Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

²After he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.

³Then the tempter approached him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

⁴He answered, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

⁵Then the devil took him to the holy city, had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple,

⁶and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will give his angels orders concerning you, and they will support you with their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”

⁷Jesus told him, “It is also written: Do not test the Lord your God.”

⁸Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor.

⁹And he said to him, “I will give you all these things if you will fall down and worship me.”

¹⁰Then Jesus told him, “Go away, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.”

¹¹Then the devil left him, and angels came and began to serve him.

¹²When he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee.

¹³He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali.

¹⁴This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:

¹⁵Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, along the road by the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles.

¹⁶The people who live in darkness have seen a great light, and for those living in the land of the shadow of death, a light has dawned.

¹⁷From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

¹⁸As he was walking along the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter), and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the sea — for they were fishermen.

¹⁹“Follow me,” he told them, “and I will make you fish for people.”

²⁰Immediately they left their nets and followed him.

²¹Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and his brother John. They were in a boat with Zebedee their father, preparing their nets, and he called them.

²²Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.

²³Now Jesus began to go all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.

²⁴Then the news about him spread throughout Syria. So they brought to him all those who were afflicted, those suffering from various diseases and intense pains, the demon-possessed, the epileptics, and the paralytics. And he healed them.

²⁵Large crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.

¹These are the words of the covenant the LORD commanded Moses to make with the Israelites in the land of Moab, in addition to the covenant he had made with them at Horeb.

²Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “You have seen with your own eyes everything the LORD did in Egypt to Pharaoh, to all his officials, and to his entire land.

³You saw with your own eyes the great trials and those great signs and wonders.

⁴Yet to this day the LORD has not given you a mind to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

⁵I led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes and the sandals on your feet did not wear out;

⁶you did not eat food or drink wine or beer — so that you might know that I am the LORD your God.

⁷When you reached this place, King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan came out against us in battle, but we defeated them.

⁸We took their land and gave it as an inheritance to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh.

⁹Therefore, observe the words of this covenant and follow them, so that you will succeed in everything you do.

¹⁰“All of you are standing today before the LORD your God — your leaders, tribes, elders, officials, all the men of Israel,

¹¹your dependents, your wives, and the resident aliens in your camps who cut your wood and draw your water —

¹²so that you may enter into the covenant of the LORD your God, which he is making with you today, so that you may enter into his oath

¹³and so that he may establish you today as his people and he may be your God as he promised you and as he swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

¹⁴I am making this covenant and this oath not only with you,

¹⁵but also with those who are standing here with us today in the presence of the LORD our God and with those who are not here today.

¹⁶“Indeed, you know how we lived in the land of Egypt and passed through the nations where you traveled.

¹⁷You saw their abhorrent images and idols made of wood, stone, silver, and gold, which were among them.

¹⁸Be sure there is no man, woman, clan, or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the LORD our God to go and worship the gods of those nations. Be sure there is no root among you bearing poisonous and bitter fruit.

¹⁹When someone hears the words of this oath, he may consider himself exempt, thinking, ‘I will have peace even though I follow my own stubborn heart.’ This will lead to the destruction of the well-watered land as well as the dry land.

²⁰The LORD will not be willing to forgive him. Instead, his anger and jealousy will burn against that person, and every curse written in this scroll will descend on him. The LORD will blot out his name under heaven,

²¹and single him out for harm from all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant written in this book of the law.

²²“Future generations of your children who follow you and the foreigner who comes from a distant country will see the plagues of that land and the sicknesses the LORD has inflicted on it.

²³All its soil will be a burning waste of sulfur and salt, unsown, producing nothing, with no plant growing on it, just like the fall of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD demolished in his fierce anger.

²⁴All the nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why this intense outburst of anger?’

²⁵Then people will answer, ‘It is because they abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their fathers, which he had made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

²⁶They began to serve other gods, bowing in worship to gods they had not known  — gods that the LORD had not permitted them to worship.

²⁷Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against this land, and he brought every curse written in this book on it.

²⁸The LORD uprooted them from their land in his anger, rage, and intense wrath, and threw them into another land where they are today.’

²⁹The hidden things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law.

¹Now I do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud, all passed through the sea,

²and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.

³They all ate the same spiritual food,

⁴and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ.

⁵Nevertheless God was not pleased with most of them, since they were struck down in the wilderness.

⁶Now these things took place as examples for us, so that we will not desire evil things as they did.

⁷Don’t become idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, The people sat down to eat and drink, and got up to party.

⁸Let us not commit sexual immorality as some of them did, and in a single day twenty-three thousand people died.

