M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
In this next chapter, Moses outlines the Israelites’ journey to this point, and in doing so reminds them of the events that have brought them to this place. In that walk down memory lane, it can be difficult to place the locations within a linear reference of time. The entire book moves through a few months in the first 14 chapters, and suddenly it is 38 years later. After that, time seems to stand still as the people are prepared to go into the promised land. It is hard to determine when things happened in those 38 years.
33 1-2 Based on the meticulous records of departure points Moses kept, at the direction of the Eternal One, he reported that the Israelites’ wilderness journey from Egypt led by Moses and Aaron followed this itinerary: 3 They started out from Rameses in Egypt on Month 1, day 15 (the day after observing the Passover), and were exalted before the Egyptians’ eyes 4 (who were burying their firstborn dead, struck down by God, and whose gods the Eternal was punishing). 5 The Israelites’ first camp after Rameses was Succoth. 6 The next, Etham, was right where the wilderness begins. 7 From Etham, they went toward Pi-hahiroth, facing Baal-zephon, and camped in front of Migdol. 8 From Pi-hahiroth, they crossed the sea and entered the wilderness proper. For three days, they crossed that Etham Wilderness, stopping over at Marah 9 and then Elim. That was a good spot to camp. Elim was an oasis with 12 springs and 70 palm trees. 10 After Elim, their next stop was at the coast of the Red Sea;[a] 11 then they camped in the Sin Wilderness. 12 After leaving Sin, they traveled to Dophkah, 13 then Alush, 14 and then Rephidim. At that point, the people were getting desperate for water and ornery on account of their discomfort and thirst. There, God told Moses to produce water for them from out of a rock.[b] 15 After that, the Sinai Wilderness. 16-17 Their stopping places after Sinai were first Kibroth-hattaavah, then Hazeroth. 18-23 They camped as they moved from place to place through Rithmah, Rimmon-perez, Libnah, Rissah, Kehelathah, and Mount Shepher. 24-27 From there they moved through Haradah, Makheloth, Tahath, and Terah. 28-33 Continuing their journey from place to place, they went through Mithkah, Hashmonah, Moseroth, Bene-jaakan, Hor-haggidgad, and Jotbathah. 34-37 They camped in Abronah, Ezion-geber, Kadesh (in the Zin Wilderness), and then Mount Hor (on the Edomite border). 38 It was at Mount Hor that Aaron the priest went up the mountain and died as the Eternal said he would. That was in the 40th year after the Israelites had left Egypt, and it happened on the first day of the fifth month. 39 Aaron was 123 years old when he died on Mount Hor. 40 That was also when the Canaanite king of Arad, from the Negev region, caught wind of the Israelites’ arrival and attacked them.
One battle between the Amorites (a people of Canaan) and the Israelites seems to be mentioned in four different passages (14:45; 21:1; 33:40; Deuteronomy 1:44). In this chapter, Moses is looking back at what has brought them to this place, ready to enter the land. He rehearses the death of Aaron (20:27–29) and the battle that followed. Initially, the Amorites overcome the Israelites at Hormah (14:45; 33:40; Deuteronomy 1:44) and take prisoners (21:1). Then with the Lord’s help, the Israelites rebound to defeat the king of Arad and rescue the people who have been captured (21:2–4). For some reason, this battle is mentioned in different contexts three times and with two different outcomes.
41-47 After Mount Hor, their next camp site was Zalmonah, then Punon, Oboth, Iye-abarim (on Moab’s border), Dibon-gad, Almon-diblathaim, and Nebo’s foothills of Abarim. 48 From Abarim, they set up camp on the flatlands of Moab, on the western banks of the Jordan River, east of Jericho. 49 Their camp stretched from Beth-jeshimoth on the riverbank to Abel-shittim in the flatlands.
50 In that Moabite flatland, next to the Jordan, east of Jericho, the Eternal One told Moses to speak to the people.
Moses is instructed to remind the people of their mission to take the land and utterly decimate the peoples who are presently living there.
Eternal One: 51 Tell this new generation of Israelites that as soon as they cross the Jordan into Canaan, 52 they must make its inhabitants flee. They must obliterate any carved or molded images of other gods and goddesses and the high places where they’re worshiped. 53 Tell them they must take that land. I promised it to them and have determined they should live in it as their own. 54 Divide it up among the people by clan, and make decisions about who gets what partly based on the size of the groups. But once you’ve made that rough distinction, draw lots for the specific territories. Whatever you draw, that’s how the land shall be allotted. Each of the tribes from Jacob’s extended families shall have their own land. 55 If they do not fully conquer and take the land from its native inhabitants, those remaining people will be a constant irritation, causing trouble and annoyance like thorns in their eyes and barbs in their sides 56 because if they don’t fully dispossess the present occupants, I will do to the Israelites what I would have done to the Canaanites.
