Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb.

²Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it.

³His face shone like lightning, and his clothing was as white as snow.

⁴The guards shook with fear when they saw him, and they fell into a dead faint.

⁵Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.

⁶He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying.

⁷And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Remember what I have told you.”

⁸The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message.

⁹And as they went, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshiped him.

¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.”

¹¹As the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and told the leading priests what had happened.

¹²A meeting with the elders was called, and they decided to give the soldiers a large bribe.

¹³They told the soldiers, “You must say, ‘Jesus’ disciples came during the night while we were sleeping, and they stole his body.’

¹⁴If the governor hears about it, we’ll stand up for you so you won’t get in trouble.”

¹⁵So the guards accepted the bribe and said what they were told to say. Their story spread widely among the Jews, and they still tell it today.

¹⁶Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.

¹⁷When they saw him, they worshiped him — but some of them doubted!

¹⁸Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

¹⁹Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

²⁰Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

¹The LORD said to Moses,

²“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. If anyone makes a special vow to dedicate someone to the LORD by paying the value of that person,

³here is the scale of values to be used. A man between the ages of twenty and sixty is valued at fifty shekels of silver, as measured by the sanctuary shekel.

⁴A woman of that age is valued at thirty shekels of silver.

⁵A boy between the ages of five and twenty is valued at twenty shekels of silver; a girl of that age is valued at ten shekels of silver.

⁶A boy between the ages of one month and five years is valued at five shekels of silver; a girl of that age is valued at three shekels of silver.

⁷A man older than sixty is valued at fifteen shekels of silver; a woman of that age is valued at ten shekels of silver.

⁸If you desire to make such a vow but cannot afford to pay the required amount, take the person to the priest. He will determine the amount for you to pay based on what you can afford.

⁹“If your vow involves giving an animal that is acceptable as an offering to the LORD, any gift to the LORD will be considered holy.

¹⁰You may not exchange or substitute it for another animal — neither a good animal for a bad one nor a bad animal for a good one. But if you do exchange one animal for another, then both the original animal and its substitute will be considered holy.

¹¹If your vow involves an unclean animal — one that is not acceptable as an offering to the LORD — then you must bring the animal to the priest.

¹²He will assess its value, and his assessment will be final, whether high or low.

¹³If you want to buy back the animal, you must pay the value set by the priest, plus 20 percent.

¹⁴“If someone dedicates a house to the LORD, the priest will come to assess its value. The priest’s assessment will be final, whether high or low.

¹⁵If the person who dedicated the house wants to buy it back, he must pay the value set by the priest, plus 20 percent. Then the house will again be his.

¹⁶“If someone dedicates to the LORD a piece of his family property, its value will be assessed according to the amount of seed required to plant it — fifty shekels of silver for a field planted with five bushels of barley seed.

¹⁷If the field is dedicated to the LORD in the Year of Jubilee, then the entire assessment will apply.

¹⁸But if the field is dedicated after the Year of Jubilee, the priest will assess the land’s value in proportion to the number of years left until the next Year of Jubilee. Its assessed value is reduced each year.

¹⁹If the person who dedicated the field wants to buy it back, he must pay the value set by the priest, plus 20 percent. Then the field will again be legally his.

²⁰But if he does not want to buy it back, and it is sold to someone else, the field can no longer be bought back.

²¹When the field is released in the Year of Jubilee, it will be holy, a field specially set apart for the LORD. It will become the property of the priests.

²²“If someone dedicates to the LORD a field he has purchased but which is not part of his family property,

²³the priest will assess its value based on the number of years left until the next Year of Jubilee. On that day he must give the assessed value of the land as a sacred donation to the LORD.

²⁴In the Year of Jubilee the field must be returned to the person from whom he purchased it, the one who inherited it as family property.

²⁵(All the payments must be measured by the weight of the sanctuary shekel, which equals twenty gerahs.)

²⁶“You may not dedicate a firstborn animal to the LORD, for the firstborn of your cattle, sheep, and goats already belong to him.

²⁷However, you may buy back the firstborn of a ceremonially unclean animal by paying the priest’s assessment of its worth, plus 20 percent. If you do not buy it back, the priest will sell it at its assessed value.