⁹Let us not test Christ as some of them did and were destroyed by snakes.

¹⁰And don’t complain as some of them did, and were killed by the destroyer.

¹¹These things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our instruction, on whom the ends of the ages have come.

¹²So, whoever thinks he stands must be careful not to fall.

¹³No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide a way out so that you may be able to bear it.

¹⁴So then, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.

¹⁵I am speaking as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I am saying.

¹⁶The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?

¹⁷Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, since all of us share the one bread.

¹⁸Consider the people of Israel. Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar?

¹⁹What am I saying then? That food sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?

²⁰No, but I do say that what they sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons!

²¹You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot share in the Lord’s table and the table of demons.

²²Or are we provoking the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?

²³“Everything is permissible,” but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up.

²⁴No one is to seek his own good, but the good of the other person.

²⁵Eat everything that is sold in the meat market, without raising questions for the sake of conscience,

²⁶since the earth is the Lord’s, and all that is in it.

²⁷If any of the unbelievers invites you over and you want to go, eat everything that is set before you, without raising questions for the sake of conscience.

²⁸But if someone says to you, “This is food from a sacrifice,” do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who told you, and for the sake of conscience.

²⁹I do not mean your own conscience, but the other person’s. For why is my freedom judged by another person’s conscience?

³⁰If I partake with thanksgiving, why am I criticized because of something for which I give thanks?

³¹So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.

³²Give no offense to Jews or Greeks or the church of God,

³³just as I also try to please everyone in everything, not seeking my own benefit, but the benefit of many, so that they may be saved.

¹The fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth. The key for the shaft to the abyss was given to him.

²He opened the shaft to the abyss, and smoke came up out of the shaft like smoke from a great furnace so that the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the shaft.

³Then locusts came out of the smoke on to the earth, and power was given to them like the power that scorpions have on the earth.

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

⁵They were not permitted to kill them but were to torment them for five months; their torment is like the torment caused by a scorpion when it stings someone.

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

⁷The appearance of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. Something like golden crowns was on their heads; their faces were like human faces;

⁸they had hair like women’s hair; their teeth were like lions’ teeth;

⁹they had chests like iron breastplates; the sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots with horses rushing into battle;

¹⁰and they had tails with stingers like scorpions, so that with their tails they had the power to harm people for five months.

¹¹They had as their king the angel of the abyss; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he has the name Apollyon.

¹²The first woe has passed. There are still two more woes to come after this.

¹³The sixth angel blew his trumpet. From the four horns of the golden altar that is before God, I heard a voice

¹⁴say to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels bound at the great river Euphrates.”

¹⁵So the four angels who were prepared for the hour, day, month, and year were released to kill a third of the human race.

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

¹⁷This is how I saw the horses and their riders in the vision: They had breastplates that were fiery red, hyacinth blue, and sulfur yellow. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and from their mouths came fire, smoke, and sulfur.

¹⁸A third of the human race was killed by these three plagues — by the fire, the smoke, and the sulfur that came from their mouths.

¹⁹For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, because their tails, which resemble snakes, have heads that inflict injury.

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

²¹And they did not repent of their murders, their sorceries, their sexual immorality, or their thefts.

¹How beautiful you are, my darling. How very beautiful! Behind your veil, your eyes are doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down Mount Gilead.

²Your teeth are like a flock of newly shorn sheep coming up from washing, each one bearing twins, and none has lost its young.

³Your lips are like a scarlet cord, and your mouth is lovely. Behind your veil, your brow is like a slice of pomegranate.

⁴Your neck is like the tower of David, constructed in layers. A thousand shields are hung on it — all of them shields of warriors.

⁵Your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that feed among the lilies.

⁶Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will make my way to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense.

⁷You are absolutely beautiful, my darling; there is no imperfection in you.

⁸Come with me from Lebanon, my bride; come with me from Lebanon! Descend from the peak of Amana, from the summit of Senir and Hermon, from the dens of the lions, from the mountains of the leopards.

⁹You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride. You have captured my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace.

¹⁰How delightful your caresses are, my sister, my bride. Your caresses are much better than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume than any balsam.

¹¹Your lips drip sweetness like the honeycomb, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.

¹²My sister, my bride, you are a locked garden — a locked garden and a sealed spring.

¹³Your branches are a paradise of pomegranates with choicest fruits; henna with nard,

¹⁴nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices.

¹⁵You are a garden spring, a well of flowing water streaming from Lebanon.

¹⁶Awaken, north wind; come, south wind. Blow on my garden, and spread the fragrance of its spices. Let my love come to his garden and eat its choicest fruits.