Psalm 78
A contemplative song[a] of Asaph.
1 O my people, listen to me!
Hear my instruction; soak up every word of what I am about to tell you.
2 I will open my mouth in parables;
I will speak of ancient mysteries—
3 Things that we have heard about, things that we have known,
things which our ancestors declared to us again and again.
4 We will not keep these things secret from their children;
rather, we will tell the coming generation
All about the praise that is due to the Eternal One.
We will tell them all about His strength, power, and wonders.
5 He gave His holy law to Jacob,
His teaching to the people of Israel,
Which He instructed our fathers
to pass down to their children
6 So that the coming generation would know them by heart,
even the children who are not yet born,
So that they might one day stand up and teach them to their children,
7 tell them to put their confidence and hope in God,
And never forget the wondrous things He has done.
They should obey His commandments always
8 And avoid following in the footsteps of their parents,
a hard-headed and rebellious generation—
A generation of uncultivated hearts,
whose spirits were unfaithful to God.
9 The sons of Ephraim were master archers, armed with all the necessary equipment,
yet when the battle hour arrived, they ran away.
10 They were not loyal to their covenant with God;
they turned away and refused to walk in it;
11 They did not remember all the wondrous things He had done,
even the great miracles He had revealed to them.
12 He did miraculous things in the presence of their ancestors
as they made their way out of Egypt, through the fields of Zoan.
13 He split the sea and made them pass through it;
He made the waters to rise, forming a wall of water.
14 Every day He led them with a cloud;
every night, with a fiery light.
15 He cracked open rocks in the wilderness
and provided them with all the water they needed, as plentiful as the depths of the ocean.
16 He caused streams to burst forth from the rock,
waters to rush in like a river.
17 Even after witnessing all of these miracles, they still chose to sin against God,
to act against the will of the Most High in the desert!
18 They tested God in their stubborn hearts
by demanding whatever food they happened to be craving.
19 Then they challenged God:
“Can God fill a table with food in the middle of the desert?
20 He split open the rock, and water gushed out;
streams and rivers were overflowing!
But can He also provide us with bread?
Can He supply meat to His sons and daughters?”
21 When the Eternal heard these words, He was furious;
His fiery anger erupted against Jacob;
His wrath grew against Israel.
22 This all happened because they did not trust God;
they did not have faith in His power to save them.
23 Nevertheless, He gave instructions to the clouds in the sky
and swung open heaven’s doors;
24 He showered them with manna to soothe their hungry bellies
and provided them with the bread of heaven.
25 (In that day mortals ate the bread of heavenly messengers.)
God provided them with plenty of food.
26 He stirred up the east wind and blew it through the sky.
With His might, He whipped the south wind into a storm;
27 Like dust from the sky, He caused meat to fall on them.
Birds, like sand on the seashore, fell to the earth.
28 They landed all about the camp,
all around their tents.
29 God’s people feasted on the food-blessings, and their stomachs were filled;
He gave them exactly what they desired.
30 But before their bellies were soothed,
while their mouths were still full of food,
31 God’s wrath came at them like a tidal wave
and swallowed some of the bravest, strongest among them
and quieted the youth of Israel.
32 Even after all this, they continued to sin
and still did not trust in Him
or in the incredible things He did.
33 So He abruptly ended their time; they vanished like a breath;
He ended their years suddenly, with terror.
34 After He took some of their lives,
those left turned back and sought God wholeheartedly.
35 After all they had endured, they remembered that God, the Most High,
was their Rock, their Redeemer,
36 But even then they tried to deceive Him with their words
and fool Him with a web of lies.
37 They were not consistently faithful to Him,
and they were untrue to their covenant with Him.
25 Eternal One, You are my God.
I will lift You up and praise Your name.
Because You have made wonders marvelous and beautiful—
the most ancient designs holding strong and sure.
2 Your power is awesome. You have brought down whole cities,
turned fortresses and strongholds into piles of sticks and rubble.
A citadel of foreigners is no longer even a city.
Those structures are gone forever.
3 This is why nations strong and mighty will glorify You;
the cities of ruthless people will fear and respect You.
4 Because You stand up for the poor and weak,
You comfort and empower them in their distress,
Giving them safe harbor and cool shade when it’s hot;
You shelter them from their oppressors’ blows
As a strong wall holds back the driving rain.