²⁸“However, anything specially set apart for the LORD — whether a person, an animal, or family property — must never be sold or bought back. Anything devoted in this way has been set apart as holy, and it belongs to the LORD.

²⁹No person specially set apart for destruction may be bought back. Such a person must be put to death.

³⁰“One-tenth of the produce of the land, whether grain from the fields or fruit from the trees, belongs to the LORD and must be set apart to him as holy.

³¹If you want to buy back the LORD’s tenth of the grain or fruit, you must pay its value, plus 20 percent.

³²Count off every tenth animal from your herds and flocks and set them apart for the LORD as holy.

³³You may not pick and choose between good and bad animals, and you may not substitute one for another. But if you do exchange one animal for another, then both the original animal and its substitute will be considered holy and cannot be bought back.”

³⁴These are the commands that the LORD gave through Moses on Mount Sinai for the Israelites.

¹Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God.

²Please open your hearts to us. We have not done wrong to anyone, nor led anyone astray, nor taken advantage of anyone.

³I’m not saying this to condemn you. I said before that you are in our hearts, and we live or die together with you.

⁴I have the highest confidence in you, and I take great pride in you. You have greatly encouraged me and made me happy despite all our troubles.

⁵When we arrived in Macedonia, there was no rest for us. We faced conflict from every direction, with battles on the outside and fear on the inside.

⁶But God, who encourages those who are discouraged, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus.

⁷His presence was a joy, but so was the news he brought of the encouragement he received from you. When he told us how much you long to see me, and how sorry you are for what happened, and how loyal you are to me, I was filled with joy!

⁸I am not sorry that I sent that severe letter to you, though I was sorry at first, for I know it was painful to you for a little while.

⁹Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way.

¹⁰For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.

¹¹Just see what this godly sorrow produced in you! Such earnestness, such concern to clear yourselves, such indignation, such alarm, such longing to see me, such zeal, and such a readiness to punish wrong. You showed that you have done everything necessary to make things right.

¹²My purpose, then, was not to write about who did the wrong or who was wronged. I wrote to you so that in the sight of God you could see for yourselves how loyal you are to us.

¹³We have been greatly encouraged by this. In addition to our own encouragement, we were especially delighted to see how happy Titus was about the way all of you welcomed him and set his mind at ease.

¹⁴I had told him how proud I was of you — and you didn’t disappoint me. I have always told you the truth, and now my boasting to Titus has also proved true!

¹⁵Now he cares for you more than ever when he remembers the way all of you obeyed him and welcomed him with such fear and deep respect.

¹⁶I am very happy now because I have complete confidence in you.

¹Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen to earth from the sky, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit.

²When he opened it, smoke poured out as though from a huge furnace, and the sunlight and air turned dark from the smoke.

³Then locusts came from the smoke and descended on the earth, and they were given power to sting like scorpions.

⁴They were told not to harm the grass or plants or trees, but only the people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

⁵They were told not to kill them but to torture them for five months with pain like the pain of a scorpion sting.

⁶In those days people will seek death but will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them!

⁷The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. They had what looked like gold crowns on their heads, and their faces looked like human faces.

⁸They had hair like women’s hair and teeth like the teeth of a lion.

⁹They wore armor made of iron, and their wings roared like an army of chariots rushing into battle.

¹⁰They had tails that stung like scorpions, and for five months they had the power to torment people.

¹¹Their king is the angel from the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon — the Destroyer.

¹²The first terror is past, but look, two more terrors are coming!

¹³Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice speaking from the four horns of the gold altar that stands in the presence of God.

¹⁴And the voice said to the sixth angel who held the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great Euphrates River.”

¹⁵Then the four angels who had been prepared for this hour and day and month and year were turned loose to kill one-third of all the people on earth.

¹⁶I heard the size of their army, which was 200 million mounted troops.

¹⁷And in my vision, I saw the horses and the riders sitting on them. The riders wore armor that was fiery red and dark blue and yellow. The horses had heads like lions, and fire and smoke and burning sulfur billowed from their mouths.

¹⁸One-third of all the people on earth were killed by these three plagues — by the fire and smoke and burning sulfur that came from the mouths of the horses.

¹⁹Their power was in their mouths and in their tails. For their tails had heads like snakes, with the power to injure people.

