Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat.

²But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”

³He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him:

⁴how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests?

⁵Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?

⁶I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.

⁷And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.

⁸For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

⁹He went on from there and entered their synagogue.

¹⁰And a man was there with a withered hand. And they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” — so that they might accuse him.

¹¹He said to them, “Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?

¹² Of how much more value is a man than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”

¹³Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And the man stretched it out, and it was restored, healthy like the other.

¹⁴But the Pharisees went out and conspired against him, how to destroy him.

¹⁵Jesus, aware of this, withdrew from there. And many followed him, and he healed them all

¹⁶and ordered them not to make him known.

¹⁷This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah:

¹⁸“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.

¹⁹He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets;

²⁰a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory;

²¹and in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

²²Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw.

²³And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?”

²⁴But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”

²⁵Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.

²⁶And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?

²⁷And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.

²⁸But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

²⁹Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.

³⁰ Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.

³¹ Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

³²And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

³³ “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.

³⁴ You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

³⁵ The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil.

³⁶I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,

³⁷for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

³⁸Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.”

³⁹But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.

⁴⁰For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

⁴¹ The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

⁴² The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.

⁴³“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none.

⁴⁴Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.

⁴⁵Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.”

⁴⁶While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him.

⁴⁷

⁴⁸But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”

⁴⁹And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!

⁵⁰For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

¹Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

²And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,

³but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

⁴But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.

⁵For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

⁶So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

⁷Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

⁸And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

⁹But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

¹⁰And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

¹¹He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

¹²The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

¹³Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

¹⁴The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

¹⁶To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”

¹⁷And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;

¹⁸thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

¹⁹By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

²⁰The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

²¹And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

²²Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever — ”

²³therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

²⁴He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

¹For I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you.

²For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained?

³And I wrote as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all.

⁴For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.

⁵Now if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but in some measure — not to put it too severely — to all of you.

⁶For such a one, this punishment by the majority is enough,

⁷so you should rather turn to forgive and comfort him, or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

⁸So I beg you to reaffirm your love for him.

⁹For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.

¹⁰Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ,

¹¹so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.

¹²When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me in the Lord,

¹³my spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia.

¹⁴But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere.

¹⁵For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,

¹⁶to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?

¹⁷For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.

¹Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters,

²with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.”

³And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.

⁴The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.

⁵And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations.”

⁶And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marveled greatly.

⁷But the angel said to me, “Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her.

⁸The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.

⁹This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated;

¹⁰they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come he must remain only a little while.

¹¹As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction.

¹²And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast.

¹³These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast.

¹⁴They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.”

¹⁵And the angel said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.

¹⁶And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire,

¹⁷for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled.

¹⁸And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.”

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered and said:

²“If one ventures a word with you, will you be impatient? Yet who can keep from speaking?

³Behold, you have instructed many, and you have strengthened the weak hands.

⁴Your words have upheld him who was stumbling, and you have made firm the feeble knees.

⁵But now it has come to you, and you are impatient; it touches you, and you are dismayed.

⁶Is not your fear of God your confidence, and the integrity of your ways your hope?

⁷“Remember: who that was innocent ever perished? Or where were the upright cut off?

⁸As I have seen, those who plow iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.

⁹By the breath of God they perish, and by the blast of his anger they are consumed.

¹⁰The roar of the lion, the voice of the fierce lion, the teeth of the young lions are broken.

¹¹The strong lion perishes for lack of prey, and the cubs of the lioness are scattered.

¹²“Now a word was brought to me stealthily; my ear received the whisper of it.

¹³Amid thoughts from visions of the night, when deep sleep falls on men,

¹⁴dread came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones shake.

¹⁵A spirit glided past my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.

¹⁶It stood still, but I could not discern its appearance. A form was before my eyes; there was silence, then I heard a voice:

¹⁷‘Can mortal man be in the right before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?

¹⁸Even in his servants he puts no trust, and his angels he charges with error;

¹⁹how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed like the moth.

²⁰Between morning and evening they are beaten to pieces; they perish forever without anyone regarding it.

²¹Is not their tent-cord plucked up within them, do they not die, and that without wisdom?’

¹I waited patiently for the LORD; he inclined to me and heard my cry.

²He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.

³He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the LORD.

⁴Blessed is the man who makes the LORD his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie!

⁵You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.

⁶In sacrifice and offering you have not delighted, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

⁷Then I said, “Behold, I have come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me:

⁸I delight to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart.”

⁹I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD.

¹⁰I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation.

¹¹As for you, O LORD, you will not restrain your mercy from me; your steadfast love and your faithfulness will ever preserve me!

¹²For evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me.

¹³Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me! O LORD, make haste to help me!

¹⁴Let those be put to shame and disappointed altogether who seek to snatch away my life; let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who delight in my hurt!

¹⁵Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, “Aha, Aha!”

¹⁶But may all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation say continually, “Great is the LORD!”

¹⁷As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!

¹Hear, O sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight,

²for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching.

³When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,

⁴he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live.

⁵Get wisdom; get insight; do not forget, and do not turn away from the words of my mouth.

