Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

²Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes.

³In these lay many invalids — blind, lame, and paralyzed.

⁴

⁵One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years.

⁶When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”

⁷The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.”

⁸Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.”

⁹At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath.

¹⁰So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.”

¹¹But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’”

¹²They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?”

¹³Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there.

¹⁴Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you.”

¹⁵The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.

¹⁶Therefore the Jews started persecuting Jesus, because he was doing such things on the sabbath.

¹⁷But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.”

¹⁸For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the sabbath, but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

¹⁹Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.

²⁰The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished.

²¹Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whomever he wishes.

²²The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son,

²³so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

²⁴Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life.

²⁵“Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.

²⁶For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself;

²⁷and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

²⁸Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice

²⁹and will come out — those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.

³⁰“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.

³¹“If I testify about myself, my testimony is not true.

³²There is another who testifies on my behalf, and I know that his testimony to me is true.

³³You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth.

³⁴Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved.

³⁵He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.

³⁶But I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given me to complete, the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me.

³⁷And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form,

³⁸and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.

³⁹“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that testify on my behalf.

⁴⁰Yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

⁴¹I do not accept glory from human beings.

⁴²But I know that you do not have the love of God in you.

⁴³I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him.

⁴⁴How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?

⁴⁵Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope.

⁴⁶If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.

⁴⁷But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?”

¹Hear, O Israel! You are about to cross the Jordan today, to go in and dispossess nations larger and mightier than you, great cities, fortified to the heavens,

²a strong and tall people, the offspring of the Anakim, whom you know. You have heard it said of them, “Who can stand up to the Anakim?”

³Know then today that the LORD your God is the one who crosses over before you as a devouring fire; he will defeat them and subdue them before you, so that you may dispossess and destroy them quickly, as the LORD has promised you.

⁴When the LORD your God thrusts them out before you, do not say to yourself, “It is because of my righteousness that the LORD has brought me in to occupy this land”; it is rather because of the wickedness of these nations that the LORD is dispossessing them before you.

⁵It is not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going in to occupy their land; but because of the wickedness of these nations the LORD your God is dispossessing them before you, in order to fulfill the promise that the LORD made on oath to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

⁶Know, then, that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to occupy because of your righteousness; for you are a stubborn people.

⁷Remember and do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness; you have been rebellious against the LORD from the day you came out of the land of Egypt until you came to this place.

⁸Even at Horeb you provoked the LORD to wrath, and the LORD was so angry with you that he was ready to destroy you.

⁹When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I remained on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water.

¹⁰And the LORD gave me the two stone tablets written with the finger of God; on them were all the words that the LORD had spoken to you at the mountain out of the fire on the day of the assembly.

¹¹At the end of forty days and forty nights the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.

¹²Then the LORD said to me, “Get up, go down quickly from here, for your people whom you have brought from Egypt have acted corruptly. They have been quick to turn from the way that I commanded them; they have cast an image for themselves.”

¹³Furthermore the LORD said to me, “I have seen that this people is indeed a stubborn people.

¹⁴Let me alone that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven; and I will make of you a nation mightier and more numerous than they.”

¹⁵So I turned and went down from the mountain, while the mountain was ablaze; the two tablets of the covenant were in my two hands.

¹⁶Then I saw that you had indeed sinned against the LORD your God, by casting for yourselves an image of a calf; you had been quick to turn from the way that the LORD had commanded you.

¹⁷So I took hold of the two tablets and flung them from my two hands, smashing them before your eyes.

¹⁸Then I lay prostrate before the LORD as before, forty days and forty nights; I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin you had committed, provoking the LORD by doing what was evil in his sight.

¹⁹For I was afraid that the anger that the LORD bore against you was so fierce that he would destroy you. But the LORD listened to me that time also.

²⁰The LORD was so angry with Aaron that he was ready to destroy him, but I interceded also on behalf of Aaron at that same time.

²¹Then I took the sinful thing you had made, the calf, and burned it with fire and crushed it, grinding it thoroughly, until it was reduced to dust; and I threw the dust of it into the stream that runs down the mountain.

²²At Taberah also, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, you provoked the LORD to wrath.

