Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked,

²“Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don’t wash their hands before they eat!”

³Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?

⁴For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’

⁵But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is ‘devoted to God,’

⁶they are not to ‘honor their father or mother’ with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition.

⁷You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

⁸“ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

⁹They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ ”

¹⁰Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand.

¹¹What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

¹²Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?”

¹³He replied, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.

¹⁴Leave them; they are blind guides. If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

¹⁵Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”

¹⁶“Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them.

¹⁷“Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?

¹⁸But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them.

¹⁹For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

²⁰These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”

²¹Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.

²²A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”

²³Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

²⁴He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

²⁵The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

²⁶He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

²⁷“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

²⁸Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

²⁹Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down.

³⁰Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them.

³¹The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

³²Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

³³His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”

³⁴“How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked. “Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”

³⁵He told the crowd to sit down on the ground.

³⁶Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people.

³⁷They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

³⁸The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children.

³⁹After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.

¹When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,

²the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.

³Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

⁴The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

⁵The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.

⁶The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.

⁷So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.”

⁸But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

⁹This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.

¹⁰Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

¹¹Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence.

¹²God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways.

¹³So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

¹⁴So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.

¹⁵This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be three hundred cubits long, fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high.

¹⁶Make a roof for it, leaving below the roof an opening one cubit high all around. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks.

¹⁷I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

¹⁸But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.

¹⁹You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.

²⁰Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive.

²¹You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.”

²²Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

¹For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.

²Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling,

³because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked.

⁴For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.

⁵Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

⁶Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.

⁷For we live by faith, not by sight.

⁸We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.

⁹So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it.

¹⁰For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

¹¹Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others. What we are is plain to God, and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.

¹²We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again, but are giving you an opportunity to take pride in us, so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather than in what is in the heart.

¹³If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.

¹⁴For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.

¹⁵And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

¹⁶So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:

¹⁹that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

²⁰We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

²¹God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

¹And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain.

²He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

³He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.

⁴I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

⁵(The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection.

⁶Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

⁷When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison

⁸and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth—Gog and Magog—and to gather them for battle. In number they are like the sand on the seashore.

⁹They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city he loves. But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.

¹⁰And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

¹¹Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them.

¹²And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.

¹³The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done.

¹⁴Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.

¹⁵Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

¹“Do not mortals have hard service on earth? Are not their days like those of hired laborers?

²Like a slave longing for the evening shadows, or a hired laborer waiting to be paid,

³so I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me.

⁴When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’ The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn.

⁵My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering.

⁶“My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and they come to an end without hope.

⁷Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath; my eyes will never see happiness again.

⁸The eye that now sees me will see me no longer; you will look for me, but I will be no more.

⁹As a cloud vanishes and is gone, so one who goes down to the grave does not return.

¹⁰He will never come to his house again; his place will know him no more.

¹¹“Therefore I will not keep silent; I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

¹²Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep, that you put me under guard?

¹³When I think my bed will comfort me and my couch will ease my complaint,

¹⁴even then you frighten me with dreams and terrify me with visions,

¹⁵so that I prefer strangling and death, rather than this body of mine.

¹⁶I despise my life; I would not live forever. Let me alone; my days have no meaning.

¹⁷“What is mankind that you make so much of them, that you give them so much attention,

¹⁸that you examine them every morning and test them every moment?

¹⁹Will you never look away from me, or let me alone even for an instant?

²⁰If I have sinned, what have I done to you, you who see everything we do? Why have you made me your target? Have I become a burden to you?

²¹Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sins? For I will soon lie down in the dust; you will search for me, but I will be no more.”

¹Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause against an unfaithful nation. Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked.

²You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?

³Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell.

⁴Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight. I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.

⁵Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

¹My son, keep my words and store up my commands within you.

²Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye.

³Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.

⁴Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and to insight, “You are my relative.”

⁵They will keep you from the adulterous woman, from the wayward woman with her seductive words.

⁶At the window of my house I looked down through the lattice.

⁷I saw among the simple, I noticed among the young men, a youth who had no sense.

⁸He was going down the street near her corner, walking along in the direction of her house

⁹at twilight, as the day was fading, as the dark of night set in.

¹⁰Then out came a woman to meet him, dressed like a prostitute and with crafty intent.

