Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Now after the Sabbath, toward the dawn of the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

²And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it.

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

⁴And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men.

⁵But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified.

⁶He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.

⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and behold, he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him. See, I have told you.”

⁸So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples.

⁹And behold, Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came up and took hold of his feet and worshiped him.

¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”

¹¹While they were going, behold, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests all that had taken place.

¹²And when they had assembled with the elders and taken counsel, they gave a sufficient sum of money to the soldiers

¹³and said, “Tell people, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’

¹⁴And if this comes to the governor's ears, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”

¹⁵So they took the money and did as they were directed. And this story has been spread among the Jews to this day.

¹⁶Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.

¹⁷And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted.

¹⁸And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

¹⁹ Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

²⁰teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

¹The LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

²“Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, If anyone makes a special vow to the LORD involving the valuation of persons,

³then the valuation of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary.

⁴If the person is a female, the valuation shall be thirty shekels.

⁵If the person is from five years old up to twenty years old, the valuation shall be for a male twenty shekels, and for a female ten shekels.

⁶If the person is from a month old up to five years old, the valuation shall be for a male five shekels of silver, and for a female the valuation shall be three shekels of silver.

⁷And if the person is sixty years old or over, then the valuation for a male shall be fifteen shekels, and for a female ten shekels.

⁸And if someone is too poor to pay the valuation, then he shall be made to stand before the priest, and the priest shall value him; the priest shall value him according to what the vower can afford.

⁹“If the vow is an animal that may be offered as an offering to the LORD, all of it that he gives to the LORD is holy.

¹⁰He shall not exchange it or make a substitute for it, good for bad, or bad for good; and if he does in fact substitute one animal for another, then both it and the substitute shall be holy.

¹¹And if it is any unclean animal that may not be offered as an offering to the LORD, then he shall stand the animal before the priest,

¹²and the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall be.

¹³But if he wishes to redeem it, he shall add a fifth to the valuation.

¹⁴“When a man dedicates his house as a holy gift to the LORD, the priest shall value it as either good or bad; as the priest values it, so it shall stand.

¹⁵And if the donor wishes to redeem his house, he shall add a fifth to the valuation price, and it shall be his.

¹⁶“If a man dedicates to the LORD part of the land that is his possession, then the valuation shall be in proportion to its seed. A homer of barley seed shall be valued at fifty shekels of silver.

¹⁷If he dedicates his field from the year of jubilee, the valuation shall stand,

¹⁸but if he dedicates his field after the jubilee, then the priest shall calculate the price according to the years that remain until the year of jubilee, and a deduction shall be made from the valuation.

¹⁹And if he who dedicates the field wishes to redeem it, then he shall add a fifth to its valuation price, and it shall remain his.

²⁰But if he does not wish to redeem the field, or if he has sold the field to another man, it shall not be redeemed anymore.

²¹But the field, when it is released in the jubilee, shall be a holy gift to the LORD, like a field that has been devoted. The priest shall be in possession of it.

²²If he dedicates to the LORD a field that he has bought, which is not a part of his possession,

²³then the priest shall calculate the amount of the valuation for it up to the year of jubilee, and the man shall give the valuation on that day as a holy gift to the LORD.

²⁴In the year of jubilee the field shall return to him from whom it was bought, to whom the land belongs as a possession.

²⁵Every valuation shall be according to the shekel of the sanctuary: twenty gerahs shall make a shekel.

²⁶“But a firstborn of animals, which as a firstborn belongs to the LORD, no man may dedicate; whether ox or sheep, it is the LORD's.

²⁷And if it is an unclean animal, then he shall buy it back at the valuation, and add a fifth to it; or, if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at the valuation.

²⁸“But no devoted thing that a man devotes to the LORD, of anything that he has, whether man or beast, or of his inherited field, shall be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the LORD.

²⁹No one devoted, who is to be devoted for destruction from mankind, shall be ransomed; he shall surely be put to death.

³⁰“Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the LORD's; it is holy to the LORD.

³¹If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it.

³²And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman's staff, shall be holy to the LORD.