²⁰But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to repent of their evil deeds and turn to God. They continued to worship demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood — idols that can neither see nor hear nor walk!

²¹And they did not repent of their murders or their witchcraft or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

¹This is Solomon’s song of songs, more wonderful than any other.

²Kiss me and kiss me again, for your love is sweeter than wine.

³How pleasing is your fragrance; your name is like the spreading fragrance of scented oils. No wonder all the young women love you!

⁴Take me with you; come, let’s run! The king has brought me into his bedroom. Young Women of Jerusalem How happy we are for you, O king. We praise your love even more than wine. Young Woman How right they are to adore you.

⁵I am dark but beautiful, O women of Jerusalem — dark as the tents of Kedar, dark as the curtains of Solomon’s tents.

⁶Don’t stare at me because I am dark — the sun has darkened my skin. My brothers were angry with me; they forced me to care for their vineyards, so I couldn’t care for myself — my own vineyard.

⁷Tell me, my love, where are you leading your flock today? Where will you rest your sheep at noon? For why should I wander like a prostitute among your friends and their flocks?

⁸If you don’t know, O most beautiful woman, follow the trail of my flock, and graze your young goats by the shepherds’ tents.

⁹You are as exciting, my darling, as a mare among Pharaoh’s stallions.

¹⁰How lovely are your cheeks; your earrings set them afire! How lovely is your neck, enhanced by a string of jewels.

¹¹We will make for you earrings of gold and beads of silver.

¹²The king is lying on his couch, enchanted by the fragrance of my perfume.

¹³My lover is like a sachet of myrrh lying between my breasts.

¹⁴He is like a bouquet of sweet henna blossoms from the vineyards of En-gedi.

¹⁵How beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful! Your eyes are like doves.

¹⁶You are so handsome, my love, pleasing beyond words! The soft grass is our bed;

¹⁷fragrant cedar branches are the beams of our house, and pleasant smelling firs are the rafters.

¹Praise the LORD, all you nations. Praise him, all you people of the earth.

²For his unfailing love for us is powerful; the LORD’s faithfulness endures forever. Praise the LORD!

¹Don’t envy evil people or desire their company.

²For their hearts plot violence, and their words always stir up trouble.

³A house is built by wisdom and becomes strong through good sense.

⁴Through knowledge its rooms are filled with all sorts of precious riches and valuables.

⁵The wise are mightier than the strong, and those with knowledge grow stronger and stronger.

⁶So don’t go to war without wise guidance; victory depends on having many advisers.

⁷Wisdom is too lofty for fools. Among leaders at the city gate, they have nothing to say.

⁸A person who plans evil will get a reputation as a troublemaker.

⁹The schemes of a fool are sinful; everyone detests a mocker.

¹⁰If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small.

¹¹Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die; save them as they stagger to their death.

¹²Don’t excuse yourself by saying, “Look, we didn’t know.” For God understands all hearts, and he sees you. He who guards your soul knows you knew. He will repay all people as their actions deserve.

¹³My child, eat honey, for it is good, and the honeycomb is sweet to the taste.

¹⁴In the same way, wisdom is sweet to your soul. If you find it, you will have a bright future, and your hopes will not be cut short.

¹⁵Don’t wait in ambush at the home of the godly, and don’t raid the house where the godly live.

¹⁶The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again. But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.

¹⁷Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall; don’t be happy when they stumble.

¹⁸For the LORD will be displeased with you and will turn his anger away from them.

¹⁹Don’t fret because of evildoers; don’t envy the wicked.

²⁰For evil people have no future; the light of the wicked will be snuffed out.

²¹My child, fear the LORD and the king. Don’t associate with rebels,

²²for disaster will hit them suddenly. Who knows what punishment will come from the LORD and the king?

²³Here are some further sayings of the wise: It is wrong to show favoritism when passing judgment.

²⁴A judge who says to the wicked, “You are innocent,” will be cursed by many people and denounced by the nations.

²⁵But it will go well for those who convict the guilty; rich blessings will be showered on them.

²⁶An honest answer is like a kiss of friendship.

²⁷Do your planning and prepare your fields before building your house.

²⁸Don’t testify against your neighbors without cause; don’t lie about them.

