Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings.

²“Do you see all these things?” he asked. “Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

³As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

⁴Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you.

⁵For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many.

⁶You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.

⁷Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

⁸All these are the beginning of birth pains.

⁹“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.

¹⁰At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other,

¹¹and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people.

¹²Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold,

¹³but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

¹⁴And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

¹⁵“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—

¹⁶then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

¹⁷Let no one on the housetop go down to take anything out of the house.

¹⁸Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak.

¹⁹How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!

²⁰Pray that your flight will not take place in winter or on the Sabbath.

²¹For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now—and never to be equaled again.

²²“If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened.

²³At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.

²⁴For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect.

²⁵See, I have told you ahead of time.

²⁶“So if anyone tells you, ‘There he is, out in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do not believe it.

²⁷For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

²⁸Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

²⁹“Immediately after the distress of those days “ ‘the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.’

³⁰“Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.

³¹And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.

³²“Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near.

³³Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door.

³⁴Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

³⁵Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

³⁶“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

³⁷As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

³⁸For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;

³⁹and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

⁴⁰Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other left.

⁴¹Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.

⁴²“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.

⁴³But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.

⁴⁴So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.

⁴⁵“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time?

⁴⁶It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns.

⁴⁷Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.

⁴⁸But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, ‘My master is staying away a long time,’

⁴⁹and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.

⁵⁰The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.

⁵¹He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

¹After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.”

²But Abram said, “Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?”

³And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”

⁴Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.”

⁵He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”

⁶Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.

⁷He also said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”

⁸But Abram said, “Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”

⁹So the LORD said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half.

¹¹Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

¹²As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him.

¹³Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there.

¹⁴But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.

¹⁵You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age.

¹⁶In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

¹⁷When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces.

¹⁸On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—

¹⁹the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,

²⁰Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,

²¹Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

¹Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—

²and all the brothers and sisters with me, To the churches in Galatia:

³Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,

⁴who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,

⁵to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—

⁷which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse!

⁹As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

¹⁰Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

¹¹I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin.

¹²I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

¹³For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.

¹⁴I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

¹⁵But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased

¹⁶to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

¹⁷I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.

¹⁸Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days.

¹⁹I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.

²⁰I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

²¹Then I went to Syria and Cilicia.

²²I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.

²³They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.”

²⁴And they praised God because of me.

¹Then Job replied:

²“I have heard many things like these; you are miserable comforters, all of you!

³Will your long-winded speeches never end? What ails you that you keep on arguing?

⁴I also could speak like you, if you were in my place; I could make fine speeches against you and shake my head at you.

⁵But my mouth would encourage you; comfort from my lips would bring you relief.

⁶“Yet if I speak, my pain is not relieved; and if I refrain, it does not go away.

⁷Surely, God, you have worn me out; you have devastated my entire household.

⁸You have shriveled me up—and it has become a witness; my gauntness rises up and testifies against me.

⁹God assails me and tears me in his anger and gnashes his teeth at me; my opponent fastens on me his piercing eyes.

¹⁰People open their mouths to jeer at me; they strike my cheek in scorn and unite together against me.

¹¹God has turned me over to the ungodly and thrown me into the clutches of the wicked.

¹²All was well with me, but he shattered me; he seized me by the neck and crushed me. He has made me his target;

¹³his archers surround me. Without pity, he pierces my kidneys and spills my gall on the ground.

¹⁴Again and again he bursts upon me; he rushes at me like a warrior.

¹⁵“I have sewed sackcloth over my skin and buried my brow in the dust.

¹⁶My face is red with weeping, dark shadows ring my eyes;

¹⁷yet my hands have been free of violence and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“Earth, do not cover my blood; may my cry never be laid to rest!

¹⁹Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high.

²⁰My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God;

²¹on behalf of a man he pleads with God as one pleads for a friend.

²²“Only a few years will pass before I take the path of no return.

¹For the director of music. A maskil of David. When Doeg the Edomite had gone to Saul and told him: “David has gone to the house of Ahimelek.” Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero? Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?

²You who practice deceit, your tongue plots destruction; it is like a sharpened razor.

³You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth.

⁴You love every harmful word, you deceitful tongue!

⁵Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin: He will snatch you up and pluck you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living.

⁶The righteous will see and fear; they will laugh at you, saying,

⁷“Here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth and grew strong by destroying others!”

⁸But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; I trust in God’s unfailing love for ever and ever.

⁹For what you have done I will always praise you in the presence of your faithful people. And I will hope in your name, for your name is good.

¹To humans belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the proper answer of the tongue.

²All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the LORD.

³Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.

⁴The LORD works out everything to its proper end— even the wicked for a day of disaster.

⁵The LORD detests all the proud of heart. Be sure of this: They will not go unpunished.

⁶Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the LORD evil is avoided.

⁷When the LORD takes pleasure in anyone’s way, he causes their enemies to make peace with them.

⁸Better a little with righteousness than much gain with injustice.

⁹In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.

¹⁰The lips of a king speak as an oracle, and his mouth does not betray justice.

¹¹Honest scales and balances belong to the LORD; all the weights in the bag are of his making.

¹²Kings detest wrongdoing, for a throne is established through righteousness.

¹³Kings take pleasure in honest lips; they value the one who speaks what is right.

