Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb.

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

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

⁴For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men.

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

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

⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.”

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

⁹Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, 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; there they will see me.”

¹¹While they were going, some of the guard went into the city and told the chief priests everything that had happened.

¹²After the priests had assembled with the elders, they devised a plan to give a large sum of money to the soldiers,

¹³telling them, “You must say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep.’

¹⁴If 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 is still told among the Jews to this day.

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

¹⁷When 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.

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

²⁰and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

¹The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:

²Speak to the people of Israel and say to them: When a person makes an explicit vow to the LORD concerning the equivalent for a human being,

³the equivalent for a male shall be: from twenty to sixty years of age the equivalent shall be fifty shekels of silver by the sanctuary shekel.

⁴If the person is a female, the equivalent is thirty shekels.

⁵If the age is from five to twenty years of age, the equivalent is twenty shekels for a male and ten shekels for a female.

⁶If the age is from one month to five years, the equivalent for a male is five shekels of silver, and for a female the equivalent is three shekels of silver.

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

⁸If any cannot afford the equivalent, they shall be brought before the priest and the priest shall assess them; the priest shall assess them according to what each one making a vow can afford.

⁹If it concerns an animal that may be brought as an offering to the LORD, any such that may be given to the LORD shall be holy.

¹⁰Another shall not be exchanged or substituted for it, either good for bad or bad for good; and if one animal is substituted for another, both that one and its substitute shall be holy.

¹¹If it concerns any unclean animal that may not be brought as an offering to the LORD, the animal shall be presented before the priest.

¹²The priest shall assess it: whether good or bad, according to the assessment of the priest, so it shall be.

¹³But if it is to be redeemed, one-fifth must be added to the assessment.

¹⁴If a person consecrates a house to the LORD, the priest shall assess it: whether good or bad, as the priest assesses it, so it shall stand.

¹⁵And if the one who consecrates the house wishes to redeem it, one-fifth shall be added to its assessed value, and it shall revert to the original owner.

¹⁶If a person consecrates to the LORD any inherited landholding, its assessment shall be in accordance with its seed requirements: fifty shekels of silver to a homer of barley seed.

¹⁷If the person consecrates the field as of the year of jubilee, that assessment shall stand;

¹⁸but if the field is consecrated after the jubilee, the priest shall compute the price for it according to the years that remain until the year of jubilee, and the assessment shall be reduced.

¹⁹And if the one who consecrates the field wishes to redeem it, then one-fifth shall be added to its assessed value, and it shall revert to the original owner;

²⁰but if the field is not redeemed, or if it has been sold to someone else, it shall no longer be redeemable.

²¹But when the field is released in the jubilee, it shall be holy to the LORD as a devoted field; it becomes the priest’s holding.

²²If someone consecrates to the LORD a field that has been purchased, which is not a part of the inherited landholding,

²³the priest shall compute for it the proportionate assessment up to the year of jubilee, and the assessment shall be paid as of that day, a sacred donation to the LORD.

²⁴In the year of jubilee the field shall return to the one from whom it was bought, whose holding the land is.

²⁵All assessments shall be by the sanctuary shekel: twenty gerahs shall make a shekel.

²⁶A firstling of animals, however, which as a firstling belongs to the LORD, cannot be consecrated by anyone; whether ox or sheep, it is the LORD’s.

²⁷If it is an unclean animal, it shall be ransomed at its assessment, with one-fifth added; if it is not redeemed, it shall be sold at its assessment.

²⁸Nothing that a person owns that has been devoted to destruction for the LORD, be it human or animal, or inherited landholding, may be sold or redeemed; every devoted thing is most holy to the LORD.

²⁹No human beings who have been devoted to destruction can be ransomed; they shall be put to death.

³⁰All tithes from the land, whether the seed from the ground or the fruit from the tree, are the LORD’s; they are holy to the LORD.

³¹If persons wish to redeem any of their tithes, they must add one-fifth to them.