²⁹And don’t say, “Now I can pay them back for what they’ve done to me! I’ll get even with them!”

³⁰I walked by the field of a lazy person, the vineyard of one with no common sense.

³¹I saw that it was overgrown with nettles. It was covered with weeds, and its walls were broken down.

³²Then, as I looked and thought about it, I learned this lesson:

³³A little extra sleep, a little more slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest —

³⁴then poverty will pounce on you like a bandit; scarcity will attack you like an armed robber.

¹At the LORD’s command, a man of God from Judah went to Bethel, arriving there just as Jeroboam was approaching the altar to burn incense.

²Then at the LORD’s command, he shouted, “O altar, altar! This is what the LORD says: A child named Josiah will be born into the dynasty of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests from the pagan shrines who come here to burn incense, and human bones will be burned on you.”

³That same day the man of God gave a sign to prove his message. He said, “The LORD has promised to give this sign: This altar will split apart, and its ashes will be poured out on the ground.”

⁴When King Jeroboam heard the man of God speaking against the altar at Bethel, he pointed at him and shouted, “Seize that man!” But instantly the king’s hand became paralyzed in that position, and he couldn’t pull it back.

⁵At the same time a wide crack appeared in the altar, and the ashes poured out, just as the man of God had predicted in his message from the LORD.

⁶The king cried out to the man of God, “Please ask the LORD your God to restore my hand again!” So the man of God prayed to the LORD, and the king’s hand was restored and he could move it again.

⁷Then the king said to the man of God, “Come to the palace with me and have something to eat, and I will give you a gift.”

⁸But the man of God said to the king, “Even if you gave me half of everything you own, I would not go with you. I would not eat or drink anything in this place.

⁹For the LORD gave me this command: ‘You must not eat or drink anything while you are there, and do not return to Judah by the same way you came.’”

¹⁰So he left Bethel and went home another way.

¹¹As it happened, there was an old prophet living in Bethel, and his sons came home and told him what the man of God had done in Bethel that day. They also told their father what the man had said to the king.

¹²The old prophet asked them, “Which way did he go?” So they showed their father which road the man of God had taken.

¹³“Quick, saddle the donkey,” the old man said. So they saddled the donkey for him, and he mounted it.

¹⁴Then he rode after the man of God and found him sitting under a great tree. The old prophet asked him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” “Yes, I am,” he replied.

¹⁵Then he said to the man of God, “Come home with me and eat some food.”

¹⁶“No, I cannot,” he replied. “I am not allowed to eat or drink anything here in this place.

¹⁷For the LORD gave me this command: ‘You must not eat or drink anything while you are there, and do not return to Judah by the same way you came.’”

¹⁸But the old prophet answered, “I am a prophet, too, just as you are. And an angel gave me this command from the LORD: ‘Bring him home with you so he can have something to eat and drink.’” But the old man was lying to him.

¹⁹So they went back together, and the man of God ate and drank at the prophet’s home.

²⁰Then while they were sitting at the table, a command from the LORD came to the old prophet.

²¹He cried out to the man of God from Judah, “This is what the LORD says: You have defied the word of the LORD and have disobeyed the command the LORD your God gave you.

²²You came back to this place and ate and drank where he told you not to eat or drink. Because of this, your body will not be buried in the grave of your ancestors.”

²³After the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the old prophet saddled his own donkey for him,

²⁴and the man of God started off again. But as he was traveling along, a lion came out and killed him. His body lay there on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it.

²⁵People who passed by saw the body lying in the road and the lion standing beside it, and they went and reported it in Bethel, where the old prophet lived.

²⁶When the prophet heard the report, he said, “It is the man of God who disobeyed the LORD’s command. The LORD has fulfilled his word by causing the lion to attack and kill him.”

²⁷Then the prophet said to his sons, “Saddle a donkey for me.” So they saddled a donkey,

²⁸and he went out and found the body lying in the road. The donkey and lion were still standing there beside it, for the lion had not eaten the body nor attacked the donkey.

²⁹So the prophet laid the body of the man of God on the donkey and took it back to the town to mourn over him and bury him.

³⁰He laid the body in his own grave, crying out in grief, “Oh, my brother!”