³³One shall not differentiate between good or bad, neither shall he make a substitute for it; and if he does substitute for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.”

³⁴These are the commandments that the LORD commanded Moses for the people of Israel on Mount Sinai.

¹Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

²Make room in your hearts for us. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one.

³I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together.

⁴I am acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.

⁵For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn — fighting without and fear within.

⁶But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus,

⁷and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more.

⁸For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it — though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while.

⁹As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.

¹⁰For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

¹¹For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.

¹²So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God.

¹³Therefore we are comforted. And besides our own comfort, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.

¹⁴For whatever boasts I made to him about you, I was not put to shame. But just as everything we said to you was true, so also our boasting before Titus has proved true.

¹⁵And his affection for you is even greater, as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling.

¹⁶I rejoice, because I have complete confidence in you.

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

²He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.

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

⁴They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.

⁵They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone.

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

⁷In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces,

⁸their hair like women's hair, and their teeth like lions' teeth;

⁹they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle.

¹⁰They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails.

¹¹They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.

¹²The first woe has passed; behold, two woes are still to come.

¹³Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God,

¹⁴saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.”

¹⁵So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind.

¹⁶The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number.

¹⁷And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur, and the heads of the horses were like lions' heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths.

¹⁸By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths.

¹⁹For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.

²⁰The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk,

²¹nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

¹The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.

²Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine;

³your anointing oils are fragrant; your name is oil poured out; therefore virgins love you.

⁴Draw me after you; let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers. Others We will exult and rejoice in you; we will extol your love more than wine; rightly do they love you.

⁵I am very dark, but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.

⁶Do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me. My mother's sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I have not kept!

⁷Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you pasture your flock, where you make it lie down at noon; for why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your companions?

⁸If you do not know, O most beautiful among women, follow in the tracks of the flock, and pasture your young goats beside the shepherds' tents.

⁹I compare you, my love, to a mare among Pharaoh's chariots.

¹⁰Your cheeks are lovely with ornaments, your neck with strings of jewels.

¹¹We will make for you ornaments of gold, studded with silver.

¹²While the king was on his couch, my nard gave forth its fragrance.

¹³My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh that lies between my breasts.

¹⁴My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of Engedi.

¹⁵Behold, you are beautiful, my love; behold, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.

¹⁶Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly delightful. Our couch is green;

¹⁷the beams of our house are cedar; our rafters are pine.

¹Praise the LORD, all nations! Extol him, all peoples!

²For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD!

¹Be not envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them,

²for their hearts devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble.

³By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established;

⁴by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

⁵A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might,

⁶for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory.

⁷Wisdom is too high for a fool; in the gate he does not open his mouth.

⁸Whoever plans to do evil will be called a schemer.

⁹The devising of folly is sin, and the scoffer is an abomination to mankind.

¹⁰If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

¹¹Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

¹²If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?

¹³My son, eat honey, for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.

¹⁴Know that wisdom is such to your soul; if you find it, there will be a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁵Lie not in wait as a wicked man against the dwelling of the righteous; do no violence to his home;

¹⁶for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.

¹⁷Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles,

¹⁸lest the LORD see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from him.

¹⁹Fret not yourself because of evildoers, and be not envious of the wicked,

²⁰for the evil man has no future; the lamp of the wicked will be put out.

²¹My son, fear the LORD and the king, and do not join with those who do otherwise,

²²for disaster will arise suddenly from them, and who knows the ruin that will come from them both?

²³These also are sayings of the wise. Partiality in judging is not good.

²⁴Whoever says to the wicked, “You are in the right,” will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations,

²⁵but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will come upon them.

²⁶Whoever gives an honest answer kisses the lips.

²⁷Prepare your work outside; get everything ready for yourself in the field, and after that build your house.

²⁸Be not a witness against your neighbor without cause, and do not deceive with your lips.

²⁹Do not say, “I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay the man back for what he has done.”

³⁰I passed by the field of a sluggard, by the vineyard of a man lacking sense,

³¹and behold, it was all overgrown with thorns; the ground was covered with nettles, and its stone wall was broken down.