¹¹(She is unruly and defiant, her feet never stay at home;

¹²now in the street, now in the squares, at every corner she lurks.)

¹³She took hold of him and kissed him and with a brazen face she said:

¹⁴“Today I fulfilled my vows, and I have food from my fellowship offering at home.

¹⁵So I came out to meet you; I looked for you and have found you!

¹⁶I have covered my bed with colored linens from Egypt.

¹⁷I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon.

¹⁸Come, let’s drink deeply of love till morning; let’s enjoy ourselves with love!

¹⁹My husband is not at home; he has gone on a long journey.

²⁰He took his purse filled with money and will not be home till full moon.”

²¹With persuasive words she led him astray; she seduced him with her smooth talk.

²²All at once he followed her like an ox going to the slaughter, like a deer stepping into a noose

²³till an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare, little knowing it will cost him his life.

²⁴Now then, my sons, listen to me; pay attention to what I say.

²⁵Do not let your heart turn to her ways or stray into her paths.

²⁶Many are the victims she has brought down; her slain are a mighty throng.

²⁷Her house is a highway to the grave, leading down to the chambers of death.

¹In the eighteenth year of the reign of Jeroboam, Abijah became king of Judah,

²and he reigned in Jerusalem three years. His mother’s name was Maakah, a daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. There was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.

³Abijah went into battle with an army of four hundred thousand able fighting men, and Jeroboam drew up a battle line against him with eight hundred thousand able troops.

⁴Abijah stood on Mount Zemaraim, in the hill country of Ephraim, and said, “Jeroboam and all Israel, listen to me!

⁵Don’t you know that the LORD, the God of Israel, has given the kingship of Israel to David and his descendants forever by a covenant of salt?

⁶Yet Jeroboam son of Nebat, an official of Solomon son of David, rebelled against his master.

⁷Some worthless scoundrels gathered around him and opposed Rehoboam son of Solomon when he was young and indecisive and not strong enough to resist them.

⁸“And now you plan to resist the kingdom of the LORD, which is in the hands of David’s descendants. You are indeed a vast army and have with you the golden calves that Jeroboam made to be your gods.

⁹But didn’t you drive out the priests of the LORD, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and make priests of your own as the peoples of other lands do? Whoever comes to consecrate himself with a young bull and seven rams may become a priest of what are not gods.

¹⁰“As for us, the LORD is our God, and we have not forsaken him. The priests who serve the LORD are sons of Aaron, and the Levites assist them.

¹¹Every morning and evening they present burnt offerings and fragrant incense to the LORD. They set out the bread on the ceremonially clean table and light the lamps on the gold lampstand every evening. We are observing the requirements of the LORD our God. But you have forsaken him.

¹²God is with us; he is our leader. His priests with their trumpets will sound the battle cry against you. People of Israel, do not fight against the LORD, the God of your ancestors, for you will not succeed.”

¹³Now Jeroboam had sent troops around to the rear, so that while he was in front of Judah the ambush was behind them.

¹⁴Judah turned and saw that they were being attacked at both front and rear. Then they cried out to the LORD. The priests blew their trumpets

¹⁵and the men of Judah raised the battle cry. At the sound of their battle cry, God routed Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah.

¹⁶The Israelites fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hands.

¹⁷Abijah and his troops inflicted heavy losses on them, so that there were five hundred thousand casualties among Israel’s able men.

¹⁸The Israelites were subdued on that occasion, and the people of Judah were victorious because they relied on the LORD, the God of their ancestors.

¹⁹Abijah pursued Jeroboam and took from him the towns of Bethel, Jeshanah and Ephron, with their surrounding villages.

²⁰Jeroboam did not regain power during the time of Abijah. And the LORD struck him down and he died.

²¹But Abijah grew in strength. He married fourteen wives and had twenty-two sons and sixteen daughters.

²²The other events of Abijah’s reign, what he did and what he said, are written in the annotations of the prophet Iddo.

¹Israel was a spreading vine; he brought forth fruit for himself. As his fruit increased, he built more altars; as his land prospered, he adorned his sacred stones.

²Their heart is deceitful, and now they must bear their guilt. The LORD will demolish their altars and destroy their sacred stones.

³Then they will say, “We have no king because we did not revere the LORD. But even if we had a king, what could he do for us?”