³²All tithes of herd and flock, every tenth one that passes under the shepherd’s staff, shall be holy to the LORD.

³³Let no one inquire whether it is good or bad, or make substitution for it; if one makes substitution for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy and cannot be redeemed.

³⁴These are the commandments that the LORD gave to 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 of spirit, making holiness perfect 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 often boast about you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with consolation; I am overjoyed in all our affliction.

⁵For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted in every way — disputes without and fears within.

⁶But God, who consoles the downcast, consoled us by the arrival of Titus,

⁷and not only by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was consoled about 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 sorry with my letter, I do not regret it (though I did regret it, for I see that I grieved you with that letter, though only briefly).

⁹Now I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance; for you felt a godly grief, so that you were not harmed in any way by us.

¹⁰For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.

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

¹²So although I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did the wrong, nor on account of the one who was wronged, but in order that your zeal for us might be made known to you before God.

¹³In this we find comfort. In addition to our own consolation, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his mind has been set at rest by all of you.

¹⁴For if I have been somewhat boastful about you to him, I was not disgraced; but just as everything we said to you was true, so our boasting to Titus has proved true as well.

¹⁵And his heart goes out all the more to you, as he remembers the obedience of all of you, and how you welcomed 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 that had 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 authority like the authority of scorpions of the earth.

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

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

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

⁷In appearance the locusts were like horses equipped 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 scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle.

¹⁰They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months.

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. There are still two woes 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 were released, who had been held ready for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, to kill a third of humankind.

¹⁶The number of the troops of cavalry was two hundred million; I heard their number.

¹⁷And this was how I saw the horses in my vision: the riders wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur; 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 humankind 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; their tails are like serpents, having heads; and with them they inflict harm.

²⁰The rest of humankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands or give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk.

²¹And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their fornication 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 perfume poured out; therefore the maidens love you.

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

⁵I am black and beautiful, 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 gazed on 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 is veiled beside the flocks of your companions?

⁸If you do not know, O fairest among women, follow the tracks of the flock, and pasture your kids beside the shepherds’ tents.

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

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

¹¹We will make 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 bag of myrrh that lies between my breasts.

¹⁴My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms in the vineyards of En-gedi.

¹⁵Ah, you are beautiful, my love; ah, you are beautiful; your eyes are doves.

¹⁶Ah, you are beautiful, my beloved, truly lovely. Our couch is green;

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

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

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

¹Do not envy the wicked, nor desire to be with them;

²for their minds devise violence, and their lips talk of mischief.

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

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

⁵Wise warriors are mightier than strong ones, and those who have knowledge than those who have strength;

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

⁷Wisdom is too high for fools; in the gate they do not open their mouths.

⁸Whoever plans to do evil will be called a mischief-maker.

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

¹⁰If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength being small;

¹¹if you hold back from rescuing those taken away to death, those who go staggering to the slaughter;

¹²if you say, “Look, 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 all according to their deeds?

¹³My child, 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, you will find a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁵Do not lie in wait like an outlaw against the home of the righteous; do no violence to the place where the righteous live;

¹⁶for though they fall seven times, they will rise again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity.

¹⁷Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble,

¹⁸or else the LORD will see it and be displeased, and turn away his anger from them.

¹⁹Do not fret because of evildoers. Do not envy the wicked;

²⁰for the evil have no future; the lamp of the wicked will go out.

²¹My child, fear the LORD and the king, and do not disobey either of them;

²²for disaster comes from them suddenly, and who knows the ruin that both can bring?

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

²⁴Whoever says to the wicked, “You are innocent,” 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.

²⁶One who gives an honest answer gives a kiss on the lips.

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

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

²⁹Do not say, “I will do to others as they have done to me; I will pay them back for what they have done.”

³⁰I passed by the field of one who was lazy, by the vineyard of a stupid person;

³¹and see, 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 warrior.

¹While Jeroboam was standing by the altar to offer incense, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the LORD to Bethel

²and proclaimed against the altar by the word of the LORD, and said, “O altar, altar, thus says the LORD: ‘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 offer incense on you, and human bones shall be burned on you.’”