³²Then I saw and considered it; I looked and received instruction.

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

³⁴and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man.

¹And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the LORD to Bethel. Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make offerings.

²And the man cried against the altar by the word of the LORD and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, a son shall be born to the house of David, Josiah by name, and he shall sacrifice on you the priests of the high places who make offerings on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.’”

³And he gave a sign the same day, saying, “This is the sign that the LORD has spoken: ‘Behold, the altar shall be torn down, and the ashes that are on it shall be poured out.’”

⁴And when the king heard the saying of the man of God, which he cried against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, “Seize him.” And his hand, which he stretched out against him, dried up, so that he could not draw it back to himself.

⁵The altar also was torn down, and the ashes poured out from the altar, according to the sign that the man of God had given by the word of the LORD.

⁶And the king said to the man of God, “Entreat now the favor of the LORD your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me.” And the man of God entreated the LORD, and the king's hand was restored to him and became as it was before.

⁷And the king said to the man of God, “Come home with me, and refresh yourself, and I will give you a reward.”

⁸And the man of God said to the king, “If you give me half your house, I will not go in with you. And I will not eat bread or drink water in this place,

⁹for so was it commanded me by the word of the LORD, saying, ‘You shall neither eat bread nor drink water nor return by the way that you came.’”

¹⁰So he went another way and did not return by the way that he came to Bethel.

¹¹Now an old prophet lived in Bethel. And his sons came and told him all that the man of God had done that day in Bethel. They also told to their father the words that he had spoken to the king.

¹²And their father said to them, “Which way did he go?” And his sons showed him the way that the man of God who came from Judah had gone.

¹³And he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” So they saddled the donkey for him and he mounted it.

¹⁴And he went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak. And he said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?” And he said, “I am.”

¹⁵Then he said to him, “Come home with me and eat bread.”

¹⁶And he said, “I may not return with you, or go in with you, neither will I eat bread nor drink water with you in this place,

¹⁷for it was said to me by the word of the LORD, ‘You shall neither eat bread nor drink water there, nor return by the way that you came.’”

¹⁸And he said to him, “I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD, saying, ‘Bring him back with you into your house that he may eat bread and drink water.’” But he lied to him.

¹⁹So he went back with him and ate bread in his house and drank water.

²⁰And as they sat at the table, the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back.

²¹And he cried to the man of God who came from Judah, “Thus says the LORD, ‘Because you have disobeyed the word of the LORD and have not kept the command that the LORD your God commanded you,

²²but have come back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water,” your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.’”

²³And after he had eaten bread and drunk, he saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back.

²⁴And as he went away a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his body was thrown in the road, and the donkey stood beside it; the lion also stood beside the body.

²⁵And behold, men passed by and saw the body thrown in the road and the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived.

²⁶And when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard of it, he said, “It is the man of God who disobeyed the word of the LORD; therefore the LORD has given him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, according to the word that the LORD spoke to him.”

²⁷And he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And they saddled it.

²⁸And he went and found his body thrown in the road, and the donkey and the lion standing beside the body. The lion had not eaten the body or torn the donkey.

²⁹And the prophet took up the body of the man of God and laid it on the donkey and brought it back to the city to mourn and to bury him.

³⁰And he laid the body in his own grave. And they mourned over him, saying, “Alas, my brother!”

³¹And after he had buried him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave in which the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones.

³²For the saying that he called out by the word of the LORD against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the high places that are in the cities of Samaria shall surely come to pass.”

³³After this thing Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the people. Any who would, he ordained to be priests of the high places.

³⁴And this thing became sin to the house of Jeroboam, so as to cut it off and to destroy it from the face of the earth.

¹Thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will stir up the spirit of a destroyer against Babylon, against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai,

²and I will send to Babylon winnowers, and they shall winnow her, and they shall empty her land, when they come against her from every side on the day of trouble.

³Let not the archer bend his bow, and let him not stand up in his armor. Spare not her young men; devote to destruction all her army.