¹Of David. A . [1] How joyful is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!

²How joyful is a person whom the LORD does not charge with iniquity and in whose spirit is no deceit!

³When I kept silent, my bones became brittle from my groaning all day long.

⁴For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was drained as in the summer’s heat. Selah

⁵Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not conceal my iniquity. I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah

⁶Therefore let everyone who is faithful pray to you immediately. When great floodwaters come, they will not reach him.

⁷You are my hiding place; you protect me from trouble. You surround me with joyful shouts of deliverance. Selah

⁸I will instruct you and show you the way to go; with my eye on you, I will give counsel.

⁹Do not be like a horse or mule, without understanding, that must be controlled with bit and bridle or else it will not come near you.

¹⁰Many pains come to the wicked, but the one who trusts in the LORD will have faithful love surrounding him.

¹¹Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous ones; shout for joy, all you upright in heart.

¹Don’t boast about tomorrow, for you don’t know what a day might bring.

²Let another praise you, and not your own mouth — a stranger, and not your own lips.

³A stone is heavy and sand, a burden, but aggravation from a fool outweighs them both.

⁴Fury is cruel, and anger a flood, but who can withstand jealousy?

⁵Better an open reprimand than concealed love.

⁶The wounds of a friend are trustworthy, but the kisses of an enemy are excessive.

⁷A person who is full tramples on a honeycomb, but to a hungry person, any bitter thing is sweet.

⁸Anyone wandering from his home is like a bird wandering from its nest.

⁹Oil and incense bring joy to the heart, and the sweetness of a friend is better than self-counsel.

¹⁰Don’t abandon your friend or your father’s friend, and don’t go to your brother’s house in your time of calamity; better a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.

¹¹Be wise, my son, and bring my heart joy, so that I can answer anyone who taunts me.

¹²A sensible person sees danger and takes cover; the inexperienced keep going and are punished.

¹³Take his garment, for he has put up security for a stranger; get collateral if it is for foreigners.

¹⁴If one blesses his neighbor with a loud voice early in the morning, it will be counted as a curse to him.

¹⁵An endless dripping on a rainy day and a nagging wife are alike;

¹⁶the one who controls her controls the wind and grasps oil with his right hand.

¹⁷Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens another.

¹⁸Whoever tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and whoever looks after his master will be honored.

¹⁹As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person.

²⁰Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and people’s eyes are never satisfied.

²¹A crucible refines silver, a smelter refines gold, and a person refines his praise.

²²Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with grain, you will not separate his foolishness from him.

²³Know well the condition of your flock, and pay attention to your herds,

²⁴for wealth is not forever; not even a crown lasts for all time.

²⁵When hay is removed and new growth appears and the grain from the hills is gathered in,

²⁶lambs will provide your clothing, and goats, the price of a field;

²⁷there will be enough goat’s milk for your food — food for your household and nourishment for your female servants.

¹Solomon decided to build a temple for the name of the LORD and a royal palace for himself,

²so he assigned 70,000 men as porters, 80,000 men as stonecutters in the mountains, and 3,600 as supervisors over them.

³Then Solomon sent word to King Hiram of Tyre: Do for me what you did for my father David. You sent him cedars to build him a house to live in.

⁴Now I am building a temple for the name of the LORD my God in order to dedicate it to him for burning fragrant incense before him, for displaying the rows of the Bread of the Presence continuously, and for sacrificing burnt offerings for the morning and the evening, the Sabbaths and the New Moons, and the appointed festivals of the LORD our God. This is ordained for Israel permanently.

⁵The temple that I am building will be great, for our God is greater than any of the gods.

⁶But who is able to build a temple for him, since even heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain him? Who am I then that I should build a temple for him except as a place to burn incense before him?

⁷Therefore, send me an artisan who is skilled in engraving to work with gold, silver, bronze, and iron, and with purple, crimson, and blue yarn. He will work with the artisans who are with me in Judah and Jerusalem, appointed by my father David.

⁸Also, send me cedar, cypress, and algum logs from Lebanon, for I know that your servants know how to cut the trees of Lebanon. Note that my servants will be with your servants

⁹to prepare logs for me in abundance because the temple I am building will be great and wondrous.

¹⁰I will give your servants, the woodcutters who cut the trees, one hundred thousand bushels of wheat flour, one hundred thousand bushels of barley, one hundred ten thousand gallons of wine, and one hundred ten thousand gallons of oil.

¹¹Then King Hiram of Tyre wrote a letter and sent it to Solomon: Because the LORD loves his people, he set you over them as king.

