Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,

²since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

³And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

⁴I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do.

⁵So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed.

⁶“I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

⁷Now they know that everything you have given me is from you;

⁸for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

⁹I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.

¹⁰All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them.

¹¹And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

¹²While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled.

¹³But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves.

¹⁴I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

¹⁵I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.

¹⁶They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

¹⁷Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.

¹⁸As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.

¹⁹And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.

²⁰“I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word,

²¹that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

²²The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one,

²³I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

²⁴Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

²⁵“Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me.

²⁶I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

¹If, in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess, a body is found lying in open country, and it is not known who struck the person down,

²then your elders and your judges shall come out to measure the distances to the towns that are near the body.

³The elders of the town nearest the body shall take a heifer that has never been worked, one that has not pulled in the yoke;

⁴the elders of that town shall bring the heifer down to a wadi with running water, which is neither plowed nor sown, and shall break the heifer’s neck there in the wadi.

⁵Then the priests, the sons of Levi, shall come forward, for the LORD your God has chosen them to minister to him and to pronounce blessings in the name of the LORD, and by their decision all cases of dispute and assault shall be settled.

⁶All the elders of that town nearest the body shall wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the wadi,

⁷and they shall declare: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor were we witnesses to it.

⁸Absolve, O LORD, your people Israel, whom you redeemed; do not let the guilt of innocent blood remain in the midst of your people Israel.” Then they will be absolved of bloodguilt.

⁹So you shall purge the guilt of innocent blood from your midst, because you must do what is right in the sight of the LORD.

¹⁰When you go out to war against your enemies, and the LORD your God hands them over to you and you take them captive,

¹¹suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry,

¹²and so you bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails,

¹³discard her captive’s garb, and shall remain in your house a full month, mourning for her father and mother; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife.

¹⁴But if you are not satisfied with her, you shall let her go free and not sell her for money. You must not treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

¹⁵If a man has two wives, one of them loved and the other disliked, and if both the loved and the disliked have borne him sons, the firstborn being the son of the one who is disliked,

¹⁶then on the day when he wills his possessions to his sons, he is not permitted to treat the son of the loved as the firstborn in preference to the son of the disliked, who is the firstborn.

¹⁷He must acknowledge as firstborn the son of the one who is disliked, giving him a double portion of all that he has; since he is the first issue of his virility, the right of the firstborn is his.

¹⁸If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father and mother, who does not heed them when they discipline him,

¹⁹then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his town at the gate of that place.

²⁰They shall say to the elders of his town, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.”

²¹Then all the men of the town shall stone him to death. So you shall purge the evil from your midst; and all Israel will hear, and be afraid.

²²When someone is convicted of a crime punishable by death and is executed, and you hang him on a tree,

²³his corpse must not remain all night upon the tree; you shall bury him that same day, for anyone hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not defile the land that the LORD your God is giving you for possession.

¹When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom.

²For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

³And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.

⁴My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

⁵so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

⁶Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish.

⁷But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

⁸None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

⁹But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the human heart conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” —

¹⁰these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

¹¹For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.

¹²Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.

¹³And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.

¹⁴Those who are unspiritual do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

¹⁵Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.

¹⁶“For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

¹The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,

²who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

³Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.

⁴John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne,

⁵and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood,

⁶and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

⁷Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen.

⁸“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

⁹I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

¹⁰I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet

¹¹saying, “Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamum, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.”

¹²Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands,

¹³and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest.

¹⁴His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire,

¹⁵his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.

¹⁶In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force.

¹⁷When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last,

¹⁸and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades.

¹⁹Now write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this.

²⁰As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

¹Who is like the wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? Wisdom makes one’s face shine, and the hardness of one’s countenance is changed.

²Keep the king’s command because of your sacred oath.

³Do not be terrified; go from his presence, do not delay when the matter is unpleasant, for he does whatever he pleases.

⁴For the word of the king is powerful, and who can say to him, “What are you doing?”

⁵Whoever obeys a command will meet no harm, and the wise mind will know the time and way.

⁶For every matter has its time and way, although the troubles of mortals lie heavy upon them.

⁷Indeed, they do not know what is to be, for who can tell them how it will be?

⁸No one has power over the wind to restrain the wind, or power over the day of death; there is no discharge from the battle, nor does wickedness deliver those who practice it.

⁹All this I observed, applying my mind to all that is done under the sun, while one person exercises authority over another to the other’s hurt.

¹⁰Then I saw the wicked buried; they used to go in and out of the holy place, and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity.

