Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God,

²he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets.

³He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

⁴When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”

⁵Simon answered, “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.”

⁶When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.

⁷So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so that they began to sink.

⁸But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!”

⁹For he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had taken;

¹⁰and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”

¹¹When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him.

¹²Once, when he was in one of the cities, there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.”

¹³Then Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Immediately the leprosy left him.

¹⁴And he ordered him to tell no one. “Go,” he said, “and show yourself to the priest, and, as Moses commanded, make an offering for your cleansing, for a testimony to them.”

¹⁵But now more than ever the word about Jesus spread abroad; many crowds would gather to hear him and to be cured of their diseases.

¹⁶But he would withdraw to deserted places and pray.

¹⁷One day, while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting near by (they had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem); and the power of the Lord was with him to heal.

¹⁸Just then some men came, carrying a paralyzed man on a bed. They were trying to bring him in and lay him before Jesus;

¹⁹but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the middle of the crowd in front of Jesus.

²⁰When he saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.”

²¹Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, “Who is this who is speaking blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

²²When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts?

²³Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’?

²⁴But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” — he said to the one who was paralyzed — “I say to you, stand up and take your bed and go to your home.”

²⁵Immediately he stood up before them, took what he had been lying on, and went to his home, glorifying God.

²⁶Amazement seized all of them, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen strange things today.”

²⁷After this he went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.”

²⁸And he got up, left everything, and followed him.

²⁹Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them.

³⁰The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”

³¹Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick;

³²I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

³³Then they said to him, “John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.”

³⁴Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you?

³⁵The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.”

³⁶He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old.

³⁷And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.

³⁸But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.

³⁹And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”

¹When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negeb, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Atharim, he fought against Israel and took some of them captive.

²Then Israel made a vow to the LORD and said, “If you will indeed give this people into our hands, then we will utterly destroy their towns.”

³The LORD listened to the voice of Israel, and handed over the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their towns; so the place was called Hormah.

⁴From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom; but the people became impatient on the way.

⁵The people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we detest this miserable food.”

⁶Then the LORD sent poisonous serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many Israelites died.

⁷The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you; pray to the LORD to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people.

⁸And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.”

⁹So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.

¹⁰The Israelites set out, and camped in Oboth.

¹¹They set out from Oboth, and camped at Iye-abarim, in the wilderness bordering Moab toward the sunrise.

¹²From there they set out, and camped in the Wadi Zered.

¹³From there they set out, and camped on the other side of the Arnon, in the wilderness that extends from the boundary of the Amorites; for the Arnon is the boundary of Moab, between Moab and the Amorites.

¹⁴Wherefore it is said in the Book of the Wars of the LORD, “Waheb in Suphah and the wadis. The Arnon

¹⁵and the slopes of the wadis that extend to the seat of Ar, and lie along the border of Moab.”

¹⁶From there they continued to Beer; that is the well of which the LORD said to Moses, “Gather the people together, and I will give them water.”

¹⁷Then Israel sang this song: “Spring up, O well! — Sing to it! —

¹⁸the well that the leaders sank, that the nobles of the people dug, with the scepter, with the staff.” From the wilderness to Mattanah,

¹⁹from Mattanah to Nahaliel, from Nahaliel to Bamoth,

²⁰and from Bamoth to the valley lying in the region of Moab by the top of Pisgah that overlooks the wasteland.

²¹Then Israel sent messengers to King Sihon of the Amorites, saying,

²²“Let me pass through your land; we will not turn aside into field or vineyard; we will not drink the water of any well; we will go by the King’s Highway until we have passed through your territory.”

²³But Sihon would not allow Israel to pass through his territory. Sihon gathered all his people together, and went out against Israel to the wilderness; he came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel.

²⁴Israel put him to the sword, and took possession of his land from the Arnon to the Jabbok, as far as to the Ammonites; for the boundary of the Ammonites was strong.

²⁵Israel took all these towns, and Israel settled in all the towns of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all its villages.

²⁶For Heshbon was the city of King Sihon of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab and captured all his land as far as the Arnon.

²⁷Therefore the ballad singers say, “Come to Heshbon, let it be built; let the city of Sihon be established.

²⁸For fire came out from Heshbon, flame from the city of Sihon. It devoured Ar of Moab, and swallowed up the heights of the Arnon.

²⁹Woe to you, O Moab! You are undone, O people of Chemosh! He has made his sons fugitives, and his daughters captives, to an Amorite king, Sihon.

³⁰So their posterity perished from Heshbon to Dibon, and we laid waste until fire spread to Medeba.”

³¹Thus Israel settled in the land of the Amorites.

³²Moses sent to spy out Jazer; and they captured its villages, and dispossessed the Amorites who were there.

³³Then they turned and went up the road to Bashan; and King Og of Bashan came out against them, he and all his people, to battle at Edrei.

³⁴But the LORD said to Moses, “Do not be afraid of him; for I have given him into your hand, with all his people, and all his land. You shall do to him as you did to King Sihon of the Amorites, who ruled in Heshbon.”

³⁵So they killed him, his sons, and all his people, until there was no survivor left; and they took possession of his land.

