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.

²When 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 and his companions were hungry?

⁴He entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him or his companions to eat, but only for the priests.

⁵Or have you not read in the law that on the sabbath the priests in the temple break the sabbath and yet are guiltless?

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

⁷But 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 left that place and entered their synagogue;

¹⁰a man was there with a withered hand, and they asked him, “Is it lawful to cure on the sabbath?” so that they might accuse him.

¹¹He said to them, “Suppose one of you has only one sheep and it falls into a pit on the sabbath; will you not lay hold of it and lift it out?

¹²How much more valuable is a human being than a sheep! So it is lawful to do good on the sabbath.”

¹³Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and it was restored, as sound as the other.

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

¹⁵When Jesus became aware of this, he departed. Many crowds followed him, and he cured all of them,

¹⁶and he ordered them not to make him known.

¹⁷This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah:

¹⁸“Here is 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 wrangle or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets.

²⁰He will not break a bruised reed or quench a smoldering wick until he brings justice to victory.

²¹And in his name the Gentiles will hope.”

²²Then they brought to him a demoniac who was blind and mute; and he cured him, so that the one who had been mute could speak and see.

²³All the crowds 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 ruler of the demons, that this fellow casts out the demons.”

²⁵He knew what they were thinking and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.

²⁶If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will his kingdom stand?

²⁷If I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your own exorcists 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 to you.

²⁹Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property, without first tying up the strong man? Then indeed the house can be plundered.

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

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

³²Whoever 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.

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

³⁵The good person brings good things out of a good treasure, and the evil person brings evil things out of an evil treasure.

³⁶I tell you, on the day of judgment you will have to give an account for every careless word you utter;

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

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

³⁹But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks 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 sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth.

⁴¹The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!

⁴²The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here!

⁴³“When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it wanders through waterless regions looking for a resting place, but it finds none.

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

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

⁴⁶While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him.

⁴⁷Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

⁴⁸But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”

⁴⁹And pointing to 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 wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

²The 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 middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’”

⁴But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not 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 loincloths for themselves.

⁸They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, 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?”

¹⁰He 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 from 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 from 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 tricked me, and I ate.”

¹⁴The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon 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 hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

¹⁶To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

¹⁷And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil 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 until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

²⁰The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living.

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

²²Then the LORD God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever” —

²³therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till 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 sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.

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

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 am confident about all of you, that my joy would be the joy of all of you.

⁴For I wrote you out of much distress 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.

⁵But if anyone has caused pain, he has caused it not to me, but to some extent — not to exaggerate it — to all of you.

⁶This punishment by the majority is enough for such a person;

⁷so now instead you should forgive and console him, so that he may not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.

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

⁹I wrote for this reason: to test you and to know whether you are obedient in everything.

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

¹¹And we do this so that we may not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.

¹²When I came to Troas to proclaim the good news of Christ, a door was opened for me in the Lord;

¹³but my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I said farewell to them and went on to Macedonia.

¹⁴But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him.

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

¹⁶to the 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 peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence.

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 whore who is seated on many waters,

²with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and with the wine of whose fornication the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk.”

³So 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 clothed 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 fornication;

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

⁶And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus. When I saw her, I was greatly amazed.

⁷But the angel said to me, “Why are you so amazed? 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 ascend from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the inhabitants of the earth, whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.

⁹“This calls for a mind that has wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; also, they are seven kings,

¹⁰of whom five have fallen, one is living, and the other has not yet come; and when he comes, 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 a kingdom, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast.

¹³These are united in yielding 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 he said to me, “The waters that you saw, where the whore is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages.

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

¹⁷For God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by agreeing to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God will be fulfilled.

¹⁸The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.”

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite answered:

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

³See, you have instructed many; you have strengthened the weak hands.

⁴Your words have supported those who were 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“Think now, 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, and the teeth of the young lions are broken.

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

¹²“Now a word came stealing to me, my ear received the whisper of it.

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

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

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

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 mortals be righteous before God? Can human beings be pure before their Maker?

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

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

²⁰Between morning and evening they are destroyed; they perish forever without any regarding it.

²¹Their tent-cord is plucked up within them, and they die devoid of wisdom.’

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

²He drew me up from the desolate pit, 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.

⁴Happy are those who make the LORD their trust, who do not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods.

⁵You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you. Were I to proclaim and tell of them, they would be more than can be counted.

⁶Sacrifice and offering you do not desire, but you have given me an open ear. Burnt offering and sin offering you have not required.

⁷Then I said, “Here I am; 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; see, I have not restrained my lips, as you know, O LORD.

¹⁰I have not hidden your saving help 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.

¹¹Do not, O LORD, withhold your mercy from me; let your steadfast love and your faithfulness keep me safe forever.

¹²For evils have encompassed me without number; my iniquities have overtaken me, until I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart fails me.

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

¹⁴Let all those be put to shame and confusion who seek to snatch away my life; let those be turned back and brought to dishonor who desire 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.

¹Listen, children, to 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, and my mother’s favorite,

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, nor 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 else 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 fair garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.”

¹⁰Hear, my child, 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 evildoers.

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 what they stumble over.

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

²¹Do not let them 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.

²⁶Keep straight the path of your feet, and 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.

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

³They 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 that he placed 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 older men who had attended his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?”

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

⁸But he rejected the advice that the older men gave him, and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and now attended him.

⁹He 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’?”

¹⁰The young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus should you speak to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you must lighten it for us’; tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins.

¹¹Now, 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 had said, “Come to me again the third day.”

¹³The king answered them harshly. King Rehoboam rejected the advice of the older men;

¹⁴he spoke to them in accordance with the advice of the young men, “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, because it was a turn of affairs brought about by God so that the LORD might fulfill his word, which he had spoken by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

¹⁶When all Israel saw that the king would not listen to them, the people answered the king, “What share do we have 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, O David.” So all Israel departed to their tents.

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

¹⁸When King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was taskmaster over the forced labor, the people of Israel stoned him to death. King Rehoboam hurriedly 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 corruption of Ephraim is revealed, and the wicked 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 wickedness. Now their deeds surround them, they are before my face.

³By their wickedness they make the king glad, and the officials by their treachery.

⁴They are all adulterers; they are like a heated oven, whose baker does not need to stir the fire, from the kneading of the dough until it is leavened.

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

⁶For they are kindled like an oven, their heart burns within them; 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; none of them calls upon me.

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

⁹Foreigners devour his strength, but he does not know it; gray hairs are sprinkled upon him, but he does not know it.

¹⁰Israel’s pride testifies against him; yet they do not return to the LORD their God, or seek him, for all this.

¹¹Ephraim has become like a dove, silly and without sense; they call upon Egypt, they go to Assyria.

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

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; they gash themselves for grain and wine; they rebel against me.

¹⁵It was I who trained and strengthened their arms, yet they plot evil against me.

¹⁶They turn to that which does not profit; they have become like a defective bow; their officials shall fall by the sword because of the rage of their tongue. So much for their babbling in the land of Egypt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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