¹¹Because sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the human heart is fully set to do evil.

¹²Though sinners do evil a hundred times and prolong their lives, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they stand in fear before him,

¹³but it will not be well with the wicked, neither will they prolong their days like a shadow, because they do not stand in fear before God.

¹⁴There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

¹⁵So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun.

¹⁶When I applied my mind to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how one’s eyes see sleep neither day nor night,

¹⁷then I saw all the work of God, that no one can find out what is happening under the sun. However much they may toil in seeking, they will not find it out; even though those who are wise claim to know, they cannot find it out.

¹The earth is the LORD’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it;

²for he has founded it on the seas, and established it on the rivers.

³Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place?

⁴Those who have clean hands and pure hearts, who do not lift up their souls to what is false, and do not swear deceitfully.

⁵They will receive blessing from the LORD, and vindication from the God of their salvation.

⁶Such is the company of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. Selah

⁷Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

⁸Who is the King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle.

⁹Lift up your heads, O gates! and be lifted up, O ancient doors! that the King of glory may come in.

¹⁰Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah

¹Better the poor walking in integrity than one perverse of speech who is a fool.

²Desire without knowledge is not good, and one who moves too hurriedly misses the way.

³One’s own folly leads to ruin, yet the heart rages against the LORD.

⁴Wealth brings many friends, but the poor are left friendless.

⁵A false witness will not go unpunished, and a liar will not escape.

⁶Many seek the favor of the generous, and everyone is a friend to a giver of gifts.

⁷If the poor are hated even by their kin, how much more are they shunned by their friends! When they call after them, they are not there.

⁸To get wisdom is to love oneself; to keep understanding is to prosper.

⁹A false witness will not go unpunished, and the liar will perish.

¹⁰It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury, much less for a slave to rule over princes.

¹¹Those with good sense are slow to anger, and it is their glory to overlook an offense.

¹²A king’s anger is like the growling of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass.

¹³A stupid child is ruin to a father, and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain.

¹⁴House and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the LORD.

¹⁵Laziness brings on deep sleep; an idle person will suffer hunger.

¹⁶Those who keep the commandment will live; those who are heedless of their ways will die.

¹⁷Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and will be repaid in full.

¹⁸Discipline your children while there is hope; do not set your heart on their destruction.

¹⁹A violent tempered person will pay the penalty; if you effect a rescue, you will only have to do it again.

²⁰Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom for the future.

²¹The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established.

²²What is desirable in a person is loyalty, and it is better to be poor than a liar.

²³The fear of the LORD is life indeed; filled with it one rests secure and suffers no harm.

²⁴The lazy person buries a hand in the dish, and will not even bring it back to the mouth.

²⁵Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; reprove the intelligent, and they will gain knowledge.

²⁶Those who do violence to their father and chase away their mother are children who cause shame and bring reproach.

²⁷Cease straying, my child, from the words of knowledge, in order that you may hear instruction.

²⁸A worthless witness mocks at justice, and the mouth of the wicked devours iniquity.

²⁹Condemnation is ready for scoffers, and flogging for the backs of fools.

¹When David was old and full of days, he made his son Solomon king over Israel.

²David assembled all the leaders of Israel and the priests and the Levites.

³The Levites, thirty years old and upward, were counted, and the total was thirty-eight thousand.

⁴“Twenty-four thousand of these,” David said, “shall have charge of the work in the house of the LORD, six thousand shall be officers and judges,

⁵four thousand gatekeepers, and four thousand shall offer praises to the LORD with the instruments that I have made for praise.”

⁶And David organized them in divisions corresponding to the sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.

⁷The sons of Gershon were Ladan and Shimei.

⁸The sons of Ladan: Jehiel the chief, Zetham, and Joel, three.

⁹The sons of Shimei: Shelomoth, Haziel, and Haran, three. These were the heads of families of Ladan.

¹⁰And the sons of Shimei: Jahath, Zina, Jeush, and Beriah. These four were the sons of Shimei.

¹¹Jahath was the chief, and Zizah the second; but Jeush and Beriah did not have many sons, so they were enrolled as a single family.

¹²The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, four.

¹³The sons of Amram: Aaron and Moses. Aaron was set apart to consecrate the most holy things, so that he and his sons forever should make offerings before the LORD, and minister to him and pronounce blessings in his name forever;

¹⁴but as for Moses the man of God, his sons were to be reckoned among the tribe of Levi.

¹⁵The sons of Moses: Gershom and Eliezer.

