M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
Laws concerning the Sabbatical Year
15 “Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts.(A) 2 And this is the manner of the remission: every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it,[a] because the Lord’s remission has been proclaimed. 3 Of a foreigner you may exact it, but you must remit your claim on whatever any member of your community owes you. 4 There will, however, be no one in need among you, because the Lord is sure to bless you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you as a possession to occupy, 5 if only you will obey the Lord your God by diligently observing this entire commandment that I command you today.(B) 6 When the Lord your God has blessed you, as he promised you, you will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow; you will rule over many nations, but they will not rule over you.(C)
7 “If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor.(D) 8 You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be.(E) 9 Be careful that you do not entertain a mean thought, thinking, ‘The seventh year, the year of remission, is near,’ and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing; your neighbor[b] might cry to the Lord against you, and you would incur guilt.(F) 10 Give liberally and be ungrudging when you do so, for on this account the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake.(G) 11 Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, ‘Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.’(H)
12 “If a member of your community, whether a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold[c] to you and works for you six years, in the seventh year you shall set that person free.(I) 13 And when you send a male slave[d] out from you a free person, you shall not send him out empty-handed. 14 Provide for him liberally out of your flock, your threshing floor, and your winepress, thus giving to him some of the bounty with which the Lord your God has blessed you. 15 Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; for this reason I lay this command upon you today.(J) 16 But if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you,(K) 17 then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his earlobe into the door, and he shall be your slave forever.
“You shall do the same with regard to your female slave.
18 “Do not consider it a hardship when you send them out from you free persons, because for six years they have given you services worth the wages of hired laborers, and the Lord your God will bless you in all that you do.
The Firstborn of Livestock
19 “Every firstling male born of your herd and flock you shall consecrate to the Lord your God; you shall not do work with your firstling ox nor shear the firstling of your flock.(L) 20 You shall eat it, you together with your household, in the presence of the Lord your God year by year at the place that the Lord will choose.(M) 21 But if it has any defect—any serious defect, such as lameness or blindness—you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God;(N) 22 within your towns you may eat it, the unclean and the clean alike, as you would a gazelle or deer.(O) 23 Its blood, however, you must not eat; you shall pour it out on the ground like water.(P)
Psalm 102
Prayer to the Eternal King for Help
A prayer of one afflicted, when faint and pleading before the Lord.
1 Hear my prayer, O Lord;
let my cry come to you.(A)
2 Do not hide your face from me
in the day of my distress.
Incline your ear to me;
answer me speedily in the day when I call.(B)
3 For my days pass away like smoke,
and my bones burn like a furnace.(C)
4 My heart is stricken and withered like grass;
I am too wasted to eat my bread.(D)
5 Because of my loud groaning,
my bones cling to my skin.(E)
6 I am like a desert owl[a] of the wilderness,
like a little owl of the waste places.(F)
7 I lie awake;
I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.(G)
8 All day long my enemies taunt me;
those who deride me use my name for a curse.(H)
9 Indeed, I eat ashes like bread
and mingle tears with my drink,(I)
10 because of your indignation and anger,
for you have lifted me up and thrown me aside.
11 My days are like a lengthening shadow;
I wither away like grass.(J)
12 But you, O Lord, are enthroned forever;
your name endures to all generations.(K)
13 You will rise up and have compassion on Zion,
for it is time to favor it;
the appointed time has come.(L)
14 For your servants hold its stones dear
and have pity on its dust.
15 The nations will fear the name of the Lord
and all the kings of the earth your glory.(M)
16 For the Lord will build up Zion;
he will appear in his glory.(N)
17 He will regard the prayer of the destitute
and will not despise their prayer.(O)
18 Let this be recorded for a generation to come,
so that a people yet unborn may praise the Lord:(P)
19 that he looked down from his holy height,
from heaven the Lord looked at the earth,(Q)
20 to hear the groans of the prisoners,
to set free those who were doomed to die,(R)
21 so that the name of the Lord may be declared in Zion
and his praise in Jerusalem,(S)
22 when peoples gather together,
and kingdoms, to serve the Lord.(T)
23 He has broken my strength in midcourse;
he has shortened my days.(U)
24 “O my God,” I say, “do not take me away
at the midpoint of my life,
you whose years endure
throughout all generations.”(V)
25 Long ago you laid the foundation of the earth,
and the heavens are the work of your hands.(W)
26 They will perish, but you endure;
they will all wear out like a garment.