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

⁴When the king heard what the man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel, Jeroboam stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, “Seize him!” But the hand that he stretched out against him withered 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.

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

⁷Then the king said to the man of God, “Come home with me and dine, and I will give you a gift.”

⁸But the man of God said to the king, “If you give me half your kingdom, I will not go in with you; nor will I eat food or drink water in this place.

⁹For thus I was commanded by the word of the LORD: You shall not eat food, or drink water, or return by the way that you came.”

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

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

¹²Their 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.

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

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

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

¹⁶But he said, “I cannot return with you, or go in with you; nor will I eat food or drink water with you in this place;

¹⁷for it was said to me by the word of the LORD: You shall not eat food or drink water there, or return by the way that you came.”

¹⁸Then the other said to him, “I also am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the LORD: Bring him back with you into your house so that he may eat food and drink water.” But he was deceiving him.

¹⁹Then the man of God went back with him, and ate food and drank water in his house.

²⁰As they were sitting at the table, the word of the LORD came to the prophet who had brought him back;

²¹and he proclaimed 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 commandment that the LORD your God commanded you,

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

²³After the man of God had eaten food and had drunk, they saddled for him a donkey belonging to the prophet who had brought him back.

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

²⁵People passed by and saw the body thrown in the road, with the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the town where the old prophet lived.

²⁶When 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.”

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

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

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

³⁰He laid the body in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, “Alas, my brother!”

³¹After 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 proclaimed 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.”

³³Even after this event Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but made priests for the high places again from among all the people; any who wanted to be priests he consecrated for the high places.

³⁴This matter 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: I am going to stir up a destructive wind against Babylon and against the inhabitants of Leb-qamai;

²and I will send winnowers to Babylon, and they shall winnow her. 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 array himself in his coat of mail. Do not spare her young men; utterly destroy her entire army.

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

⁵Israel and Judah have not been forsaken by their God, the LORD of hosts, though their land is full of guilt before the Holy One of Israel.

⁶Flee from the midst of Babylon, save your lives, each of you! Do not perish because of her guilt, for this is the time of the LORD’s vengeance; he is repaying her what is due.

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

⁸Suddenly Babylon has fallen and is shattered; wail for her! Bring balm for her wound; perhaps she may be healed.

⁹We tried to heal Babylon, but she could not be healed. Forsake her, and let each of us go to our own country; for her judgment has reached up to heaven and has been lifted up even to the skies.

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

¹¹Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! 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, vengeance for his temple.

¹²Raise a standard against the walls of Babylon; make the watch strong; post sentinels; prepare the ambushes; for the LORD has both planned and done what he spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

¹³You who live by mighty 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 troops like a swarm of locusts, and they shall raise a shout of victory over you.

¹⁵It 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 lightnings for the rain, and he brings out the wind from his storehouses.

¹⁷Everyone is stupid and without knowledge; goldsmiths are all put to shame by their idols; for their 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 the LORD, 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.

²⁰You are my war club, my weapon of battle: with you I smash nations; with you I destroy kingdoms;

²¹with you I smash the horse and its rider; with you I smash the chariot and the charioteer;

²²with you I smash man and woman; with you I smash the old man and the boy; with you I smash the young man and the girl;

²³with you I smash shepherds and their flocks; with you I smash farmers and their teams; with you I smash governors and deputies.

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

²⁵I am against you, O destroying mountain, — says the LORD, that destroys the whole earth; I will stretch out my hand against you, and roll you down from the crags, and make you a burned-out mountain.

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

²⁷Raise a standard in the land, 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, for the LORD’s purposes against Babylon stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.

³⁰The warriors of Babylon have given up fighting, they remain in their strongholds; their strength has failed, they have become women; her buildings are set 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 from end to end:

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

³³For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Daughter 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“King Nebuchadrezzar 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 belly with my delicacies, he has spewed me out.

