Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

²There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.

³Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.

⁴Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

⁵While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

⁶When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified.

⁷But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”

⁸When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.

⁹As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

¹⁰The disciples asked him, “Why then do the teachers of the law say that Elijah must come first?”

¹¹Jesus replied, “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things.

¹²But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.”

¹³Then the disciples understood that he was talking to them about John the Baptist.

¹⁴When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him.

¹⁵“Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water.

¹⁶I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

¹⁷“You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.”

¹⁸Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.

¹⁹Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?”

²⁰He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

²¹

²²When they came together in Galilee, he said to them, “The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.

²³They will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised to life.” And the disciples were filled with grief.

²⁴After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

²⁵“Yes, he does,” he replied. When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?”

²⁶“From others,” Peter answered. “Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him.

²⁷“But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

¹When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.

²Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”

³Abram fell facedown, and God said to him,

⁴“As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations.

⁵No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.

⁶I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.

⁷I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

⁸The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

⁹Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come.

¹⁰This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.

¹¹You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.

¹²For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring.

¹³Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.

¹⁴Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

¹⁵God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah.

¹⁶I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.”

¹⁷Abraham fell facedown; he laughed and said to himself, “Will a son be born to a man a hundred years old? Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?”

¹⁸And Abraham said to God, “If only Ishmael might live under your blessing!”

¹⁹Then God said, “Yes, but your wife Sarah will bear you a son, and you will call him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

²⁰And as for Ishmael, I have heard you: I will surely bless him; I will make him fruitful and will greatly increase his numbers. He will be the father of twelve rulers, and I will make him into a great nation.

²¹But my covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year.”

²²When he had finished speaking with Abraham, God went up from him.

²³On that very day Abraham took his son Ishmael and all those born in his household or bought with his money, every male in his household, and circumcised them, as God told him.

²⁴Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised,

²⁵and his son Ishmael was thirteen;

²⁶Abraham and his son Ishmael were both circumcised on that very day.

²⁷And every male in Abraham’s household, including those born in his household or bought from a foreigner, was circumcised with him.

¹Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

²To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours:

³Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.

⁵For in him you have been enriched in every way—with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge—

⁶God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you.

⁷Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

⁸He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹⁰I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought.

¹¹My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you.

¹²What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephas”; still another, “I follow Christ.”

¹³Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul?

¹⁴I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius,

¹⁵so no one can say that you were baptized in my name.

¹⁶(Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.)

¹⁷For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

¹⁸For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

¹⁹For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

²⁰Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

²¹For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

²²Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,

²³but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

²⁴but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

²⁵For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

²⁶Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.

²⁷But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

²⁸God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,

²⁹so that no one may boast before him.

³⁰It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.

³¹Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

¹But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.

²People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

³without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,

⁴treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—

⁵having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

⁶They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires,

⁷always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.

⁸Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected.

⁹But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

¹⁰You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance,

¹¹persecutions, sufferings—what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them.

¹²In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,

¹³while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

¹⁴But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it,

¹⁵and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

¹⁶All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

¹⁷so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

¹My spirit is broken, my days are cut short, the grave awaits me.

²Surely mockers surround me; my eyes must dwell on their hostility.

³“Give me, O God, the pledge you demand. Who else will put up security for me?

⁴You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore you will not let them triumph.

⁵If anyone denounces their friends for reward, the eyes of their children will fail.

⁶“God has made me a byword to everyone, a man in whose face people spit.

⁷My eyes have grown dim with grief; my whole frame is but a shadow.

⁸The upright are appalled at this; the innocent are aroused against the ungodly.

⁹Nevertheless, the righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger.

¹⁰“But come on, all of you, try again! I will not find a wise man among you.

¹¹My days have passed, my plans are shattered. Yet the desires of my heart

¹²turn night into day; in the face of the darkness light is near.

¹³If the only home I hope for is the grave, if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness,

¹⁴if I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’

¹⁵where then is my hope— who can see any hope for me?

¹⁶Will it go down to the gates of death? Will we descend together into the dust?”