⁴They make many promises, take false oaths and make agreements; therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.

⁵The people who live in Samaria fear for the calf-idol of Beth Aven. Its people will mourn over it, and so will its idolatrous priests, those who had rejoiced over its splendor, because it is taken from them into exile.

⁶It will be carried to Assyria as tribute for the great king. Ephraim will be disgraced; Israel will be ashamed of its foreign alliances.

⁷Samaria’s king will be destroyed, swept away like a twig on the surface of the waters.

⁸The high places of wickedness will be destroyed— it is the sin of Israel. Thorns and thistles will grow up and cover their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

⁹“Since the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, Israel, and there you have remained. Will not war again overtake the evildoers in Gibeah?

¹⁰When I please, I will punish them; nations will be gathered against them to put them in bonds for their double sin.

¹¹Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh; so I will put a yoke on her fair neck. I will drive Ephraim, Judah must plow, and Jacob must break up the ground.

¹²Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers his righteousness on you.

¹³But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors,

¹⁴the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be devastated— as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to the ground with their children.

¹⁵So will it happen to you, Bethel, because your wickedness is great. When that day dawns, the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.

¹Three days after arriving in the province, Festus went up from Caesarea to Jerusalem,

²where the chief priests and the Jewish leaders appeared before him and presented the charges against Paul.

³They requested Festus, as a favor to them, to have Paul transferred to Jerusalem, for they were preparing an ambush to kill him along the way.

⁴Festus answered, “Paul is being held at Caesarea, and I myself am going there soon.

⁵Let some of your leaders come with me, and if the man has done anything wrong, they can press charges against him there.”

⁶After spending eight or ten days with them, Festus went down to Caesarea. The next day he convened the court and ordered that Paul be brought before him.

⁷When Paul came in, the Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him. They brought many serious charges against him, but they could not prove them.

⁸Then Paul made his defense: “I have done nothing wrong against the Jewish law or against the temple or against Caesar.”

⁹Festus, wishing to do the Jews a favor, said to Paul, “Are you willing to go up to Jerusalem and stand trial before me there on these charges?”

¹⁰Paul answered: “I am now standing before Caesar’s court, where I ought to be tried. I have not done any wrong to the Jews, as you yourself know very well.

¹¹If, however, I am guilty of doing anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die. But if the charges brought against me by these Jews are not true, no one has the right to hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!”

¹²After Festus had conferred with his council, he declared: “You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you will go!”

¹³A few days later King Agrippa and Bernice arrived at Caesarea to pay their respects to Festus.

¹⁴Since they were spending many days there, Festus discussed Paul’s case with the king. He said: “There is a man here whom Felix left as a prisoner.

¹⁵When I went to Jerusalem, the chief priests and the elders of the Jews brought charges against him and asked that he be condemned.

¹⁶“I told them that it is not the Roman custom to hand over anyone before they have faced their accusers and have had an opportunity to defend themselves against the charges.

¹⁷When they came here with me, I did not delay the case, but convened the court the next day and ordered the man to be brought in.

¹⁸When his accusers got up to speak, they did not charge him with any of the crimes I had expected.

¹⁹Instead, they had some points of dispute with him about their own religion and about a dead man named Jesus who Paul claimed was alive.

²⁰I was at a loss how to investigate such matters; so I asked if he would be willing to go to Jerusalem and stand trial there on these charges.

²¹But when Paul made his appeal to be held over for the Emperor’s decision, I ordered him held until I could send him to Caesar.”

²²Then Agrippa said to Festus, “I would like to hear this man myself.” He replied, “Tomorrow you will hear him.”

²³The next day Agrippa and Bernice came with great pomp and entered the audience room with the high-ranking military officers and the prominent men of the city. At the command of Festus, Paul was brought in.

²⁴Festus said: “King Agrippa, and all who are present with us, you see this man! The whole Jewish community has petitioned me about him in Jerusalem and here in Caesarea, shouting that he ought not to live any longer.

²⁵I found he had done nothing deserving of death, but because he made his appeal to the Emperor I decided to send him to Rome.

²⁶But I have nothing definite to write to His Majesty about him. Therefore I have brought him before all of you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that as a result of this investigation I may have something to write.

²⁷For I think it is unreasonable to send a prisoner on to Rome without specifying the charges against him.”