¹Finally, my brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. Breaking with the Past To write the same things to you is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard.

²Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh!

³For it is we who are the circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh —

⁴even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh. If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more:

⁵circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;

⁶as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

⁷Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.

⁸More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.

¹⁰I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death,

¹¹if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

¹²Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

¹³Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,

¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

¹⁵Let those of us then who are mature be of the same mind; and if you think differently about anything, this too God will reveal to you.

¹⁶Only let us hold fast to what we have attained.

¹⁷Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us.

¹⁸For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.

¹⁹Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things.

²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

²¹He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

¹“A mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble,

²comes up like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last.

³Do you fix your eyes on such a one? Do you bring me into judgment with you?

⁴Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? No one can.

⁵Since their days are determined, and the number of their months is known to you, and you have appointed the bounds that they cannot pass,

⁶look away from them, and desist, that they may enjoy, like laborers, their days.

⁷“For there is hope for a tree, if it is cut down, that it will sprout again, and that its shoots will not cease.

⁸Though its root grows old in the earth, and its stump dies in the ground,

⁹yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth branches like a young plant.

¹⁰But mortals die, and are laid low; humans expire, and where are they?

¹¹As waters fail from a lake, and a river wastes away and dries up,

¹²so mortals lie down and do not rise again; until the heavens are no more, they will not awake or be roused out of their sleep.

¹³O that you would hide me in Sheol, that you would conceal me until your wrath is past, that you would appoint me a set time, and remember me!

¹⁴If mortals die, will they live again? All the days of my service I would wait until my release should come.

¹⁵You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands.

¹⁶For then you would not number my steps, you would not keep watch over my sin;

¹⁷my transgression would be sealed up in a bag, and you would cover over my iniquity.

¹⁸“But the mountain falls and crumbles away, and the rock is removed from its place;

¹⁹the waters wear away the stones; the torrents wash away the soil of the earth; so you destroy the hope of mortals.

²⁰You prevail forever against them, and they pass away; you change their countenance, and send them away.

²¹Their children come to honor, and they do not know it; they are brought low, and it goes unnoticed.

²²They feel only the pain of their own bodies, and mourn only for themselves.”

¹I give you thanks, O LORD, with my whole heart; before the gods I sing your praise;

²I bow down toward your holy temple and give thanks to your name for your steadfast love and your faithfulness; for you have exalted your name and your word above everything.

³On the day I called, you answered me, you increased my strength of soul.

⁴All the kings of the earth shall praise you, O LORD, for they have heard the words of your mouth.

⁵They shall sing of the ways of the LORD, for great is the glory of the LORD.

⁶For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly; but the haughty he perceives from far away.

⁷Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve me against the wrath of my enemies; you stretch out your hand, and your right hand delivers me.

⁸The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever. Do not forsake the work of your hands.

¹The wise woman builds her house, but the foolish tears it down with her own hands.

²Those who walk uprightly fear the LORD, but one who is devious in conduct despises him.

³The talk of fools is a rod for their backs, but the lips of the wise preserve them.

⁴Where there are no oxen, there is no grain; abundant crops come by the strength of the ox.

⁵A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies.

⁶A scoffer seeks wisdom in vain, but knowledge is easy for one who understands.

⁷Leave the presence of a fool, for there you do not find words of knowledge.

⁸It is the wisdom of the clever to understand where they go, but the folly of fools misleads.

⁹Fools mock at the guilt offering, but the upright enjoy God’s favor.

¹⁰The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy.

¹¹The house of the wicked is destroyed, but the tent of the upright flourishes.

¹²There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death.

¹³Even in laughter the heart is sad, and the end of joy is grief.

¹⁴The perverse get what their ways deserve, and the good, what their deeds deserve.

¹⁵The simple believe everything, but the clever consider their steps.

¹⁶The wise are cautious and turn away from evil, but the fool throws off restraint and is careless.

¹⁷One who is quick-tempered acts foolishly, and the schemer is hated.

¹⁸The simple are adorned with folly, but the clever are crowned with knowledge.

¹⁹The evil bow down before the good, the wicked at the gates of the righteous.

²⁰The poor are disliked even by their neighbors, but the rich have many friends.

²¹Those who despise their neighbors are sinners, but happy are those who are kind to the poor.

²²Do they not err that plan evil? Those who plan good find loyalty and faithfulness.

²³In all toil there is profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.

²⁴The crown of the wise is their wisdom, but folly is the garland of fools.

²⁵A truthful witness saves lives, but one who utters lies is a betrayer.

²⁶In the fear of the LORD one has strong confidence, and one’s children will have a refuge.

²⁷The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, so that one may avoid the snares of death.

²⁸The glory of a king is a multitude of people; without people a prince is ruined.

²⁹Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but one who has a hasty temper exalts folly.

³⁰A tranquil mind gives life to the flesh, but passion makes the bones rot.

³¹Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him.

³²The wicked are overthrown by their evildoing, but the righteous find a refuge in their integrity.

³³Wisdom is at home in the mind of one who has understanding, but it is not known in the heart of fools.