¹A prayer of David. Hear me, LORD, my plea is just; listen to my cry. Hear my prayer— it does not rise from deceitful lips.

²Let my vindication come from you; may your eyes see what is right.

³Though you probe my heart, though you examine me at night and test me, you will find that I have planned no evil; my mouth has not transgressed.

⁴Though people tried to bribe me, I have kept myself from the ways of the violent through what your lips have commanded.

⁵My steps have held to your paths; my feet have not stumbled.

⁶I call on you, my God, for you will answer me; turn your ear to me and hear my prayer.

⁷Show me the wonders of your great love, you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes.

⁸Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings

⁹from the wicked who are out to destroy me, from my mortal enemies who surround me.

¹⁰They close up their callous hearts, and their mouths speak with arrogance.

¹¹They have tracked me down, they now surround me, with eyes alert, to throw me to the ground.

¹²They are like a lion hungry for prey, like a fierce lion crouching in cover.

¹³Rise up, LORD, confront them, bring them down; with your sword rescue me from the wicked.

¹⁴By your hand save me from such people, LORD, from those of this world whose reward is in this life. May what you have stored up for the wicked fill their bellies; may their children gorge themselves on it, and may there be leftovers for their little ones.

¹⁵As for me, I will be vindicated and will see your face; when I awake, I will be satisfied with seeing your likeness.

¹Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife.

²A prudent servant will rule over a disgraceful son and will share the inheritance as one of the family.

³The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the LORD tests the heart.

⁴A wicked person listens to deceitful lips; a liar pays attention to a destructive tongue.

⁵Whoever mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished.

⁶Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children.

⁷Eloquent lips are unsuited to a godless fool— how much worse lying lips to a ruler!

⁸A bribe is seen as a charm by the one who gives it; they think success will come at every turn.

⁹Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.

¹⁰A rebuke impresses a discerning person more than a hundred lashes a fool.

¹¹Evildoers foster rebellion against God; the messenger of death will be sent against them.

¹²Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool bent on folly.

¹³Evil will never leave the house of one who pays back evil for good.

¹⁴Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.

¹⁵Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent— the LORD detests them both.

¹⁶Why should fools have money in hand to buy wisdom, when they are not able to understand it?

¹⁷A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.

¹⁸One who has no sense shakes hands in pledge and puts up security for a neighbor.

¹⁹Whoever loves a quarrel loves sin; whoever builds a high gate invites destruction.

²⁰One whose heart is corrupt does not prosper; one whose tongue is perverse falls into trouble.

²¹To have a fool for a child brings grief; there is no joy for the parent of a godless fool.

²²A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

²³The wicked accept bribes in secret to pervert the course of justice.

²⁴A discerning person keeps wisdom in view, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth.

²⁵A foolish son brings grief to his father and bitterness to the mother who bore him.

²⁶If imposing a fine on the innocent is not good, surely to flog honest officials is not right.

²⁷The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered.

²⁸Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.

¹This was the allotment for the tribe of Manasseh as Joseph’s firstborn, that is, for Makir, Manasseh’s firstborn. Makir was the ancestor of the Gileadites, who had received Gilead and Bashan because the Makirites were great soldiers.

²So this allotment was for the rest of the people of Manasseh—the clans of Abiezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher and Shemida. These are the other male descendants of Manasseh son of Joseph by their clans.

³Now Zelophehad son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Makir, the son of Manasseh, had no sons but only daughters, whose names were Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milkah and Tirzah.

⁴They went to Eleazar the priest, Joshua son of Nun, and the leaders and said, “The LORD commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our relatives.” So Joshua gave them an inheritance along with the brothers of their father, according to the LORD’s command.

⁵Manasseh’s share consisted of ten tracts of land besides Gilead and Bashan east of the Jordan,

⁶because the daughters of the tribe of Manasseh received an inheritance among the sons. The land of Gilead belonged to the rest of the descendants of Manasseh.

⁷The territory of Manasseh extended from Asher to Mikmethath east of Shechem. The boundary ran southward from there to include the people living at En Tappuah.