³¹Afterward the prophet said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried. Lay my bones beside his bones.

³²For the message the LORD told him to proclaim against the altar in Bethel and against the pagan shrines in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true.”

³³But even after this, Jeroboam did not turn from his evil ways. He continued to choose priests from the common people. He appointed anyone who wanted to become a priest for the pagan shrines.

³⁴This became a great sin and resulted in the utter destruction of Jeroboam’s dynasty from the face of the earth.

¹This is what the LORD says: “I will stir up a destroyer against Babylon and the people of Babylonia.

²Foreigners will come and winnow her, blowing her away as chaff. They will come from every side to rise against her in her day of trouble.

³Don’t let the archers put on their armor or draw their bows. Don’t spare even her best soldiers! Let her army be completely destroyed.

⁴They will fall dead in the land of the Babylonians, slashed to death in her streets.

⁵For the LORD of Heaven’s Armies has not abandoned Israel and Judah. He is still their God, even though their land was filled with sin against the Holy One of Israel.”

⁶Flee from Babylon! Save yourselves! Don’t get trapped in her punishment! It is the LORD’s time for vengeance; he will repay her in full.

⁷Babylon has been a gold cup in the LORD’s hands, a cup that made the whole earth drunk. The nations drank Babylon’s wine, and it drove them all mad.

⁸But suddenly Babylon, too, has fallen. Weep for her. Give her medicine. Perhaps she can yet be healed.

⁹We would have helped her if we could, but nothing can save her now. Let her go; abandon her. Return now to your own land. For her punishment reaches to the heavens; it is so great it cannot be measured.

¹⁰The LORD has vindicated us. Come, let us announce in Jerusalem everything the LORD our God has done.

¹¹Sharpen the arrows! Lift up the shields! For the LORD has inspired the kings of the Medes to march against Babylon and destroy her. This is his vengeance against those who desecrated his Temple.

¹²Raise the battle flag against Babylon! Reinforce the guard and station the watchmen. Prepare an ambush, for the LORD will fulfill all his plans against Babylon.

¹³You are a city by a great river, a great center of commerce, but your end has come. The thread of your life is cut.

¹⁴The LORD of Heaven’s Armies has taken this vow and has sworn to it by his own name: “Your cities will be filled with enemies, like fields swarming with locusts, and they will shout in triumph over you.”

¹⁵The LORD made the earth by his power, and he preserves it by his wisdom. With his own understanding he stretched out the heavens.

¹⁶When he speaks in the thunder, the heavens roar with rain. He causes the clouds to rise over the earth. He sends the lightning with the rain and releases the wind from his storehouses.

¹⁷The whole human race is foolish and has no knowledge! The craftsmen are disgraced by the idols they make, for their carefully shaped works are a fraud. These idols have no breath or power.

¹⁸Idols are worthless; they are ridiculous lies! On the day of reckoning they will all be destroyed.

¹⁹But the God of Israel is no idol! He is the Creator of everything that exists, including his people, his own special possession. The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is his name!

²⁰“You are my battle-ax and sword,” says the LORD. “With you I will shatter nations and destroy many kingdoms.

²¹With you I will shatter armies — destroying the horse and rider, the chariot and charioteer.

²²With you I will shatter men and women, old people and children, young men and young women.

²³With you I will shatter shepherds and flocks, farmers and oxen, captains and officers.

²⁴“I will repay Babylon and the people of Babylonia for all the wrong they have done to my people in Jerusalem,” says the LORD.

²⁵“Look, O mighty mountain, destroyer of the earth! I am your enemy,” says the LORD. “I will raise my fist against you, to knock you down from the heights. When I am finished, you will be nothing but a heap of burnt rubble.

²⁶You will be desolate forever. Even your stones will never again be used for building. You will be completely wiped out,” says the LORD.

²⁷Raise a signal flag to the nations. Sound the battle cry! Mobilize them all against Babylon. Prepare them to fight against her! Bring out the armies of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a commander, and bring a multitude of horses like swarming locusts!

²⁸Bring against her the armies of the nations — led by the kings of the Medes and all their captains and officers.

²⁹The earth trembles and writhes in pain, for everything the LORD has planned against Babylon stands unchanged. Babylon will be left desolate without a single inhabitant.