²³And when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, “Go up and occupy the land that I have given you,” you rebelled against the command of the LORD your God, neither trusting him nor obeying him.

²⁴You have been rebellious against the LORD as long as he has known you.

²⁵Throughout the forty days and forty nights that I lay prostrate before the LORD when the LORD intended to destroy you,

²⁶I prayed to the LORD and said, “Lord GOD, do not destroy the people who are your very own possession, whom you redeemed in your greatness, whom you brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

²⁷Remember your servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; pay no attention to the stubbornness of this people, their wickedness and their sin,

²⁸otherwise the land from which you have brought us might say, ‘Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land that he promised them, and because he hated them, he has brought them out to let them die in the wilderness.’

²⁹For they are the people of your very own possession, whom you brought out by your great power and by your outstretched arm.”

¹What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound?

²By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?

³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

⁴Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

⁷For whoever has died is freed from sin.

⁸But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.

⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.

¹⁰The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹²Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions.

¹³No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.

¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Should we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!

¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

¹⁷But thanks be to God that you, having once been slaves of sin, have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were entrusted,

¹⁸and that you, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

¹⁹I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification.

²⁰When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.

²¹So what advantage did you then get from the things of which you now are ashamed? The end of those things is death.

²²But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification. The end is eternal life.

²³For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹Now as an elder myself and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as well as one who shares in the glory to be revealed, I exhort the elders among you

²to tend the flock of God that is in your charge, exercising the oversight, not under compulsion but willingly, as God would have you do it — not for sordid gain but eagerly.

³Do not lord it over those in your charge, but be examples to the flock.

⁴And when the chief shepherd appears, you will win the crown of glory that never fades away.

⁵In the same way, you who are younger must accept the authority of the elders. And all of you must clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

⁶Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time.

⁷Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.

⁸Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.

⁹Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.

¹⁰And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.

¹¹To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.

¹²Through Silvanus, whom I consider a faithful brother, I have written this short letter to encourage you and to testify that this is the true grace of God. Stand fast in it.

¹³Your sister church in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark.

¹⁴Greet one another with a kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

¹Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:

²“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

³Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me.

⁴“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

⁵Who determined its measurements — surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?

⁶On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone

⁷when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?

⁸“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb? —

⁹when I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band,

¹⁰and prescribed bounds for it, and set bars and doors,

¹¹and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stopped’?

¹²“Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place,

¹³so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?

¹⁴It is changed like clay under the seal, and it is dyed like a garment.

¹⁵Light is withheld from the wicked, and their uplifted arm is broken.

¹⁶“Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?

¹⁷Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

¹⁸Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.

¹⁹“Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness,

²⁰that you may take it to its territory and that you may discern the paths to its home?

²¹Surely you know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great!

²²“Have you entered the storehouses of the snow, or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,

²³which I have reserved for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?

²⁴What is the way to the place where the light is distributed, or where the east wind is scattered upon the earth?

²⁵“Who has cut a channel for the torrents of rain, and a way for the thunderbolt,

²⁶to bring rain on a land where no one lives, on the desert, which is empty of human life,

²⁷to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground put forth grass?

²⁸“Has the rain a father, or who has begotten the drops of dew?

²⁹From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?

³⁰The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.

³¹“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?

³²Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children?

³³Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?

³⁴“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of waters may cover you?

³⁵Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’?

³⁶Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind?

³⁷Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens,

³⁸when the dust runs into a mass and the clods cling together?

³⁹“Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions,

⁴⁰when they crouch in their dens, or lie in wait in their covert?

⁴¹Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food?

¹Help, O LORD, for there is no longer anyone who is godly; the faithful have disappeared from humankind.

²They utter lies to each other; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak.

³May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts,

⁴those who say, “With our tongues we will prevail; our lips are our own — who is our master?”

⁵“Because the poor are despoiled, because the needy groan, I will now rise up,” says the LORD; “I will place them in the safety for which they long.”

⁶The promises of the LORD are promises that are pure, silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times.

⁷You, O LORD, will protect us; you will guard us from this generation forever.

⁸On every side the wicked prowl, as vileness is exalted among humankind.