¹²Hiram also said: Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, who made the heavens and the earth! He gave King David a wise son with insight and understanding, who will build a temple for the LORD and a royal palace for himself.

¹³I have now sent Huram-abi, a skillful man who has understanding.

¹⁴He is the son of a woman from the daughters of Dan. His father is a man of Tyre. He knows how to work with gold, silver, bronze, iron, stone, and wood, with purple, blue, crimson yarn, and fine linen. He knows how to do all kinds of engraving and to execute any design that may be given him. I have sent him to be with your artisans and the artisans of my lord, your father David.

¹⁵Now, let my lord send the wheat, barley, oil, and wine to his servants as promised.

¹⁶We will cut logs from Lebanon, as many as you need, and bring them to you as rafts by sea to Joppa. You can then take them up to Jerusalem.

¹⁷Solomon took a census of all the resident alien men in the land of Israel, after the census that his father David had conducted, and the total was 153,600.

¹⁸Solomon made 70,000 of them porters, 80,000 stonecutters in the mountains, and 3,600 supervisors to make the people work.

¹In the first year of Darius the Mede, I stood up to strengthen and protect him.)

²Now I will tell you the truth. “Three more kings will arise in Persia, and the fourth will be far richer than the others. By the power he gains through his riches, he will stir up everyone against the kingdom of Greece.

³Then a warrior king will arise; he will rule a vast realm and do whatever he wants.

⁴But as soon as he is established, his kingdom will be broken up and divided to the four winds of heaven, but not to his descendants; it will not be the same kingdom that he ruled, because his kingdom will be uprooted and will go to others besides them.

⁵“The king of the South will grow powerful, but one of his commanders will grow more powerful and will rule a kingdom greater than his.

⁶After some years they will form an alliance, and the daughter of the king of the South will go to the king of the North to seal the agreement. She will not retain power, and his strength will not endure. She will be given up, together with her entourage, her father, and the one who supported her during those times.

⁷In the place of the king of the South, one from her family will rise up, come against the army, and enter the fortress of the king of the North. He will take action against them and triumph.

⁸He will take even their gods captive to Egypt, with their metal images and their precious articles of silver and gold. For some years he will stay away from the king of the North,

⁹who will enter the kingdom of the king of the South and then return to his own land.

¹⁰“His sons will mobilize for war and assemble a large number of armed forces. They will advance, sweeping through like a flood, and will again wage war as far as his fortress.

¹¹Infuriated, the king of the South will march out to fight with the king of the North, who will raise a large army, but they will be handed over to his enemy.

¹²When the army is carried off, he will become arrogant and cause tens of thousands to fall, but he will not triumph.

¹³The king of the North will again raise a multitude larger than the first. After some years he will advance with a great army and many supplies.

¹⁴“In those times many will rise up against the king of the South. Violent ones among your own people will assert themselves to fulfill a vision, but they will fail.

¹⁵Then the king of the North will come, build up a siege ramp, and capture a well-fortified city. The forces of the South will not stand; even their select troops will not be able to resist.

¹⁶The king of the North who comes against him will do whatever he wants, and no one can oppose him. He will establish himself in the beautiful land with total destruction in his hand.

¹⁷He will resolve to come with the force of his whole kingdom and will reach an agreement with him. He will give him a daughter in marriage to destroy it, but she will not stand with him or support him.

¹⁸Then he will turn his attention to the coasts and islands and capture many. But a commander will put an end to his taunting; instead, he will turn his taunts against him.

¹⁹He will turn his attention back to the fortresses of his own land, but he will stumble, fall, and be no more.

²⁰“In his place one will arise who will send out a tax collector for the glory of the kingdom; but within a few days he will be broken, though not in anger or in battle.

²¹“In his place a despised person will arise; royal honors will not be given to him, but he will come during a time of peace and seize the kingdom by intrigue.

²²A flood of forces will be swept away before him; they will be broken, as well as the covenant prince.

²³After an alliance is made with him, he will act deceitfully. He will rise to power with a small nation.

²⁴During a time of peace, he will come into the richest parts of the province and do what his fathers and predecessors never did. He will lavish plunder, loot, and wealth on his followers, and he will make plans against fortified cities, but only for a time.

²⁵“With a large army he will stir up his power and his courage against the king of the South. The king of the South will prepare for battle with an extremely large and powerful army, but he will not succeed, because plots will be made against him.

²⁶Those who eat his provisions will destroy him; his army will be swept away, and many will fall slain.

²⁷The two kings, whose hearts are bent on evil, will speak lies at the same table but to no avail, for still the end will come at the appointed time.

