blind. 14 Then you’ll be blessed because they can never repay you. Your reward will come from God at the resurrection of the just and good.
Guest: 15 Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!
Jesus: 16 A man once hosted a huge banquet and invited many guests. 17 When the time came, he sent his servant to tell the guests who had agreed to come, “We’re ready! Come now!” 18 But then every single guest began to make excuses. One said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I just bought some land, and I need to go see it. Please excuse me.” 19 Another said, “So sorry. I just bought five pairs of oxen. I need to go check them out. Please excuse me.” 20 Another said, “I just got married, so I can’t come.”
21 The servant returned and reported their responses to his master. His master was angry and told the servant, “Go out quickly to the streets and alleys around town and bring the poor, the amputees, the blind, and the cripples.”
22 The servant came back again: “Sir, I’ve done as you said, but there is still more room.” 23 And the host said, “Well then, go out to the highways and hedges and bring in the complete strangers you find there, until my house is completely full. 24 One thing is for sure, not one single person on the original guest list shall enjoy this banquet.”
Jesus continues to challenge Jewish ideas about who will be in the kingdom of God and how the Kingdom will work. Those who have been dishonored on earth will be honored in the Kingdom, and those in positions of economic and religious honor here will be dishonored there. He also challenges individuals to reconsider their personal value systems. They should not honor their own lives and family above Christ, but rather give them up for Him.
25 Great crowds joined Him on His journey, and He turned to them.
Jesus: 26 If any of you come to Me without hating your own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and yes, even your own life, you can’t be My disciple. 27 If you don’t carry your own cross as if to your own execution as you follow Me, you can’t be part of My movement. 28 Just imagine that you want to build a tower. Wouldn’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to be sure you have enough to finish what you start? 29 If you lay the foundation but then can’t afford to finish the tower, everyone will mock you: 30 “Look at that guy who started something that he couldn’t finish!”
31 Or imagine a king gearing up to go to war. Wouldn’t he begin by sitting down with his advisors to determine whether his 10,000 troops could defeat the opponent’s 20,000 troops? 32 If not, he’ll send a peace delegation quickly and negotiate a peace treaty. 33 In the same way, if you want to be My disciple, it will cost you everything. Don’t underestimate that cost!
34 Don’t be like salt that has lost its taste. How can its saltiness be restored? Flavorless salt is absolutely worthless. 35 You can’t even use it as fertilizer, so it’s worth less than manure! Don’t just listen to My words here. Get the deeper meaning.
The great wisdom of the ages begins with fearing God. It is the evil of the world that clouds our understanding and leads us into foolishness.
29 Job continued.
2 Job: Ah, that I were as I once was, months ago
during the time when God oversaw me,
3 When His lamp shone above my head,
and by His light, I walked through the darkness.
4 Ah, to be in the ripest time of life once more—
when the intimacies of friendship with God enfolded my tent,
5 When the Highest One[a] was with me
and my children encircled me,
6 When my steps were bathed in milk
and the rock poured out rivers of olive oil, showering my body,
7 When I went up to the gate of the city,
when I took my seat in the town square where the elders meet.
8 There the young saw me and made room for me, in deference to elders.
The old rose and stood out of respect.
9 The leaders stopped talking
with their hands over their mouths.
10 The voices of nobles fell to a hush;
their tongues stuck to the roofs of their mouths.
11 Every ear that heard me blessed me,
and every eye that saw me testified to my greatness.
12 After all, I rescued the poor when they cried out for help
and assisted the orphans when they had no one else.
Great virtue has always begun with the treatment of the poor. Can Job be accused of having a hard heart?
13 The dying spoke their blessings over me,
and the widows sang their joyful songs honoring what I did.
14 I adorned myself in righteousness,
and it covered me;
my justice fit me like a cloak and turban—
conveying both my dignity and my authority.
15 I was the eyes for the blind,
the feet for the lame,
16 A father for the needy,
and I sought for the cause of whom I did not know.
17 I broke out the fangs of the wicked
and wrested prey from their jaws.
18 Then I said, “I will pass from this earth in the comfort of my nest.
My days will be more numerous than a beach’s grains of sand.
19 My roots will grow deep, spreading out to the water’s edge,
and in the night, the dew will come to rest on my branches.
20 Respect will be accorded me every day,
my skill with the bow always new in my hand.”
21 People used to listen to me,
the sense of expectation visible on their faces;
they waited in silence for my advice.