³⁵May my torn flesh be avenged on Babylon,” the inhabitants of Zion shall say. “May my blood be avenged on the inhabitants of Chaldea,” Jerusalem shall say.

³⁶Therefore thus says the LORD: I am going to defend 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, a den of jackals, an object of horror and of hissing, without inhabitant.

³⁸Like lions they shall roar together; they shall growl like lions’ whelps.

³⁹When they are inflamed, I will set out their drink and make them drunk, until they become merry and then sleep a perpetual sleep and never wake, says the LORD.

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

⁴¹How Sheshach is taken, the pride of the whole earth seized! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations!

⁴²The sea has risen over Babylon; she has been covered by its tumultuous waves.

⁴³Her cities have become an object of horror, a land of drought and a desert, a land in which no one lives, and through which no mortal passes.

⁴⁴I will punish Bel in Babylon, and make him disgorge what he has swallowed. The nations shall no longer stream to him; the wall of Babylon has fallen.

⁴⁵Come out of her, my people! Save your lives, each of you, from the fierce anger of the LORD!

⁴⁶Do not be fainthearted or fearful at the rumors heard in the land — one year one rumor comes, the next year another, rumors of violence in the land and of ruler against ruler.

⁴⁷Assuredly, 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 her midst.

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

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

⁵⁰You survivors of the sword, go, do not linger! Remember the LORD in a distant land, and let Jerusalem come into your mind:

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

⁵²Therefore the time is surely coming, says the LORD, when I will punish her idols, and through all her land the wounded shall groan.

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

⁵⁴Listen! — a cry from Babylon! A great crashing from the land of the Chaldeans!

⁵⁵For the LORD is laying Babylon waste, and stilling her loud clamor. Their waves roar like mighty waters, the sound of their clamor resounds;

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

⁵⁷I will make her officials and her sages drunk, also her governors, her deputies, and her warriors; they shall sleep a perpetual sleep and never wake, says the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.

⁵⁸Thus 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 exhaust themselves for nothing, and the nations weary themselves only for fire.

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

⁶⁰Jeremiah wrote in a scroll all the disasters that would come on 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 yourself threatened to destroy this place so that neither human beings nor animals shall live in it, and it shall be desolate forever.’

⁶³When you finish reading this scroll, tie a stone to it, and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates,

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

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

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

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

⁴While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!”

⁵Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard of it.

⁶The young men came and wrapped up his body, then carried him out and buried him.

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

⁸Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.”

⁹Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, 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 died. When the young men came in they found her dead, so they carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

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

¹²Now many signs and wonders were done among the people through the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico.

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

¹⁴Yet more than ever believers were added to the Lord, great numbers of both men and women,

¹⁵so that they even carried out the sick into the streets, and laid them on cots and mats, in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he came by.

¹⁶A great number of people would also gather from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all cured.

¹⁷Then the high priest took action; he and all who were with him (that is, the sect of the Sadducees), being filled with jealousy,

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

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

²⁰“Go, stand in the temple and tell the people the whole message about this life.”

²¹When they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and went on with their teaching. When the high priest and those with him arrived, they called together the council and the whole body of the elders of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought.

²²But when the temple police went there, 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 perplexed about them, wondering what might be going on.

²⁵Then someone arrived and announced, “Look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people!”

²⁶Then the captain went with the temple police and brought them, but without violence, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people.

²⁷When they had brought them, they had them stand before the council. The high priest questioned them,

²⁸saying, “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you are determined to bring this man’s blood on us.”

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

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

³¹God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior that he might 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, respected by all the people, stood up and ordered the men to be put outside for a short time.

³⁵Then he said to them, “Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men.

³⁶For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men, about four hundred, joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and disappeared.

³⁷After him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the census and got people to follow him; he also 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; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will fail;

³⁹but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them — in that case you may even be found fighting against God!” They were convinced by him,

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

⁴¹As they left the council, they rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.

⁴²And every day in the temple and at home they did not cease to teach and proclaim Jesus as the Messiah.