³⁰Her mightiest warriors no longer fight. They stay in their barracks, their courage gone. They have become like women. The invaders have burned the houses and broken down the city gates.

³¹The news is passed from one runner to the next as the messengers hurry to tell the king that his city has been captured.

³²All the escape routes are blocked. The marshes have been set aflame, and the army is in a panic.

³³This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says: “Babylon is like wheat on a threshing floor, about to be trampled. In just a little while her harvest will begin.”

³⁴“King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has eaten and crushed us and drained us of strength. He has swallowed us like a great monster and filled his belly with our riches. He has thrown us out of our own country.

³⁵Make Babylon suffer as she made us suffer,” say the people of Zion. “Make the people of Babylonia pay for spilling our blood,” says Jerusalem.

³⁶This is what the LORD says to Jerusalem: “I will be your lawyer to plead your case, and I will avenge you. I will dry up her river, as well as her springs,

³⁷and Babylon will become a heap of ruins, haunted by jackals. She will be an object of horror and contempt, a place where no one lives.

³⁸Her people will roar together like strong lions. They will growl like lion cubs.

³⁹And while they lie inflamed with all their wine, I will prepare a different kind of feast for them. I will make them drink until they fall asleep, and they will never wake up again,” says the LORD.

⁴⁰“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams and goats to be sacrificed.

⁴¹“How Babylon is fallen — great Babylon, praised throughout the earth! Now she has become an object of horror among the nations.

⁴²The sea has risen over Babylon; she is covered by its crashing waves.

⁴³Her cities now lie in ruins; she is a dry wasteland where no one lives or even passes by.

⁴⁴And I will punish Bel, the god of Babylon, and make him vomit up all he has eaten. The nations will no longer come and worship him. The wall of Babylon has fallen!

⁴⁵“Come out, my people, flee from Babylon. Save yourselves! Run from the LORD’s fierce anger.

⁴⁶But do not panic; don’t be afraid when you hear the first rumor of approaching forces. For rumors will keep coming year by year. Violence will erupt in the land as the leaders fight against each other.

⁴⁷For the time is surely coming when I will punish this great city and all her idols. Her whole land will be disgraced, and her dead will lie in the streets.

⁴⁸Then the heavens and earth will rejoice, for out of the north will come destroying armies against Babylon,” says the LORD.

⁴⁹“Just as Babylon killed the people of Israel and others throughout the world, so must her people be killed.

⁵⁰Get out, all you who have escaped the sword! Do not stand and watch — flee while you can! Remember the LORD, though you are in a far-off land, and think about your home in Jerusalem.”

⁵¹“We are ashamed,” the people say. “We are insulted and disgraced because the LORD’s Temple has been defiled by foreigners.”

⁵²“Yes,” says the LORD, “but the time is coming when I will destroy Babylon’s idols. The groans of her wounded people will be heard throughout the land.

⁵³Though Babylon reaches as high as the heavens and makes her fortifications incredibly strong, I will still send enemies to plunder her. I, the LORD, have spoken!

⁵⁴“Listen! Hear the cry of Babylon, the sound of great destruction from the land of the Babylonians.

⁵⁵For the LORD is destroying Babylon. He will silence her loud voice. Waves of enemies pound against her; the noise of battle rings through the city.

⁵⁶Destroying armies come against Babylon. Her mighty men are captured, and their weapons break in their hands. For the LORD is a God who gives just punishment; he always repays in full.

⁵⁷I will make her officials and wise men drunk, along with her captains, officers, and warriors. They will fall asleep and never wake up again!” says the King, whose name is the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.

⁵⁸This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: “The thick walls of Babylon will be leveled to the ground, and her massive gates will be burned. The builders from many lands have worked in vain, for their work will be destroyed by fire!”

⁵⁹The prophet Jeremiah gave this message to Seraiah son of Neriah and grandson of Mahseiah, a staff officer, when Seraiah went to Babylon with King Zedekiah of Judah. This was during the fourth year of Zedekiah’s reign.

⁶⁰Jeremiah had recorded on a scroll all the terrible disasters that would soon come upon Babylon — all the words written here.

⁶¹He said to Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, read aloud everything on this scroll.

