Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.

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

³And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.

⁴And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

⁵He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”

⁶When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.

⁷But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”

⁸And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.

⁹And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”

¹⁰And the disciples asked him, “Then why do the scribes say that first Elijah must come?”

¹¹He answered, “Elijah does come, and he will restore all things.

¹²But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.”

¹³Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.

¹⁴And when they came to the crowd, a man came up to him and, kneeling before him,

¹⁵said, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he has seizures and he suffers terribly. For often he falls into the fire, and often into the water.

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

¹⁷And Jesus answered, “O faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.”

¹⁸And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was healed instantly.

¹⁹Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?”

²⁰He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”

²¹

²²As they were gathering in Galilee, Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men,

²³and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.” And they were greatly distressed.

²⁴When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?”

²⁵He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?”

²⁶And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free.

²⁷However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.”

¹But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.

²The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained,

³and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated,

⁴and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.

⁵And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

⁶At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made

⁷and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth.

⁸Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground.

⁹But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him.

¹⁰He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark.

¹¹And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth.

¹²Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.

¹³In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried from off the earth. And Noah removed the covering of the ark and looked, and behold, the face of the ground was dry.

¹⁴In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out.

¹⁵Then God said to Noah,

¹⁶“Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you.

¹⁷Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh — birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth — that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

¹⁸So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him.

¹⁹Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.

²⁰Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

²¹And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.

²²While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

¹Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

²Make room in your hearts for us. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one.

³I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together.

⁴I am acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.

⁵For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn — fighting without and fear within.

⁶But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus,

⁷and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more.

⁸For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it — though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while.

⁹As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.

¹⁰For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

¹¹For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.

¹²So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God.

¹³Therefore we are comforted. And besides our own comfort, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.

¹⁴For whatever boasts I made to him about you, I was not put to shame. But just as everything we said to you was true, so also our boasting before Titus has proved true.

¹⁵And his affection for you is even greater, as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling.

¹⁶I rejoice, because I have complete confidence in you.

¹Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb

²through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

³No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him.

⁴They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

⁵And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

⁶And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”

⁷“And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”

⁸I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me,

⁹but he said to me, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”

¹⁰And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.

¹¹Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.”

¹²“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.

¹³ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

¹⁴Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.

¹⁵Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

¹⁶ “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”

¹⁷The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

¹⁸I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book,

¹⁹and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

²⁰He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

²¹The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.

¹Then Job answered and said:

²“Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God?

³If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times.

⁴He is wise in heart and mighty in strength — who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded? —

⁵he who removes mountains, and they know it not, when he overturns them in his anger,

⁶who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble;

⁷who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars;

⁸who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea;

⁹who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south;

¹⁰who does great things beyond searching out, and marvelous things beyond number.

¹¹Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not; he moves on, but I do not perceive him.

¹²Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back? Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

¹³“God will not turn back his anger; beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab.

¹⁴How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him?

¹⁵Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser.

¹⁶If I summoned him and he answered me, I would not believe that he was listening to my voice.

¹⁷For he crushes me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause;

¹⁸he will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness.

¹⁹If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?

²⁰Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.

²¹I am blameless; I regard not myself; I loathe my life.

²²It is all one; therefore I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’

²³When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent.

²⁴The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the faces of its judges — if it is not he, who then is it?

²⁵“My days are swifter than a runner; they flee away; they see no good.

²⁶They go by like skiffs of reed, like an eagle swooping on the prey.

²⁷If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’

²⁸I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent.

²⁹I shall be condemned; why then do I labor in vain?

³⁰If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye,

³¹yet you will plunge me into a pit, and my own clothes will abhor me.

³²For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together.

³³There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.

³⁴Let him take his rod away from me, and let not dread of him terrify me.

³⁵Then I would speak without fear of him, for I am not so in myself.

¹My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe.

²You are the most handsome of the sons of men; grace is poured upon your lips; therefore God has blessed you forever.

³Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your splendor and majesty!

⁴In your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness; let your right hand teach you awesome deeds!

⁵Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; the peoples fall under you.