¹My child, keep my words and store up my commandments with you;

²keep my commandments and live, keep my teachings as the apple of your eye;

³bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call insight your intimate friend,

⁵that they may keep you from the loose woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words.

⁶For at the window of my house I looked out through my lattice,

⁷and I saw among the simple ones, I observed among the youths, a young man without sense,

⁸passing along the street near her corner, taking the road to her house

⁹in the twilight, in the evening, at the time of night and darkness.

¹⁰Then a woman comes toward him, decked out like a prostitute, wily of heart.

¹¹She is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home;

¹²now in the street, now in the squares, and at every corner she lies in wait.

¹³She seizes him and kisses him, and with impudent face she says to him:

¹⁴“I had to offer sacrifices, and today I have paid my vows;

¹⁵so now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you!

¹⁶I have decked my couch with coverings, colored spreads of Egyptian linen;

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

¹⁸Come, let us take our fill of love until morning; let us delight ourselves with love.

¹⁹For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey.

²⁰He took a bag of money with him; he will not come home until full moon.”

²¹With much seductive speech she persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him.

²²Right away he follows her, and goes like an ox to the slaughter, or bounds like a stag toward the trap

²³until an arrow pierces its entrails. He is like a bird rushing into a snare, not knowing that it will cost him his life.

²⁴And now, my children, listen to me, and be attentive to the words of my mouth.

²⁵Do not let your hearts turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths.

²⁶For many are those she has laid low, and numerous are her victims.

²⁷Her house is the way to Sheol, going down to the chambers of death.

¹Then all Israel gathered together to David at Hebron and said, “See, we are your bone and flesh.

²For some time now, even while Saul was king, it was you who commanded the army of Israel. The LORD your God said to you: It is you who shall be shepherd of my people Israel, you who shall be ruler over my people Israel.”

³So all the elders of Israel came to the king at Hebron, and David made a covenant with them at Hebron before the LORD. And they anointed David king over Israel, according to the word of the LORD by Samuel.

⁴David and all Israel marched to Jerusalem, that is Jebus, where the Jebusites were, the inhabitants of the land.

⁵The inhabitants of Jebus said to David, “You will not come in here.” Nevertheless David took the stronghold of Zion, now the city of David.

⁶David had said, “Whoever attacks the Jebusites first shall be chief and commander.” And Joab son of Zeruiah went up first, so he became chief.

⁷David resided in the stronghold; therefore it was called the city of David.

⁸He built the city all around, from the Millo in complete circuit; and Joab repaired the rest of the city.

⁹And David became greater and greater, for the LORD of hosts was with him.

¹⁰Now these are the chiefs of David’s warriors, who gave him strong support in his kingdom, together with all Israel, to make him king, according to the word of the LORD concerning Israel.

¹¹This is an account of David’s mighty warriors: Jashobeam, son of Hachmoni, was chief of the Three; he wielded his spear against three hundred whom he killed at one time.

¹²And next to him among the three warriors was Eleazar son of Dodo, the Ahohite.

¹³He was with David at Pas-dammim when the Philistines were gathered there for battle. There was a plot of ground full of barley. Now the people had fled from the Philistines,

¹⁴but he and David took their stand in the middle of the plot, defended it, and killed the Philistines; and the LORD saved them by a great victory.

¹⁵Three of the thirty chiefs went down to the rock to David at the cave of Adullam, while the army of Philistines was encamped in the valley of Rephaim.

¹⁶David was then in the stronghold; and the garrison of the Philistines was then at Bethlehem.

¹⁷David said longingly, “O that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate!”

¹⁸Then the Three broke through the camp of the Philistines, and drew water from the well of Bethlehem that was by the gate, and they brought it to David. But David would not drink of it; he poured it out to the LORD,

¹⁹and said, “My God forbid that I should do this. Can I drink the blood of these men? For at the risk of their lives they brought it.” Therefore he would not drink it. The three warriors did these things.

²⁰Now Abishai, the brother of Joab, was chief of the Thirty. With his spear he fought against three hundred and killed them, and won a name beside the Three.