You change them like clothing, and they pass away,(X)
27 but you are the same, and your years have no end.(Y)
28 The children of your servants shall live secure;
their offspring shall be established in your presence.(Z)
The Servant, a Light to the Nations
42 Here is my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.(A)
2 He will not cry out or lift up his voice
or make it heard in the street;
3 a bruised reed he will not break,
and a dimly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.(B)
4 He will not grow faint or be crushed
until he has established justice in the earth,
and the coastlands wait for his teaching.(C)
5 Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it,
who gives breath to the people upon it
and spirit to those who walk in it:(D)
6 I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness;
I have taken you by the hand and kept you;
I have given you as a covenant to the people,[a]
a light to the nations,(E)
7 to open the eyes that are blind,
to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,
from the prison those who sit in darkness.(F)
8 I am the Lord; that is my name;
my glory I give to no other,
nor my praise to idols.(G)
9 See, the former things have come to pass,
and new things I now declare;
before they spring forth,
I tell you of them.(H)
A Hymn of Praise
10 Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise from the end of the earth!
Let the sea roar[b] and all that fills it,
the coastlands and their inhabitants.(I)
11 Let the desert and its towns lift up their voice,
the villages that Kedar inhabits;
let the inhabitants of Sela shout for joy;
let them shout from the tops of the mountains.
12 Let them give glory to the Lord
and declare his praise in the coastlands.(J)
13 The Lord goes forth like a soldier;
like a warrior he stirs up his fury;
he cries out; he shouts aloud;
he shows himself mighty against his foes.(K)
14 For a long time I have held my peace;
I have kept still and restrained myself;
now I will cry out like a woman in labor;
I will gasp and pant.(L)
15 I will lay waste mountains and hills
and dry up all their herbage;
I will turn the rivers into islands
and dry up the pools.(M)
16 I will lead the blind
by a road they do not know;
by paths they have not known
I will guide them.
I will turn the darkness before them into light,
the rough places into level ground.
These are the things I will do,
and I will not forsake them.(N)
17 They shall be turned back and utterly put to shame—
those who trust in carved images,
who say to cast images,
“You are our gods.”(O)
18 Listen, you who are deaf,
and you who are blind, look up and see!
19 Who is blind but my servant
or deaf like my messenger whom I send?
Who is blind like my dedicated one
or blind like the servant of the Lord?(P)
20 He sees many things, but he does[c] not observe them;
his ears are open, but he does not hear.(Q)
Israel’s Disobedience
21 The Lord was pleased, for the sake of his righteousness,
to magnify his teaching and make it glorious.(R)
22 But this is a people robbed and plundered;
all of them are trapped in holes
and hidden in prisons;
they have become a prey with no one to rescue,
a spoil with no one to say, “Restore!”(S)
23 Who among you will give heed to this;
who will attend and listen for the time to come?
24 Who gave up Jacob to the spoiler
and Israel to the robbers?
Was it not the Lord, against whom they sinned,[d]
in whose ways they would not walk,
and whose law they would not obey?(T)
25 So he poured upon him the heat of his anger
and the fury of war;
it set him on fire all around, but he did not understand;
it burned him, but he did not take it to heart.(U)
The Woman and the Dragon
12 A great portent appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. 2 She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth.(A) 3 Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns and seven diadems on his heads.(B) 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to deliver a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born.(C) 5 And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule[a] all the nations with a scepter of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne,(D) 6 and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days.(E)
Michael Defeats the Dragon
7 And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back,(F) 8 but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. 9 The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.(G)
10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven proclaiming,
“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God
and the authority of his Messiah,[b]
for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down,
who accuses them day and night before our God.(H)
11 But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony,
for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.(I)
12 Rejoice then, you heavens
and those who dwell in them!
But woe to the earth and the sea,
for the devil has come down to you
with great wrath
because he knows that his time is short!”(J)
The Dragon Fights Again on Earth
13 So when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he pursued[c] the woman who had delivered the male child. 14 But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.(K) 15 Then from his mouth the serpent poured water like a river after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood.(L) 16 But the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was angry with the woman and went off to wage war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.(M)
The First Beast
18 Then the dragon[d] took his stand on the sand of the seashore.
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.