⁴They shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and wounded in her streets.

⁵For Israel and Judah have not been forsaken by their God, the LORD of hosts, but the land of the Chaldeans is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel.

⁶“Flee from the midst of Babylon; let every one save his life! Be not cut off in her punishment, for this is the time of the LORD's vengeance, the repayment he is rendering her.

⁷Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD's hand, making all the earth drunken; the nations drank of her wine; therefore the nations went mad.

⁸Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken; wail for her! Take balm for her pain; perhaps she may be healed.

⁹We would have healed Babylon, but she was not healed. Forsake her, and let us go each to his own country, for her judgment has reached up to heaven and has been lifted up even to the skies.

¹⁰The LORD has brought about our vindication; come, let us declare in Zion the work of the LORD our God.

¹¹“Sharpen the arrows! Take up the shields! The LORD has stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because his purpose concerning Babylon is to destroy it, for that is the vengeance of the LORD, the vengeance for his temple.

¹²“Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon; make the watch strong; set up watchmen; prepare the ambushes; for the LORD has both planned and done what he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

¹³O you who dwell by many waters, rich in treasures, your end has come; the thread of your life is cut.

¹⁴The LORD of hosts has sworn by himself: Surely I will fill you with men, as many as locusts, and they shall raise the shout of victory over you.

¹⁵“It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens.

¹⁶When he utters his voice there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and he brings forth the wind from his storehouses.

¹⁷Every man is stupid and without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false, and there is no breath in them.

¹⁸They are worthless, a work of delusion; at the time of their punishment they shall perish.

¹⁹Not like these is he who is the portion of Jacob, for he is the one who formed all things, and Israel is the tribe of his inheritance; the LORD of hosts is his name.

²⁰“You are my hammer and weapon of war: with you I break nations in pieces; with you I destroy kingdoms;

²¹with you I break in pieces the horse and his rider; with you I break in pieces the chariot and the charioteer;

²²with you I break in pieces man and woman; with you I break in pieces the old man and the youth; with you I break in pieces the young man and the young woman;

²³with you I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; with you I break in pieces the farmer and his team; with you I break in pieces governors and commanders.

²⁴“I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea before your very eyes for all the evil that they have done in Zion, declares the LORD.

²⁵“Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, declares the LORD, which destroys the whole earth; I will stretch out my hand against you, and roll you down from the crags, and make you a burnt mountain.

²⁶No stone shall be taken from you for a corner and no stone for a foundation, but you shall be a perpetual waste, declares the LORD.

²⁷“Set up a standard on the earth; blow the trumpet among the nations; prepare the nations for war against her; summon against her the kingdoms, Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz; appoint a marshal against her; bring up horses like bristling locusts.

²⁸Prepare the nations for war against her, the kings of the Medes, with their governors and deputies, and every land under their dominion.

²⁹The land trembles and writhes in pain, for the LORD's purposes against Babylon stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.

³⁰The warriors of Babylon have ceased fighting; they remain in their strongholds; their strength has failed; they have become women; her dwellings are on fire; her bars are broken.

³¹One runner runs to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to tell the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every side;

³²the fords have been seized, the marshes are burned with fire, and the soldiers are in panic.

³³For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden; yet a little while and the time of her harvest will come.”

³⁴“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me; he has made me an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a monster; he has filled his stomach with my delicacies; he has rinsed me out.

³⁵The violence done to me and to my kinsmen be upon Babylon,” let the inhabitant of Zion say. “My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea,” let Jerusalem say.

³⁶Therefore thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will plead your cause and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea and make her fountain dry,

³⁷and Babylon shall become a heap of ruins, the haunt of jackals, a horror and a hissing, without inhabitant.

³⁸“They shall roar together like lions; they shall growl like lions' cubs.

³⁹While they are inflamed I will prepare them a feast and make them drunk, that they may become merry, then sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the LORD.

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

⁴¹“How Babylon is taken, the praise of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become a horror among the nations!

⁴²The sea has come up on Babylon; she is covered with its tumultuous waves.