²¹He was the most renowned of the Thirty, and became their commander; but he did not attain to the Three.

²²Benaiah son of Jehoiada was a valiant man of Kabzeel, a doer of great deeds; he struck down two sons of Ariel of Moab. He also went down and killed a lion in a pit on a day when snow had fallen.

²³And he killed an Egyptian, a man of great stature, five cubits tall. The Egyptian had in his hand a spear like a weaver’s beam; but Benaiah went against him with a staff, snatched the spear out of the Egyptian’s hand, and killed him with his own spear.

²⁴Such were the things Benaiah son of Jehoiada did, and he won a name beside the three warriors.

²⁵He was renowned among the Thirty, but he did not attain to the Three. And David put him in charge of his bodyguard.

²⁶The warriors of the armies were Asahel brother of Joab, Elhanan son of Dodo of Bethlehem,

²⁷Shammoth of Harod, Helez the Pelonite,

²⁸Ira son of Ikkesh of Tekoa, Abiezer of Anathoth,

²⁹Sibbecai the Hushathite, Ilai the Ahohite,

³⁰Maharai of Netophah, Heled son of Baanah of Netophah,

³¹Ithai son of Ribai of Gibeah of the Benjaminites, Benaiah of Pirathon,

³²Hurai of the wadis of Gaash, Abiel the Arbathite,

³³Azmaveth of Baharum, Eliahba of Shaalbon,

³⁴Hashem the Gizonite, Jonathan son of Shagee the Hararite,

³⁵Ahiam son of Sachar the Hararite, Eliphal son of Ur,

³⁶Hepher the Mecherathite, Ahijah the Pelonite,

³⁷Hezro of Carmel, Naarai son of Ezbai,

³⁸Joel the brother of Nathan, Mibhar son of Hagri,

³⁹Zelek the Ammonite, Naharai of Beeroth, the armor-bearer of Joab son of Zeruiah,

⁴⁰Ira the Ithrite, Gareb the Ithrite,

⁴¹Uriah the Hittite, Zabad son of Ahlai,

⁴²Adina son of Shiza the Reubenite, a leader of the Reubenites, and thirty with him,

⁴³Hanan son of Maacah, and Joshaphat the Mithnite,

⁴⁴Uzzia the Ashterathite, Shama and Jeiel sons of Hotham the Aroerite,

⁴⁵Jediael son of Shimri, and his brother Joha the Tizite,

⁴⁶Eliel the Mahavite, and Jeribai and Joshaviah sons of Elnaam, and Ithmah the Moabite,

⁴⁷Eliel, and Obed, and Jaasiel the Mezobaite.

¹And you, mortal, prophesy against Gog, and say: Thus says the Lord GOD: I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal!

²I will turn you around and drive you forward, and bring you up from the remotest parts of the north, and lead you against the mountains of Israel.

³I will strike your bow from your left hand, and will make your arrows drop out of your right hand.

⁴You shall fall on the mountains of Israel, you and all your troops and the peoples that are with you; I will give you to birds of prey of every kind and to the wild animals to be devoured.

⁵You shall fall in the open field; for I have spoken, says the Lord GOD.

⁶I will send fire on Magog and on those who live securely in the coastlands; and they shall know that I am the LORD.

⁷My holy name I will make known among my people Israel; and I will not let my holy name be profaned any more; and the nations shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel.

⁸It has come! It has happened, says the Lord GOD. This is the day of which I have spoken.

⁹Then those who live in the towns of Israel will go out and make fires of the weapons and burn them — bucklers and shields, bows and arrows, handpikes and spears — and they will make fires of them for seven years.

¹⁰They will not need to take wood out of the field or cut down any trees in the forests, for they will make their fires of the weapons; they will despoil those who despoiled them, and plunder those who plundered them, says the Lord GOD.

¹¹On that day I will give to Gog a place for burial in Israel, the Valley of the Travelers east of the sea; it shall block the path of the travelers, for there Gog and all his horde will be buried; it shall be called the Valley of Hamon-gog.

¹²Seven months the house of Israel shall spend burying them, in order to cleanse the land.