22 And when I finished, they did not hurry to speak again.
They waited while my words dropped like dew upon them.
23 Indeed, they waited for me as one waits for a good rain,
and they opened their mouths as if to catch spring showers on their tongues.
24 I smiled upon them when their confidence flagged,
and they took comfort in my beaming face.[b]
25 I led them in their way.
I sat as their leader.
I lived like a king among his troops.
I was as a happy man spreading comfort among the mourners.
15 Let me remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I preached to you when we first met. It’s the essential message that you have taken to heart, the central story you now base your life on; 2 and through this gospel, you are liberated—unless, of course, your faith has come to nothing. 3-4 For I passed down to you the crux of it all which I had also received from others, that the Anointed One, the Liberating King, died for our sins and was buried and raised from the dead on the third day. All this happened to fulfill the Scriptures; it was the perfect climax to God’s covenant story. 5 Afterward He appeared alive to Cephas[a] (you may know him as Simon Peter), then to the rest of the twelve. 6 If that were not amazing enough, on one occasion, He appeared to more than 500 believers at one time. Many of those brothers and sisters are still around to tell the story, though some have fallen asleep[b] in Jesus. 7 Soon He appeared to James, His brother and the leader of the Jerusalem church, and then to all the rest of the emissaries[c] He Himself commissioned.[d] 8 Last of all, He appeared to me;[e] I was like a child snatched from his mother’s womb. 9 You see, I am the least of all His emissaries, not fit to be called His emissary because I hunted down and persecuted God’s church. 10 Today I am who I am because of God’s grace, and I have made sure that the grace He offered me has not been wasted. I have worked harder, longer, and smarter than all the rest; but I realize it is not me—it is God’s grace with me that has made the difference. 11 In the end, it doesn’t matter whether it was I or the other witnesses who brought you the message. What matters is that we keep preaching and that you have faith in this message.
12 Now if we have told you about the Anointed One (how He has risen from the dead and appeared to us fully alive), then how can you stand there and say there is no such thing as resurrection from death? 13 Friends, if there is no resurrection of the dead, then even the Anointed hasn’t been raised; 14 if that is so, then all our preaching has been for nothing and your faith in the message is worthless. 15 And what’s worse, all of us who have been preaching the gospel are now guilty of misrepresenting God because we have been spreading the news that He raised the Anointed One from the dead (which must be a lie if what you are saying about the dead not being raised is the truth). 16 Please listen. If you say, “the dead are not raised,” then what you are telling me is that the Anointed One has not been raised. Friends, 17 if the Anointed has not been raised from the dead, then your faith is worth less than yesterday’s garbage, you are all doomed in your sins, 18 and all the dearly departed who trusted in His liberation are left decaying in the ground. 19 If what we have hoped for in the Anointed doesn’t take us beyond this life, then we are world-class fools, deserving everyone’s pity.
20 But the Anointed One was raised from death’s slumber and is the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep in death. 21 For since death entered this world by a man, it took another man to make the resurrection of the dead our new reality. 22 Look at it this way: through Adam all of us die, but through the Anointed One all of us can live again. 23 But this is how it will happen: the Anointed’s awakening is the firstfruits. It will be followed by the resurrection of all those who belong to Him at His coming, 24 and then the end will come. After He has conquered His enemies and shut down every rule and authority vying for power, He will hand over the Kingdom to God, the Father of all that is. 25 And He must reign as King until He has put all His enemies under His feet. 26 The last hostile power to be destroyed is death itself. 27 All this will happen to fulfill the Scripture that says, “You placed everything on earth beneath His feet.”[f] (Although it says “everything,” it is clear that this does not also pertain to God, who created everything and made it all subject to Him.) 28 Then, when all creation has taken its rightful place beneath God’s sovereign reign, the Son will follow, subject to the Father who exalted Him over all created things; then God will be God over all.
Resurrection is central to the gospel. In fact, without the bodily resurrection of Jesus there is no good news at all. For in Jesus, God personifies His redeeming work and demonstrates the scope of that redemption. He is a God who brings life from death, peace from war, prosperity from adversity, and bounty from famine. The resurrection of Jesus marks a new era of God’s dealing with the world. He intends nothing less than the total reclamation of His good creation damaged by human folly, sin, and death.