⁶²Then say, ‘LORD, you have said that you will destroy Babylon so that neither people nor animals will remain here. She will lie empty and abandoned forever.’

⁶³When you have finished reading the scroll, tie it to a stone and throw it into the Euphrates River.

⁶⁴Then say, ‘In this same way Babylon and her people will sink, never again to rise, because of the disasters I will bring upon her.’” This is the end of Jeremiah’s messages.

¹But there was a certain man named Ananias who, with his wife, Sapphira, sold some property.

²He brought part of the money to the apostles, claiming it was the full amount. With his wife’s consent, he kept the rest.

³Then Peter said, “Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself.

⁴The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us but to God!”

⁵As soon as Ananias heard these words, he fell to the floor and died. Everyone who heard about it was terrified.

⁶Then some young men got up, wrapped him in a sheet, and took him out and buried him.

⁷About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.

⁸Peter asked her, “Was this the price you and your husband received for your land?” “Yes,” she replied, “that was the price.”

⁹And Peter said, “How could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the Spirit of the Lord like this? The young men who buried your husband are just outside the door, and they will carry you out, too.”

¹⁰Instantly, she fell to the floor and died. When the young men came in and saw that she was dead, they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

¹¹Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened.

¹²The apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple in the area known as Solomon’s Colonnade.

¹³But no one else dared to join them, even though all the people had high regard for them.

¹⁴Yet more and more people believed and were brought to the Lord — crowds of both men and women.

¹⁵As a result of the apostles’ work, sick people were brought out into the streets on beds and mats so that Peter’s shadow might fall across some of them as he went by.

¹⁶Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil spirits, and they were all healed.

¹⁷The high priest and his officials, who were Sadducees, were filled with jealousy.

¹⁸They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.

¹⁹But an angel of the Lord came at night, opened the gates of the jail, and brought them out. Then he told them,

²⁰“Go to the Temple and give the people this message of life!”

²¹So at daybreak the apostles entered the Temple, as they were told, and immediately began teaching. When the high priest and his officials arrived, they convened the high council — the full assembly of the elders of Israel. Then they sent for the apostles to be brought from the jail for trial.

²²But when the Temple guards went to the jail, the men were gone. So they returned to the council and reported,

²³“The jail was securely locked, with the guards standing outside, but when we opened the gates, no one was there!”

²⁴When the captain of the Temple guard and the leading priests heard this, they were perplexed, wondering where it would all end.

²⁵Then someone arrived with startling news: “The men you put in jail are standing in the Temple, teaching the people!”

²⁶The captain went with his Temple guards and arrested the apostles, but without violence, for they were afraid the people would stone them.

²⁷Then they brought the apostles before the high council, where the high priest confronted them.

²⁸“We gave you strict orders never again to teach in this man’s name!” he said. “Instead, you have filled all Jerusalem with your teaching about him, and you want to make us responsible for his death!”

²⁹But Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than any human authority.

³⁰The God of our ancestors raised Jesus from the dead after you killed him by hanging him on a cross.

³¹Then God put him in the place of honor at his right hand as Prince and Savior. He did this so the people of Israel would repent of their sins and be forgiven.

³²We are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit, who is given by God to those who obey him.”

³³When they heard this, the high council was furious and decided to kill them.

³⁴But one member, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, who was an expert in religious law and respected by all the people, stood up and ordered that the men be sent outside the council chamber for a while.

³⁵Then he said to his colleagues, “Men of Israel, take care what you are planning to do to these men!

³⁶Some time ago there was that fellow Theudas, who pretended to be someone great. About 400 others joined him, but he was killed, and all his followers went their various ways. The whole movement came to nothing.

³⁷After him, at the time of the census, there was Judas of Galilee. He got people to follow him, but he was killed, too, and all his followers were scattered.

³⁸“So my advice is, leave these men alone. Let them go. If they are planning and doing these things merely on their own, it will soon be overthrown.

³⁹But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God!”

⁴⁰The others accepted his advice. They called in the apostles and had them flogged. Then they ordered them never again to speak in the name of Jesus, and they let them go.

⁴¹The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.

⁴²And every day, in the Temple and from house to house, they continued to teach and preach this message: “Jesus is the Messiah.”