²⁸The king of the North will return to his land with great wealth, but his heart will be set against the holy covenant; he will take action, then return to his own land.

²⁹“At the appointed time he will come again to the South, but this time will not be like the first.

³⁰Ships of Kittim will come against him, and being intimidated, he will withdraw. Then he will rage against the holy covenant and take action. On his return, he will favor those who abandon the holy covenant.

³¹His forces will rise up and desecrate the temple fortress. They will abolish the regular sacrifice and set up the abomination of desolation.

³²With flattery he will corrupt those who act wickedly toward the covenant, but the people who know their God will be strong and take action.

³³Those who have insight among the people will give understanding to many, yet they will fall by the sword and flame, and be captured and plundered for a time.

³⁴When they fall, they will be helped by some, but many others will join them insincerely.

³⁵Some of those who have insight will fall so that they may be refined, purified, and cleansed until the time of the end, for it will still come at the appointed time.

³⁶“Then the king will do whatever he wants. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god, and he will say outrageous things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, because what has been decreed will be accomplished.

³⁷He will not show regard for the gods of his fathers, the god desired by women, or for any other god, because he will magnify himself above all.

³⁸Instead, he will honor a god of fortresses — a god his fathers did not know — with gold, silver, precious stones, and riches.

³⁹He will deal with the strongest fortresses with the help of a foreign god. He will greatly honor those who acknowledge him, making them rulers over many and distributing land as a reward.

⁴⁰“At the time of the end, the king of the South will engage him in battle, but the king of the North will storm against him with chariots, horsemen, and many ships. He will invade countries and sweep through them like a flood.

⁴¹He will also invade the beautiful land, and many will fall. But these will escape from his power: Edom, Moab, and the prominent people of the Ammonites.

⁴²He will extend his power against the countries, and not even the land of Egypt will escape.

⁴³He will get control over the hidden treasures of gold and silver and over all the riches of Egypt. The Libyans and Cushites will also be in submission.

⁴⁴But reports from the east and the north will terrify him, and he will go out with great fury to annihilate and completely destroy many.

⁴⁵He will pitch his royal tents between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain, but he will meet his end with no one to help him.

¹In Iconium they entered the Jewish synagogue, as usual, and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed.

²But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers.

³So they stayed there a long time and spoke boldly for the Lord, who testified to the message of his grace by enabling them to do signs and wonders.

⁴But the people of the city were divided, some siding with the Jews and others with the apostles.

⁵When an attempt was made by both the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to mistreat and stone them,

⁶they found out about it and fled to the Lycaonian towns of Lystra and Derbe and to the surrounding countryside.

⁷There they continued preaching the gospel.

⁸In Lystra a man was sitting who was without strength in his feet, had never walked, and had been lame from birth.

⁹He listened as Paul spoke. After looking directly at him and seeing that he had faith to be healed,

¹⁰Paul said in a loud voice, “Stand up on your feet!” And he jumped up and began to walk around.

¹¹When the crowds saw what Paul had done, they shouted, saying in the Lycaonian language, “The gods have come down to us in human form!”

¹²Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.

¹³The priest of Zeus, whose temple was just outside the town, brought bulls and wreaths to the gates because he intended, with the crowds, to offer sacrifice.

¹⁴The apostles Barnabas and Paul tore their robes when they heard this and rushed into the crowd, shouting:

¹⁵“People! Why are you doing these things? We are people also, just like you, and we are proclaiming good news to you, that you turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and everything in them.

¹⁶In past generations he allowed all the nations to go their own way,

¹⁷although he did not leave himself without a witness, since he did what is good by giving you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons and filling you with food and your hearts with joy.”

¹⁸Even though they said these things, they barely stopped the crowds from sacrificing to them.

¹⁹Some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium, and when they won over the crowds, they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, thinking he was dead.

²⁰After the disciples gathered around him, he got up and went into the town. The next day he left with Barnabas for Derbe.

²¹After they had preached the gospel in that town and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, to Iconium, and to Antioch,

²²strengthening the disciples by encouraging them to continue in the faith and by telling them, “It is necessary to go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”

²³When they had appointed elders for them in every church and prayed with fasting, they committed them to the Lord in whom they had believed.

²⁴They passed through Pisidia and came to Pamphylia.

²⁵After they had spoken the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia.

²⁶From there they sailed back to Antioch where they had been commended to the grace of God for the work they had now completed.

²⁷After they arrived and gathered the church together, they reported everything God had done with them and that he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

²⁸And they spent a considerable time with the disciples.