5 You shelter from the relentless heat of the desert.
You quiet the clamor of outsiders, ease them to stillness.
Like a full, dark cloud relieves the heat,
You silence the arrogant song of the violent.
6 The Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies, is preparing a feast,
a feast for everyone on this mystical mountain
With aged wine and good food, the finest wine and choicest meat.
7 And God will swallow up the oppression that weighs us down.
He will take away the heavy shroud
that is draped over all peoples of the world.
8 God will swallow up death forever.
The Lord, the Eternal, will wipe away the tears from each and every face
And deflect the scorn and shame His people endure from the whole world,
for the Eternal determined that it should be so.
9 And in that moment, at that glorious time, people will say,
People: This is our God! We put our hope in him.
We knew that He would save us!
This is our God, the Eternal for whom we waited.
Let us rejoice and celebrate in His liberation.
10 For on this mountain, the powerful hand of the Eternal abides.
He will smash and tread Moab like straw on manure.
11 And God will reach out, like a swimmer pulling water,
and drag down their arrogance and everything that made them proud.
12 God will bring down their strongest walls, their impenetrable defenses,
and grind them to the ground until they are only dust.
3 Consider the kind of extravagant love the Father has lavished on us—He calls us children of God! It’s true; we are His beloved children. And in the same way the world didn’t recognize Him, the world does not recognize us either.
When we feel like we are not good enough to be loved by God, we should remember that God’s love is greater than our doubts. We must silence the sounds of condemnation so we can hear the voice of God’s loving assurance and remember that He has selected us to be part of His family.
2 My loved ones, we have been adopted into God’s family; and we are officially His children now. The full picture of our destiny is not yet clear, but we know this much: when Jesus appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him just as He is. 3 All those who focus their hopes on Him and His coming seek to purify themselves just as He is pure.
4 Everyone who lives a life of habitual sin is living in moral anarchy. That’s what sin is. 5 You realize that He came to eradicate sins, that there is not the slightest bit of sin in Him. 6 The ones who live in an intimate relationship with Him do not persist in sin, but anyone who persists in sin has not seen and does not know the real Jesus.
7 Children, don’t let anyone pull one over on you. The one doing the right thing is just imitating Jesus, the Righteous One.
If you are wondering if your faith is authentic, take a look at your life. Are you doing what is right?
8 The one persisting in sin belongs to the diabolical one, who has been all about sin from the beginning. That is why the Son of God came into our world: to destroy the plague of destruction inflicted on the world by the diabolical one.
9 Everyone who has been born into God’s family avoids sin as a lifestyle because the genes of God’s children come from God Himself. Therefore, a child of God can’t live a life of persistent sin. 10 So it is not hard to figure out who are the children of God and who are the children of the diabolical one: those who lack right standing and those who don’t show love for one another do not belong to God.
11 The central truth—the one you have heard since the beginning of your faith—is that we must love one another. 12 Please do not act like Cain, who was of the evil one. He brutally murdered his own brother.[a] Why would he do something so despicable? Because his life was devoted to evil and selfishness, and his brother chose to do what is right.
13 Brothers and sisters, don’t be shocked if the corrupt world despises you. 14 We know that we have crossed over from death to real life because we are devoted to true love for our brothers and sisters. Anyone who does not love lives among corpses.
Do you ever wonder if you are just silently sleeping through days, months, and years? There is one indicator of real life: true love for others.
15 Everyone who hates other members of God’s family is a murderer. Does a murderer possess the beautiful life that never ends? No. 16 We know what true love looks like because of Jesus. He gave His life for us, and He calls us to give our lives for our brothers and sisters.
17 If a person owns the kinds of things we need to make it in the world but refuses to share with those in need, is it even possible that God’s love lives in him? 18 My little children, don’t just talk about love as an idea or a theory. Make it your true way of life, and live in the pattern of gracious love.
19-20 There is a sure way for us to know that we belong to the truth. Even though our inner thoughts may condemn us with storms of guilt and constant reminders of our failures, we can know in our hearts that in His presence God Himself is greater than any accusation. He knows all things. 21 My loved ones, if our hearts cannot condemn us, then we can stand with confidence before God. 22 Whatever we may ask, we receive it from Him because we follow His commands and take the path that pleases Him. 23 His command is clear: believe in the name of His Son, Jesus the Anointed, and love one another as He commanded. 24 The one who follows His teaching and walks this path lives in an intimate relationship with God. How do we know that He lives in us? By the gift of His Spirit.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.