¹⁴A king’s wrath is a messenger of death, but the wise will appease it.

¹⁵When a king’s face brightens, it means life; his favor is like a rain cloud in spring.

¹⁶How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver!

¹⁷The highway of the upright avoids evil; those who guard their ways preserve their lives.

¹⁸Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

¹⁹Better to be lowly in spirit along with the oppressed than to share plunder with the proud.

²⁰Whoever gives heed to instruction prospers, and blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD.

²¹The wise in heart are called discerning, and gracious words promote instruction.

²²Prudence is a fountain of life to the prudent, but folly brings punishment to fools.

²³The hearts of the wise make their mouths prudent, and their lips promote instruction.

²⁴Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

²⁵There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.

²⁶The appetite of laborers works for them; their hunger drives them on.

²⁷A scoundrel plots evil, and on their lips it is like a scorching fire.

²⁸A perverse person stirs up conflict, and a gossip separates close friends.

²⁹A violent person entices their neighbor and leads them down a path that is not good.

³⁰Whoever winks with their eye is plotting perversity; whoever purses their lips is bent on evil.

³¹Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness.

³²Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city.

³³The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD.

¹The people of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, Jehoram’s youngest son, king in his place, since the raiders, who came with the Arabs into the camp, had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah began to reign.

²Ahaziah was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem one year. His mother’s name was Athaliah, a granddaughter of Omri.

³He too followed the ways of the house of Ahab, for his mother encouraged him to act wickedly.

⁴He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, as the house of Ahab had done, for after his father’s death they became his advisers, to his undoing.

⁵He also followed their counsel when he went with Joram son of Ahab king of Israel to wage war against Hazael king of Aram at Ramoth Gilead. The Arameans wounded Joram;

⁶so he returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds they had inflicted on him at Ramoth in his battle with Hazael king of Aram. Then Ahaziah son of Jehoram king of Judah went down to Jezreel to see Joram son of Ahab because he had been wounded.

⁷Through Ahaziah’s visit to Joram, God brought about Ahaziah’s downfall. When Ahaziah arrived, he went out with Joram to meet Jehu son of Nimshi, whom the LORD had anointed to destroy the house of Ahab.

⁸While Jehu was executing judgment on the house of Ahab, he found the officials of Judah and the sons of Ahaziah’s relatives, who had been attending Ahaziah, and he killed them.

⁹He then went in search of Ahaziah, and his men captured him while he was hiding in Samaria. He was brought to Jehu and put to death. They buried him, for they said, “He was a son of Jehoshaphat, who sought the LORD with all his heart.” So there was no one in the house of Ahaziah powerful enough to retain the kingdom.

¹⁰When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she proceeded to destroy the whole royal family of the house of Judah.

¹¹But Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram, took Joash son of Ahaziah and stole him away from among the royal princes who were about to be murdered and put him and his nurse in a bedroom. Because Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram and wife of the priest Jehoiada, was Ahaziah’s sister, she hid the child from Athaliah so she could not kill him.

¹²He remained hidden with them at the temple of God for six years while Athaliah ruled the land.

¹This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Moab, even for four, I will not relent. Because he burned to ashes the bones of Edom’s king,

²I will send fire on Moab that will consume the fortresses of Kerioth. Moab will go down in great tumult amid war cries and the blast of the trumpet.

³I will destroy her ruler and kill all her officials with him,” says the LORD.

⁴This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Judah, even for four, I will not relent. Because they have rejected the law of the LORD and have not kept his decrees, because they have been led astray by false gods, the gods their ancestors followed,

⁵I will send fire on Judah that will consume the fortresses of Jerusalem.”

⁶This is what the LORD says: “For three sins of Israel, even for four, I will not relent. They sell the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.

⁷They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl and so profane my holy name.

⁸They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their god they drink wine taken as fines.

⁹“Yet I destroyed the Amorites before them, though they were tall as the cedars and strong as the oaks. I destroyed their fruit above and their roots below.

¹⁰I brought you up out of Egypt and led you forty years in the wilderness to give you the land of the Amorites.

¹¹“I also raised up prophets from among your children and Nazirites from among your youths. Is this not true, people of Israel?” declares the LORD.

¹²“But you made the Nazirites drink wine and commanded the prophets not to prophesy.

¹³“Now then, I will crush you as a cart crushes when loaded with grain.

¹⁴The swift will not escape, the strong will not muster their strength, and the warrior will not save his life.

¹⁵The archer will not stand his ground, the fleet-footed soldier will not get away, and the horseman will not save his life.

¹⁶Even the bravest warriors will flee naked on that day,” declares the LORD.

¹In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food.

²So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables.

³Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them

⁴and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

⁵This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism.

⁶They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

⁷So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.

⁸Now Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people.

⁹Opposition arose, however, from members of the Synagogue of the Freedmen (as it was called)—Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria as well as the provinces of Cilicia and Asia—who began to argue with Stephen.

¹⁰But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.

¹¹Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, “We have heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God.”

¹²So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin.

¹³They produced false witnesses, who testified, “This fellow never stops speaking against this holy place and against the law.

¹⁴For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us.”

¹⁵All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen, and they saw that his face was like the face of an angel.