⁶Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness;

⁷you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions;

⁸your robes are all fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia. From ivory palaces stringed instruments make you glad;

⁹daughters of kings are among your ladies of honor; at your right hand stands the queen in gold of Ophir.

¹⁰Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father's house,

¹¹and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him.

¹²The people of Tyre will seek your favor with gifts, the richest of the people.

¹³All glorious is the princess in her chamber, with robes interwoven with gold.

¹⁴In many-colored robes she is led to the king, with her virgin companions following behind her.

¹⁵With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king.

¹⁶In place of your fathers shall be your sons; you will make them princes in all the earth.

¹⁷I will cause your name to be remembered in all generations; therefore nations will praise you forever and ever.

¹Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn her seven pillars.

²She has slaughtered her beasts; she has mixed her wine; she has also set her table.

³She has sent out her young women to call from the highest places in the town,

⁴“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” To him who lacks sense she says,

⁵“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.

⁶Leave your simple ways, and live, and walk in the way of insight.”

⁷Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.

⁸Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.

⁹Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.

¹⁰The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

¹¹For by me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life.

¹²If you are wise, you are wise for yourself; if you scoff, you alone will bear it.

¹³The woman Folly is loud; she is seductive and knows nothing.

¹⁴She sits at the door of her house; she takes a seat on the highest places of the town,

¹⁵calling to those who pass by, who are going straight on their way,

¹⁶“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” And to him who lacks sense she says,

¹⁷“Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”

¹⁸But he does not know that the dead are there, that her guests are in the depths of Sheol.

¹The Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded,

²and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you.

³For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without law,

⁴but when in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them.

⁵In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands.

⁶They were broken in pieces. Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress.

⁷But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.”

⁸As soon as Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Azariah the son of Oded, he took courage and put away the detestable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities that he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim, and he repaired the altar of the LORD that was in front of the vestibule of the house of the LORD.

⁹And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were residing with them, for great numbers had deserted to him from Israel when they saw that the LORD his God was with him.

¹⁰They were gathered at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa.

¹¹They sacrificed to the LORD on that day from the spoil that they had brought 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep.

¹²And they entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul,

¹³but that whoever would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.

¹⁴They swore an oath to the LORD with a loud voice and with shouting and with trumpets and with horns.

¹⁵And all Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and had sought him with their whole desire, and he was found by them, and the LORD gave them rest all around.

¹⁶Even Maacah, his mother, King Asa removed from being queen mother because she had made a detestable image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it, and burned it at the brook Kidron.

¹⁷But the high places were not taken out of Israel. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true all his days.

¹⁸And he brought into the house of God the sacred gifts of his father and his own sacred gifts, silver, and gold, and vessels.

¹⁹And there was no more war until the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Asa.

¹Ephraim feeds on the wind and pursues the east wind all day long; they multiply falsehood and violence; they make a covenant with Assyria, and oil is carried to Egypt.

²The LORD has an indictment against Judah and will punish Jacob according to his ways; he will repay him according to his deeds.

³In the womb he took his brother by the heel, and in his manhood he strove with God.

⁴He strove with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought his favor. He met God at Bethel, and there God spoke with us —

⁵the LORD, the God of hosts, the LORD is his memorial name:

⁶“So you, by the help of your God, return, hold fast to love and justice, and wait continually for your God.”

⁷A merchant, in whose hands are false balances, he loves to oppress.

⁸Ephraim has said, “Ah, but I am rich; I have found wealth for myself; in all my labors they cannot find in me iniquity or sin.”

⁹I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, as in the days of the appointed feast.

¹⁰I spoke to the prophets; it was I who multiplied visions, and through the prophets gave parables.

¹¹If there is iniquity in Gilead, they shall surely come to nothing: in Gilgal they sacrifice bulls; their altars also are like stone heaps on the furrows of the field.

¹²Jacob fled to the land of Aram; there Israel served for a wife, and for a wife he guarded sheep.

¹³By a prophet the LORD brought Israel up from Egypt, and by a prophet he was guarded.

¹⁴Ephraim has given bitter provocation; so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds.

