Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹As Jesus was leaving the Temple grounds, his disciples pointed out to him the various Temple buildings.

²But he responded, “Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”

³Later, Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives. His disciples came to him privately and said, “Tell us, when will all this happen? What sign will signal your return and the end of the world? ”

⁴Jesus told them, “Don’t let anyone mislead you,

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

⁶And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately.

⁷Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world.

⁸But all this is only the first of the birth pains, with more to come.

⁹“Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers.

¹⁰And many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other.

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

¹²Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold.

¹³But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

¹⁴And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come.

¹⁵“The day is coming when you will see what Daniel the prophet spoke about — the sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing in the Holy Place.” (Reader, pay attention!)

¹⁶“Then those in Judea must flee to the hills.

¹⁷A person out on the deck of a roof must not go down into the house to pack.

¹⁸A person out in the field must not return even to get a coat.

¹⁹How terrible it will be for pregnant women and for nursing mothers in those days.

²⁰And pray that your flight will not be in winter or on the Sabbath.

²¹For there will be greater anguish than at any time since the world began. And it will never be so great again.

²²In fact, unless that time of calamity is shortened, not a single person will survive. But it will be shortened for the sake of God’s chosen ones.

²³“Then if anyone tells you, ‘Look, here is the Messiah,’ or ‘There he is,’ don’t believe it.

²⁴For false messiahs and false prophets will rise up and perform great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even God’s chosen ones.

²⁵See, I have warned you about this ahead of time.

²⁶“So if someone tells you, ‘Look, the Messiah is out in the desert,’ don’t bother to go and look. Or, ‘Look, he is hiding here,’ don’t believe it!

²⁷For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes.

²⁸Just as the gathering of vultures shows there is a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate that the end is near.

²⁹“Immediately after the anguish of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

³⁰And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

³¹And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world — from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven.

³²“Now learn a lesson from the fig tree. When its branches bud and its leaves begin to sprout, you know that summer is near.

³³In the same way, when you see all these things, you can know his return is very near, right at the door.

³⁴I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass from the scene until all these things take place.

³⁵Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear.

³⁶“However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows.

³⁷“When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day.

³⁸In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings right up to the time Noah entered his boat.

³⁹People didn’t realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes.

⁴⁰“Two men will be working together in the field; one will be taken, the other left.

⁴¹Two women will be grinding flour at the mill; one will be taken, the other left.

⁴²“So you, too, must keep watch! For you don’t know what day your Lord is coming.

⁴³Understand this: If a homeowner knew exactly when a burglar was coming, he would keep watch and not permit his house to be broken into.

⁴⁴You also must be ready all the time, for the Son of Man will come when least expected.

⁴⁵“A faithful, sensible servant is one to whom the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household servants and feeding them.

⁴⁶If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward.

⁴⁷I tell you the truth, the master will put that servant in charge of all he owns.

⁴⁸But what if the servant is evil and thinks, ‘My master won’t be back for a while,’

⁴⁹and he begins beating the other servants, partying, and getting drunk?

⁵⁰The master will return unannounced and unexpected,

⁵¹and he will cut the servant to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

¹Some time later, the LORD spoke to Abram in a vision and said to him, “Do not be afraid, Abram, for I will protect you, and your reward will be great.”

²But Abram replied, “O Sovereign LORD, what good are all your blessings when I don’t even have a son? Since you’ve given me no children, Eliezer of Damascus, a servant in my household, will inherit all my wealth.

³You have given me no descendants of my own, so one of my servants will be my heir.”

⁴Then the LORD said to him, “No, your servant will not be your heir, for you will have a son of your own who will be your heir.”

⁵Then the LORD took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!”

⁶And Abram believed the LORD, and the LORD counted him as righteous because of his faith.

⁷Then the LORD told him, “I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land as your possession.”

⁸But Abram replied, “O Sovereign LORD, how can I be sure that I will actually possess it?”

⁹The LORD told him, “Bring me a three-year-old heifer, a three-year-old female goat, a three-year-old ram, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

¹⁰So Abram presented all these to him and killed them. Then he cut each animal down the middle and laid the halves side by side; he did not, however, cut the birds in half.

¹¹Some vultures swooped down to eat the carcasses, but Abram chased them away.

¹²As the sun was going down, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a terrifying darkness came down over him.

¹³Then the LORD said to Abram, “You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for 400 years.

¹⁴But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth.

¹⁵(As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age.)

¹⁶After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sins of the Amorites do not yet warrant their destruction.”

¹⁷After the sun went down and darkness fell, Abram saw a smoking firepot and a flaming torch pass between the halves of the carcasses.

¹⁸So the LORD made a covenant with Abram that day and said, “I have given this land to your descendants, all the way from the border of Egypt to the great Euphrates River —

¹⁹the land now occupied by the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites,

²⁰Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites,

²¹Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites, and Jebusites.”

¹This letter is from Paul, an apostle. I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the Father, who raised Jesus from the dead.

²All the brothers and sisters here join me in sending this letter to the churches of Galatia.