⁴³Her cities have become a horror, a land of drought and a desert, a land in which no one dwells, and through which no son of man passes.

⁴⁴And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and take out of his mouth what he has swallowed. The nations shall no longer flow to him; the wall of Babylon has fallen.

⁴⁵“Go out of the midst of her, my people! Let every one save his life from the fierce anger of the LORD!

⁴⁶Let not your heart faint, and be not fearful at the report heard in the land, when a report comes in one year and afterward a report in another year, and violence is in the land, and ruler is against ruler.

⁴⁷“Therefore, behold, the days are coming when I will punish the images of Babylon; her whole land shall be put to shame, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

⁴⁸Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them, shall sing for joy over Babylon, for the destroyers shall come against them out of the north, declares the LORD.

⁴⁹Babylon must fall for the slain of Israel, just as for Babylon have fallen the slain of all the earth.

⁵⁰“You who have escaped from the sword, go, do not stand still! Remember the LORD from far away, and let Jerusalem come into your mind:

⁵¹‘We are put to shame, for we have heard reproach; dishonor has covered our face, for foreigners have come into the holy places of the LORD's house.’

⁵²“Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will execute judgment upon her images, and through all her land the wounded shall groan.

⁵³Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify her strong height, yet destroyers would come from me against her, declares the LORD.

⁵⁴“A voice! A cry from Babylon! The noise of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

⁵⁵For the LORD is laying Babylon waste and stilling her mighty voice. Their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is raised,

⁵⁶for a destroyer has come upon her, upon Babylon; her warriors are taken; their bows are broken in pieces, for the LORD is a God of recompense; he will surely repay.

⁵⁷I will make drunk her officials and her wise men, her governors, her commanders, and her warriors; they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake, declares the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

⁵⁸“Thus says the LORD of hosts: The broad wall of Babylon shall be leveled to the ground, and her high gates shall be burned with fire. The peoples labor for nothing, and the nations weary themselves only for fire.”

⁵⁹The word that Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah king of Judah to Babylon, in the fourth year of his reign. Seraiah was the quartermaster.

⁶⁰Jeremiah wrote in a book all the disaster that should come upon Babylon, all these words that are written concerning Babylon.

⁶¹And Jeremiah said to Seraiah: “When you come to Babylon, see that you read all these words,

⁶²and say, ‘O LORD, you have said concerning this place that you will cut it off, so that nothing shall dwell in it, neither man nor beast, and it shall be desolate forever.’

⁶³When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates,

⁶⁴and say, ‘Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted.’” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

¹But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property,

²and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet.

³But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?

⁴While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.”

⁵When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last. And great fear came upon all who heard of it.

⁶The young men rose and wrapped him up and carried him out and buried him.

⁷After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened.

⁸And Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you sold the land for so much.” And she said, “Yes, for so much.”

⁹But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord? Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.”

¹⁰Immediately she fell down at his feet and breathed her last. When the young men came in they found her dead, and they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

¹¹And great fear came upon the whole church and upon all who heard of these things.

¹²Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon's Portico.

¹³None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem.

¹⁴And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women,

¹⁵so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them.

¹⁶The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.

¹⁷But the high priest rose up, and all who were with him (that is, the party of the Sadducees), and filled with jealousy

¹⁸they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison.

¹⁹But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out, and said,

²⁰“Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this Life.”

²¹And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach. Now when the high priest came, and those who were with him, they called together the council, all the senate of the people of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought.

²²But when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison, so they returned and reported,

²³“We found the prison securely locked and the guards standing at the doors, but when we opened them we found no one inside.”

²⁴Now when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to.

²⁵And someone came and told them, “Look! The men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.”

²⁶Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people.

²⁷And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them,

²⁸saying, “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us.”

²⁹But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.

³⁰The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

³¹God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

³²And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”

³³When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them.

³⁴But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while.

³⁵And he said to them, “Men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men.

³⁶For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.

³⁷After him Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered.

³⁸So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail;

³⁹but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” So they took his advice,

⁴⁰and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.

⁴¹Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.

⁴²And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.