³⁴Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

³⁵A servant who deals wisely has the king’s favor, but his wrath falls on one who acts shamefully.

¹In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash began to reign; he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beer-sheba.

²Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the LORD all his days, because the priest Jehoiada instructed him.

³Nevertheless the high places were not taken away; the people continued to sacrifice and make offerings on the high places.

⁴Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money offered as sacred donations that is brought into the house of the LORD, the money for which each person is assessed — the money from the assessment of persons — and the money from the voluntary offerings brought into the house of the LORD,

⁵let the priests receive from each of the donors; and let them repair the house wherever any need of repairs is discovered.”

⁶But by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash the priests had made no repairs on the house.

⁷Therefore King Jehoash summoned the priest Jehoiada with the other priests and said to them, “Why are you not repairing the house? Now therefore do not accept any more money from your donors but hand it over for the repair of the house.”

⁸So the priests agreed that they would neither accept more money from the people nor repair the house.

⁹Then the priest Jehoiada took a chest, made a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar on the right side as one entered the house of the LORD; the priests who guarded the threshold put in it all the money that was brought into the house of the LORD.

¹⁰Whenever they saw that there was a great deal of money in the chest, the king’s secretary and the high priest went up, counted the money that was found in the house of the LORD, and tied it up in bags.

¹¹They would give the money that was weighed out into the hands of the workers who had the oversight of the house of the LORD; then they paid it out to the carpenters and the builders who worked on the house of the LORD,

¹²to the masons and the stonecutters, as well as to buy timber and quarried stone for making repairs on the house of the LORD, as well as for any outlay for repairs of the house.

¹³But for the house of the LORD no basins of silver, snuffers, bowls, trumpets, or any vessels of gold, or of silver, were made from the money that was brought into the house of the LORD,

¹⁴for that was given to the workers who were repairing the house of the LORD with it.

¹⁵They did not ask an accounting from those into whose hand they delivered the money to pay out to the workers, for they dealt honestly.

¹⁶The money from the guilt offerings and the money from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the LORD; it belonged to the priests.

¹⁷At that time King Hazael of Aram went up, fought against Gath, and took it. But when Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem,

¹⁸King Jehoash of Judah took all the votive gifts that Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his ancestors, the kings of Judah, had dedicated, as well as his own votive gifts, all the gold that was found in the treasuries of the house of the LORD and of the king’s house, and sent these to King Hazael of Aram. Then Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem.

¹⁹Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?

²⁰His servants arose, devised a conspiracy, and killed Joash in the house of Millo, on the way that goes down to Silla.

²¹It was Jozacar son of Shimeath and Jehozabad son of Shomer, his servants, who struck him down, so that he died. He was buried with his ancestors in the city of David; then his son Amaziah succeeded him.

¹The word of the LORD came to me:

²O mortal, how does the wood of the vine surpass all other wood — the vine branch that is among the trees of the forest?

³Is wood taken from it to make anything? Does one take a peg from it on which to hang any object?

⁴It is put in the fire for fuel; when the fire has consumed both ends of it and the middle of it is charred, is it useful for anything?

⁵When it was whole it was used for nothing; how much less — when the fire has consumed it, and it is charred — can it ever be used for anything!

⁶Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Like the wood of the vine among the trees of the forest, which I have given to the fire for fuel, so I will give up the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

⁷I will set my face against them; although they escape from the fire, the fire shall still consume them; and you shall know that I am the LORD, when I set my face against them.

⁸And I will make the land desolate, because they have acted faithlessly, says the Lord GOD.

¹Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and began to defend himself:

²“I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews,

³because you are especially familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews; therefore I beg of you to listen to me patiently.

⁴“All the Jews know my way of life from my youth, a life spent from the beginning among my own people and in Jerusalem.

⁵They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I have belonged to the strictest sect of our religion and lived as a Pharisee.

⁶And now I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors,

⁷a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship day and night. It is for this hope, your Excellency, that I am accused by Jews!

⁸Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?

⁹“Indeed, I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰And that is what I did in Jerusalem; with authority received from the chief priests, I not only locked up many of the saints in prison, but I also cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death.

¹¹By punishing them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to blaspheme; and since I was so furiously enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities.

¹²“With this in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,

¹³when at midday along the road, your Excellency, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions.

¹⁴When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

¹⁶But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you.

¹⁷I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles — to whom I am sending you

¹⁸to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

¹⁹“After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,

²⁰but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance.

²¹For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.

²²To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place:

²³that the Messiah must suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”

²⁴While he was making this defense, Festus exclaimed, “You are out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning is driving you insane!”

²⁵But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking the sober truth.

²⁶Indeed the king knows about these things, and to him I speak freely; for I am certain that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this was not done in a corner.

²⁷King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.”

²⁸Agrippa said to Paul, “Are you so quickly persuading me to become a Christian?”

²⁹Paul replied, “Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am — except for these chains.”

³⁰Then the king got up, and with him the governor and Bernice and those who had been seated with them;

³¹and as they were leaving, they said to one another, “This man is doing nothing to deserve death or imprisonment.”

³²Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to the emperor.”