⁸(Manasseh had the land of Tappuah, but Tappuah itself, on the boundary of Manasseh, belonged to the Ephraimites.)

⁹Then the boundary continued south to the Kanah Ravine. There were towns belonging to Ephraim lying among the towns of Manasseh, but the boundary of Manasseh was the northern side of the ravine and ended at the Mediterranean Sea.

¹⁰On the south the land belonged to Ephraim, on the north to Manasseh. The territory of Manasseh reached the Mediterranean Sea and bordered Asher on the north and Issachar on the east.

¹¹Within Issachar and Asher, Manasseh also had Beth Shan, Ibleam and the people of Dor, Endor, Taanach and Megiddo, together with their surrounding settlements (the third in the list is Naphoth).

¹²Yet the Manassites were not able to occupy these towns, for the Canaanites were determined to live in that region.

¹³However, when the Israelites grew stronger, they subjected the Canaanites to forced labor but did not drive them out completely.

¹⁴The people of Joseph said to Joshua, “Why have you given us only one allotment and one portion for an inheritance? We are a numerous people, and the LORD has blessed us abundantly.”

¹⁵“If you are so numerous,” Joshua answered, “and if the hill country of Ephraim is too small for you, go up into the forest and clear land for yourselves there in the land of the Perizzites and Rephaites.”

¹⁶The people of Joseph replied, “The hill country is not enough for us, and all the Canaanites who live in the plain have chariots fitted with iron, both those in Beth Shan and its settlements and those in the Valley of Jezreel.”

¹⁷But Joshua said to the tribes of Joseph—to Ephraim and Manasseh—“You are numerous and very powerful. You will have not only one allotment

¹⁸but the forested hill country as well. Clear it, and its farthest limits will be yours; though the Canaanites have chariots fitted with iron and though they are strong, you can drive them out.”

¹A prophecy against Damascus: “See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.

²The cities of Aroer will be deserted and left to flocks, which will lie down, with no one to make them afraid.

³The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, and royal power from Damascus; the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the Israelites,” declares the LORD Almighty.

⁴“In that day the glory of Jacob will fade; the fat of his body will waste away.

⁵It will be as when reapers harvest the standing grain, gathering the grain in their arms— as when someone gleans heads of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

⁶Yet some gleanings will remain, as when an olive tree is beaten, leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches, four or five on the fruitful boughs,” declares the LORD, the God of Israel.

⁷In that day people will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.

⁸They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles and the incense altars their fingers have made.

⁹In that day their strong cities, which they left because of the Israelites, will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation.

¹⁰You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines,

¹¹though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain.

¹²Woe to the many nations that rage— they rage like the raging sea! Woe to the peoples who roar— they roar like the roaring of great waters!

¹³Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters, when he rebukes them they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweed before a gale.

¹⁴In the evening, sudden terror! Before the morning, they are gone! This is the portion of those who loot us, the lot of those who plunder us.

¹When Paul and his companions had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

²As was his custom, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

³explaining and proving that the Messiah had to suffer and rise from the dead. “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah,” he said.

⁴Some of the Jews were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks and quite a few prominent women.

⁵But other Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd.

⁶But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other believers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here,

⁷and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.”

⁸When they heard this, the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil.

⁹Then they made Jason and the others post bond and let them go.

¹⁰As soon as it was night, the believers sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. On arriving there, they went to the Jewish synagogue.

¹¹Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

¹²As a result, many of them believed, as did also a number of prominent Greek women and many Greek men.

¹³But when the Jews in Thessalonica learned that Paul was preaching the word of God at Berea, some of them went there too, agitating the crowds and stirring them up.

¹⁴The believers immediately sent Paul to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed at Berea.

¹⁵Those who escorted Paul brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.

¹⁶While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.

¹⁷So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.

¹⁸A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

¹⁹Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting?

²⁰You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.”

²¹(All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.)

²²Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.

²³For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

²⁴“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.

²⁵And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else.

²⁶From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.

²⁷God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.

²⁸‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

²⁹“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill.

³⁰In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

³¹For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

³²When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”

³³At that, Paul left the Council.

³⁴Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.