29 You have probably heard that some people are undergoing ritual cleansings of baptism[g] for the dead. Why are they doing that? If the dead are not going to be raised, then why are people being baptized for them? 30 Why are we putting our lives on the line all the time if there’s no resurrection? 31 I die every day! I swear that it’s true! That’s something you take pride in, brothers and sisters, as I do in Jesus the Anointed, our Lord. 32 But if I have fought against the wild beasts in Ephesus for some human cause, then what good has that done me? If the dead are not raised, then there’s nothing more to do than—as the saying goes—eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.[h]
33 But don’t be so naïve—there’s another saying you know well—Bad company corrupts good habits. 34 Come to your senses, live justly, and stop sinning. It’s true that some have no knowledge of God. I am saying this to shame you into better habits.
35 Now I know what some of you are thinking: “Just how are the dead going to be raised? What kind of bodies will they have when they come back to life?” 36 Don’t be a fool! The seed you plant doesn’t produce life unless it dies. Right? 37 The seed doesn’t have the same look, the same body, if you will, of what it will have once it starts to grow. It starts out a single, naked seed—whether wheat or some other grain, it doesn’t matter— 38 and God gives to that seed a body just as He has desired. For each of the different kinds of seeds God prepares a unique body. 39 Or look at it this way: not all flesh is the same. Right? There is skin flesh on humans, furry flesh on animals, feathery flesh on birds, and scaly flesh on fish. 40 Likewise there are bodies made for the heavens and bodies made for the earth. The heavenly bodies have a different kind of glory or luminescence compared to bodies below. 41 Even among the heavenly bodies, there is a different level of brilliance: the sun shines differently than the moon, the moon differently than the stars, and the stars themselves differ in their brightness.
42 It’s like this with the resurrection of those who have died. The body planted in the earth decays. But the body raised from the earth cannot decay. 43 The body is planted in disgrace and weakness. But the body is raised in splendor and power. 44 The body planted in the earth was animated by the physical, material realm. But the body raised from the earth will be animated by the spiritual. Since there is a physical, material body, there will also be a spiritual body. 45 That’s why it was written, “The first man Adam became a living soul”; the last Adam has become a life-giving spirit. 46 Everything has an order. The body is not animated first by the spiritual but the physical; then the spiritual becomes its life-giving source. 47 The first man, Adam, came from the earth and was made from dust; the second man, Jesus, has come from heaven. 48 The earth man shares his earth nature with all those made of earth; likewise the heavenly man shares His heavenly nature with all those made of heaven. 49 Just as we have carried the image of the earth man in our bodies, we will[i] also carry the image of the heavenly man in our new bodies at the resurrection.
Redemption is not merely forgiveness of sin’s guilt so our souls can go to heaven someday. Our true hope is to be free from physical death just as Jesus was raised from the dead. Accordingly, this hope of bodily resurrection stands against the expectation that souls escape from their mortal bodies (as if your soul is the real “you” and your body is a disposable external space suit) and merely float up to heaven. Rather, Paul presents resurrection as a new creation; and this restored bodily existence affirms and fulfills the original intent of creation. Believers don’t have to wait until the future to experience this Spirit-enabled life because living in obedience to God through the Spirit is a foretaste of the total experience that will come when all is restored later.
50 Now listen to this: brothers and sisters, this present body is not able to inherit the kingdom of God any more than decay can inherit that which lasts forever. 51 Stay close because I am going to tell you a mystery—something you may have trouble understanding: we will not all fall asleep in death, but we will all be transformed. 52 It will all happen so fast, in a blink, a mere flutter of the eye. The last trumpet will call, and the dead will be raised from their graves with a body that does not, cannot decay. All of us will be changed! 53 We’ll step out of our mortal clothes and slide into immortal bodies, replacing everything that is subject to death with eternal life. 54 And, when we are all redressed with bodies that do not, cannot decay, when we put immortality over our mortal frames, then it will be as Scripture says:
Life everlasting has victoriously swallowed death.[j]
55 Hey, Death! What happened to your big win?
Hey, Death! What happened to your sting?[k]
56 Sin came into this world, and death’s sting followed. Then sin took aim at the law and gained power over those who follow the law. 57 Thank God, then, for our Lord Jesus, the Anointed, the Liberating King, who brought us victory over the grave.
58 My dear brothers and sisters, stay firmly planted—be unshakable—do many good works in the name of God, and know that all your labor is not for nothing when it is for God.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.