¹³All the people of the land shall bury them; and it will bring them honor on the day that I show my glory, says the Lord GOD.

¹⁴They will set apart men to pass through the land regularly and bury any invaders who remain on the face of the land, so as to cleanse it; for seven months they shall make their search.

¹⁵As the searchers pass through the land, anyone who sees a human bone shall set up a sign by it, until the buriers have buried it in the Valley of Hamon-gog.

¹⁶(A city Hamonah is there also.) Thus they shall cleanse the land.

¹⁷As for you, mortal, thus says the Lord GOD: Speak to the birds of every kind and to all the wild animals: Assemble and come, gather from all around to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood.

¹⁸You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth — of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls, all of them fatlings of Bashan.

¹⁹You shall eat fat until you are filled, and drink blood until you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you.

²⁰And you shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers, with warriors and all kinds of soldiers, says the Lord GOD.

²¹I will display my glory among the nations; and all the nations shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them.

²²The house of Israel shall know that I am the LORD their God, from that day forward.

²³And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt treacherously with me. So I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword.

²⁴I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.

²⁵Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob, and have mercy on the whole house of Israel; and I will be jealous for my holy name.

²⁶They shall forget their shame, and all the treachery they have practiced against me, when they live securely in their land with no one to make them afraid,

²⁷when I have brought them back from the peoples and gathered them from their enemies’ lands, and through them have displayed my holiness in the sight of many nations.

²⁸Then they shall know that I am the LORD their God because I sent them into exile among the nations, and then gathered them into their own land. I will leave none of them behind;

²⁹and I will never again hide my face from them, when I pour out my spirit upon the house of Israel, says the Lord GOD.

¹“Brothers and fathers, listen to the defense that I now make before you.”

²When they heard him addressing them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet. Then he said:

³“I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law, being zealous for God, just as all of you are today.

⁴I persecuted this Way up to the point of death by binding both men and women and putting them in prison,

⁵as the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify about me. From them I also received letters to the brothers in Damascus, and I went there in order to bind those who were there and to bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment.

⁶“While I was on my way and approaching Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone about me.

⁷I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’

⁸I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Then he said to me, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth whom you are persecuting.’

⁹Now those who were with me saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me.

¹⁰I asked, ‘What am I to do, Lord?’ The Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go to Damascus; there you will be told everything that has been assigned to you to do.’

¹¹Since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, those who were with me took my hand and led me to Damascus.

¹²“A certain Ananias, who was a devout man according to the law and well spoken of by all the Jews living there,

¹³came to me; and standing beside me, he said, ‘Brother Saul, regain your sight!’ In that very hour I regained my sight and saw him.

¹⁴Then he said, ‘The God of our ancestors has chosen you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear his own voice;

¹⁵for you will be his witness to all the world of what you have seen and heard.

¹⁶And now why do you delay? Get up, be baptized, and have your sins washed away, calling on his name.’

¹⁷“After I had returned to Jerusalem and while I was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance

¹⁸and saw Jesus saying to me, ‘Hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’

¹⁹And I said, ‘Lord, they themselves know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believed in you.

²⁰And while the blood of your witness Stephen was shed, I myself was standing by, approving and keeping the coats of those who killed him.’

²¹Then he said to me, ‘Go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles.’”

²²Up to this point they listened to him, but then they shouted, “Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.”

²³And while they were shouting, throwing off their cloaks, and tossing dust into the air,

²⁴the tribune directed that he was to be brought into the barracks, and ordered him to be examined by flogging, to find out the reason for this outcry against him.

²⁵But when they had tied him up with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who is uncondemned?”

²⁶When the centurion heard that, he went to the tribune and said to him, “What are you about to do? This man is a Roman citizen.”

²⁷The tribune came and asked Paul, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” And he said, “Yes.”

²⁸The tribune answered, “It cost me a large sum of money to get my citizenship.” Paul said, “But I was born a citizen.”

²⁹Immediately those who were about to examine him drew back from him; and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him.

³⁰Since he wanted to find out what Paul was being accused of by the Jews, the next day he released him and ordered the chief priests and the entire council to meet. He brought Paul down and had him stand before them.