⁶Do not forsake her, and she will keep you; love her, and she will guard you.

⁷The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.

⁸Prize her highly, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her.

⁹She will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.”

¹⁰Hear, my son, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many.

¹¹I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in the paths of uprightness.

¹²When you walk, your step will not be hampered, and if you run, you will not stumble.

¹³Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.

¹⁴Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil.

¹⁵Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on.

¹⁶For they cannot sleep unless they have done wrong; they are robbed of sleep unless they have made someone stumble.

¹⁷For they eat the bread of wickedness and drink the wine of violence.

¹⁸But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day.

¹⁹The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble.

²⁰My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings.

²¹Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart.

²²For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh.

²³Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

²⁴Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.

²⁵Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you.

²⁶Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.

²⁷Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil.

¹Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king.

²And as soon as Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it (for he was in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), then Jeroboam returned from Egypt.

³And they sent and called him. And Jeroboam and all Israel came and said to Rehoboam,

⁴“Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you.”

⁵He said to them, “Come to me again in three days.” So the people went away.

⁶Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?”

⁷And they said to him, “If you will be good to this people and please them and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever.”

⁸But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him.

⁹And he said to them, “What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’?”

¹⁰And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus shall you speak to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us’; thus shall you say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father's thighs.

¹¹And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’”

¹²So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king said, “Come to me again the third day.”

¹³And the king answered them harshly; and forsaking the counsel of the old men,

¹⁴King Rehoboam spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to it. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.”

¹⁵So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by God that the LORD might fulfill his word, which he spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.

¹⁶And when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, “What portion have we in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Each of you to your tents, O Israel! Look now to your own house, David.” So all Israel went to their tents.

¹⁷But Rehoboam reigned over the people of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah.

¹⁸Then King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was taskmaster over the forced labor, and the people of Israel stoned him to death with stones. And King Rehoboam quickly mounted his chariot to flee to Jerusalem.

¹⁹So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.

¹when I would heal Israel, the iniquity of Ephraim is revealed, and the evil deeds of Samaria, for they deal falsely; the thief breaks in, and the bandits raid outside.

²But they do not consider that I remember all their evil. Now their deeds surround them; they are before my face.

³By their evil they make the king glad, and the princes by their treachery.

⁴They are all adulterers; they are like a heated oven whose baker ceases to stir the fire, from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

⁵On the day of our king, the princes became sick with the heat of wine; he stretched out his hand with mockers.

⁶For with hearts like an oven they approach their intrigue; all night their anger smolders; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

⁷All of them are hot as an oven, and they devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen, and none of them calls upon me.

⁸Ephraim mixes himself with the peoples; Ephraim is a cake not turned.

⁹Strangers devour his strength, and he knows it not; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, and he knows it not.

¹⁰The pride of Israel testifies to his face; yet they do not return to the LORD their God, nor seek him, for all this.

¹¹Ephraim is like a dove, silly and without sense, calling to Egypt, going to Assyria.

¹²As they go, I will spread over them my net; I will bring them down like birds of the heavens; I will discipline them according to the report made to their congregation.

¹³Woe to them, for they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, for they have rebelled against me! I would redeem them, but they speak lies against me.

¹⁴They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves; they rebel against me.

¹⁵Although I trained and strengthened their arms, yet they devise evil against me.

¹⁶They return, but not upward; they are like a treacherous bow; their princes shall fall by the sword because of the insolence of their tongue. This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt.

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

²And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And he said:

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

⁴I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women,

⁵as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journeyed toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished.

⁶“As I was on my way and drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me.

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

⁸And I answered, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And 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 understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me.

¹⁰And I said, ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ And the Lord said to me, ‘Rise, and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all that is appointed for you to do.’

¹¹And since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus.

¹²“And one Ananias, a devout man according to the law, well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there,

¹³came to me, and standing by me said to me, ‘Brother Saul, receive your sight.’ And at that very hour I received my sight and saw him.

¹⁴And he said, ‘The God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the Righteous One and to hear a voice from his mouth;

¹⁵for you will be a witness for him to everyone of what you have seen and heard.

¹⁶And now why do you wait? Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name.’

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

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

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

²⁰And when the blood of Stephen your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him.’

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

²²Up to this word they listened to him. Then they raised their voices and said, “Away with such a fellow from the earth! For he should not be allowed to live.”

²³And as they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and flinging dust into the air,

²⁴the tribune ordered him to be brought into the barracks, saying that he should be examined by flogging, to find out why they were shouting against him like this.

²⁵But when they had stretched him out for the whips, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, “Is it lawful for you to flog a man who is a Roman citizen and uncondemned?”

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

²⁷So the tribune came and said to him, “Tell me, are you a Roman citizen?” And he said, “Yes.”

²⁸The tribune answered, “I bought this citizenship for a large sum.” Paul said, “But I am a citizen by birth.”

²⁹So those who were about to examine him withdrew from him immediately, and the tribune also was afraid, for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had bound him.

³⁰But on the next day, desiring to know the real reason why he was being accused by the Jews, he unbound him and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet, and he brought Paul down and set him before them.