¹And when it was decided that we should sail for Italy, they delivered Paul and some other prisoners to a centurion of the Augustan Cohort named Julius.

²And embarking in a ship of Adramyttium, which was about to sail to the ports along the coast of Asia, we put to sea, accompanied by Aristarchus, a Macedonian from Thessalonica.

³The next day we put in at Sidon. And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him leave to go to his friends and be cared for.

⁴And putting out to sea from there we sailed under the lee of Cyprus, because the winds were against us.

⁵And when we had sailed across the open sea along the coast of Cilicia and Pamphylia, we came to Myra in Lycia.

⁶There the centurion found a ship of Alexandria sailing for Italy and put us on board.

⁷We sailed slowly for a number of days and arrived with difficulty off Cnidus, and as the wind did not allow us to go farther, we sailed under the lee of Crete off Salmone.

⁸Coasting along it with difficulty, we came to a place called Fair Havens, near which was the city of Lasea.

⁹Since much time had passed, and the voyage was now dangerous because even the Fast was already over, Paul advised them,

¹⁰saying, “Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.”

¹¹But the centurion paid more attention to the pilot and to the owner of the ship than to what Paul said.

¹²And because the harbor was not suitable to spend the winter in, the majority decided to put out to sea from there, on the chance that somehow they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete, facing both southwest and northwest, and spend the winter there.

¹³Now when the south wind blew gently, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, they weighed anchor and sailed along Crete, close to the shore.

¹⁴But soon a tempestuous wind, called the northeaster, struck down from the land.

¹⁵And when the ship was caught and could not face the wind, we gave way to it and were driven along.

¹⁶Running under the lee of a small island called Cauda, we managed with difficulty to secure the ship's boat.

¹⁷After hoisting it up, they used supports to undergird the ship. Then, fearing that they would run aground on the Syrtis, they lowered the gear, and thus they were driven along.

¹⁸Since we were violently storm-tossed, they began the next day to jettison the cargo.

¹⁹And on the third day they threw the ship's tackle overboard with their own hands.

²⁰When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned.

²¹Since they had been without food for a long time, Paul stood up among them and said, “Men, you should have listened to me and not have set sail from Crete and incurred this injury and loss.

²²Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.

²³For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship,

²⁴and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’

²⁵So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told.

²⁶But we must run aground on some island.”

²⁷When the fourteenth night had come, as we were being driven across the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors suspected that they were nearing land.

²⁸So they took a sounding and found twenty fathoms. A little farther on they took a sounding again and found fifteen fathoms.

²⁹And fearing that we might run on the rocks, they let down four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come.

³⁰And as the sailors were seeking to escape from the ship, and had lowered the ship's boat into the sea under pretense of laying out anchors from the bow,

³¹Paul said to the centurion and the soldiers, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.”

³²Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship's boat and let it go.

³³As day was about to dawn, Paul urged them all to take some food, saying, “Today is the fourteenth day that you have continued in suspense and without food, having taken nothing.

³⁴Therefore I urge you to take some food. For it will give you strength, for not a hair is to perish from the head of any of you.”

³⁵And when he had said these things, he took bread, and giving thanks to God in the presence of all he broke it and began to eat.

³⁶Then they all were encouraged and ate some food themselves.

³⁷(We were in all 276 persons in the ship.)

³⁸And when they had eaten enough, they lightened the ship, throwing out the wheat into the sea.

³⁹Now when it was day, they did not recognize the land, but they noticed a bay with a beach, on which they planned if possible to run the ship ashore.

⁴⁰So they cast off the anchors and left them in the sea, at the same time loosening the ropes that tied the rudders. Then hoisting the foresail to the wind they made for the beach.

⁴¹But striking a reef, they ran the vessel aground. The bow stuck and remained immovable, and the stern was being broken up by the surf.

⁴²The soldiers' plan was to kill the prisoners, lest any should swim away and escape.

⁴³But the centurion, wishing to save Paul, kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and make for the land,

⁴⁴and the rest on planks or on pieces of the ship. And so it was that all were brought safely to land.