¹⁶The sons of Gershom: Shebuel the chief.

¹⁷The sons of Eliezer: Rehabiah the chief; Eliezer had no other sons, but the sons of Rehabiah were very numerous.

¹⁸The sons of Izhar: Shelomith the chief.

¹⁹The sons of Hebron: Jeriah the chief, Amariah the second, Jahaziel the third, and Jekameam the fourth.

²⁰The sons of Uzziel: Micah the chief and Isshiah the second.

²¹The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. The sons of Mahli: Eleazar and Kish.

²²Eleazar died having no sons, but only daughters; their kindred, the sons of Kish, married them.

²³The sons of Mushi: Mahli, Eder, and Jeremoth, three.

²⁴These were the sons of Levi by their ancestral houses, the heads of families as they were enrolled according to the number of the names of the individuals from twenty years old and upward who were to do the work for the service of the house of the LORD.

²⁵For David said, “The LORD, the God of Israel, has given rest to his people; and he resides in Jerusalem forever.

²⁶And so the Levites no longer need to carry the tabernacle or any of the things for its service” —

²⁷for according to the last words of David these were the number of the Levites from twenty years old and upward —

²⁸“but their duty shall be to assist the descendants of Aaron for the service of the house of the LORD, having the care of the courts and the chambers, the cleansing of all that is holy, and any work for the service of the house of God;

²⁹to assist also with the rows of bread, the choice flour for the grain offering, the wafers of unleavened bread, the baked offering, the offering mixed with oil, and all measures of quantity or size.

³⁰And they shall stand every morning, thanking and praising the LORD, and likewise at evening,

³¹and whenever burnt offerings are offered to the LORD on sabbaths, new moons, and appointed festivals, according to the number required of them, regularly before the LORD.

³²Thus they shall keep charge of the tent of meeting and the sanctuary, and shall attend the descendants of Aaron, their kindred, for the service of the house of the LORD.”

¹King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue whose height was sixty cubits and whose width was six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

²Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent for the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces, to assemble and come to the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

³So the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces, assembled for the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. When they were standing before the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up,

⁴the herald proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages,

⁵that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

⁶Whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.”

⁷Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

⁸Accordingly, at this time certain Chaldeans came forward and denounced the Jews.

⁹They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever!

¹⁰You, O king, have made a decree, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, shall fall down and worship the golden statue,

¹¹and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.

¹²There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These pay no heed to you, O king. They do not serve your gods and they do not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”

¹³Then Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought in; so they brought those men before the king.

¹⁴Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods and you do not worship the golden statue that I have set up?

¹⁵Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble to fall down and worship the statue that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?”

¹⁶Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter.

¹⁷If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us.

¹⁸But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”

¹⁹Then Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that his face was distorted. He ordered the furnace heated up seven times more than was customary,

²⁰and ordered some of the strongest guards in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire.

²¹So the men were bound, still wearing their tunics, their trousers, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the furnace of blazing fire.

²²Because the king’s command was urgent and the furnace was so overheated, the raging flames killed the men who lifted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

²³But the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound, into the furnace of blazing fire.

²⁴Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up quickly. He said to his counselors, “Was it not three men that we threw bound into the fire?” They answered the king, “True, O king.”

²⁵He replied, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the fourth has the appearance of a god.”

²⁶Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and said, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!” So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire.

²⁷And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men; the hair of their heads was not singed, their tunics were not harmed, and not even the smell of fire came from them.

²⁸Nebuchadnezzar said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him. They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.

²⁹Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that utters blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins; for there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.”

³⁰Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

¹Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists complained against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution of food.

²And the twelve called together the whole community of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should neglect the word of God in order to wait on tables.

³Therefore, friends, select from among yourselves seven men of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may appoint to this task,

⁴while we, for our part, will devote ourselves to prayer and to serving the word.”

⁵What they said pleased the whole community, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, together with Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a proselyte of Antioch.

⁶They had these men stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

⁷The word of God continued to spread; the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

⁸Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.

⁹Then some of those who belonged to the synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called), Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and others of those from Cilicia and Asia, stood up and argued with Stephen.

¹⁰But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.

¹¹Then they secretly instigated some men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”

¹²They stirred up the people as well as the elders and the scribes; then they suddenly confronted him, seized him, and brought him before the council.

¹³They set up false witnesses who said, “This man never stops saying things against this holy place and the law;

¹⁴for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed on to us.”

¹⁵And all who sat in the council looked intently at him, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.