³May God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace.

⁴Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live.

⁵All glory to God forever and ever! Amen.

⁶I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News

⁷but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ.

⁸Let God’s curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of Good News than the one we preached to you.

⁹I say again what we have said before: If anyone preaches any other Good News than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed.

¹⁰Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.

¹¹Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning.

¹²I received my message from no human source, and no one taught me. Instead, I received it by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.

¹³You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion — how I violently persecuted God’s church. I did my best to destroy it.

¹⁴I was far ahead of my fellow Jews in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors.

¹⁵But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace. Then it pleased him

¹⁶to reveal his Son to me so that I would proclaim the Good News about Jesus to the Gentiles. When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being.

¹⁷Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus.

¹⁸Then three years later I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter, and I stayed with him for fifteen days.

¹⁹The only other apostle I met at that time was James, the Lord’s brother.

²⁰I declare before God that what I am writing to you is not a lie.

²¹After that visit I went north into the provinces of Syria and Cilicia.

²²And still the churches in Christ that are in Judea didn’t know me personally.

²³All they knew was that people were saying, “The one who used to persecute us is now preaching the very faith he tried to destroy!”

²⁴And they praised God because of me.

¹Then Job spoke again:

²“I have heard all this before. What miserable comforters you are!

³Won’t you ever stop blowing hot air? What makes you keep on talking?

⁴I could say the same things if you were in my place. I could spout off criticism and shake my head at you.

⁵But if it were me, I would encourage you. I would try to take away your grief.

⁶Instead, I suffer if I defend myself, and I suffer no less if I refuse to speak.

⁷“O God, you have ground me down and devastated my family.

⁸As if to prove I have sinned, you’ve reduced me to skin and bones. My gaunt flesh testifies against me.

⁹God hates me and angrily tears me apart. He snaps his teeth at me and pierces me with his eyes.

¹⁰People jeer and laugh at me. They slap my cheek in contempt. A mob gathers against me.

¹¹God has handed me over to sinners. He has tossed me into the hands of the wicked.

¹²“I was living quietly until he shattered me. He took me by the neck and broke me in pieces. Then he set me up as his target,

¹³and now his archers surround me. His arrows pierce me without mercy. The ground is wet with my blood.

¹⁴Again and again he smashes against me, charging at me like a warrior.

¹⁵I wear burlap to show my grief. My pride lies in the dust.

¹⁶My eyes are red with weeping; dark shadows circle my eyes.

¹⁷Yet I have done no wrong, and my prayer is pure.

¹⁸“O earth, do not conceal my blood. Let it cry out on my behalf.

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

²⁰My friends scorn me, but I pour out my tears to God.

²¹I need someone to mediate between God and me, as a person mediates between friends.

²²For soon I must go down that road from which I will never return.

¹Why do you boast about your crimes, great warrior? Don’t you realize God’s justice continues forever?

²All day long you plot destruction. Your tongue cuts like a sharp razor; you’re an expert at telling lies.

³You love evil more than good and lies more than truth. Interlude

⁴You love to destroy others with your words, you liar!

⁵But God will strike you down once and for all. He will pull you from your home and uproot you from the land of the living. Interlude

⁶The righteous will see it and be amazed. They will laugh and say,

⁷“Look what happens to mighty warriors who do not trust in God. They trust their wealth instead and grow more and more bold in their wickedness.”

⁸But I am like an olive tree, thriving in the house of God. I will always trust in God’s unfailing love.

⁹I will praise you forever, O God, for what you have done. I will trust in your good name in the presence of your faithful people.

¹We can make our own plans, but the LORD gives the right answer.

²People may be pure in their own eyes, but the LORD examines their motives.

³Commit your actions to the LORD, and your plans will succeed.

⁴The LORD has made everything for his own purposes, even the wicked for a day of disaster.

⁵The LORD detests the proud; they will surely be punished.

⁶Unfailing love and faithfulness make atonement for sin. By fearing the LORD, people avoid evil.

⁷When people’s lives please the LORD, even their enemies are at peace with them.

⁸Better to have little, with godliness, than to be rich and dishonest.

⁹We can make our plans, but the LORD determines our steps.

¹⁰The king speaks with divine wisdom; he must never judge unfairly.

¹¹The LORD demands accurate scales and balances; he sets the standards for fairness.

¹²A king detests wrongdoing, for his rule is built on justice.

¹³The king is pleased with words from righteous lips; he loves those who speak honestly.

¹⁴The anger of the king is a deadly threat; the wise will try to appease it.

¹⁵When the king smiles, there is life; his favor refreshes like a spring rain.

¹⁶How much better to get wisdom than gold, and good judgment than silver!

¹⁷The path of the virtuous leads away from evil; whoever follows that path is safe.

¹⁸Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall.

¹⁹Better to live humbly with the poor than to share plunder with the proud.

²⁰Those who listen to instruction will prosper; those who trust the LORD will be joyful.

²¹The wise are known for their understanding, and pleasant words are persuasive.

²²Discretion is a life-giving fountain to those who possess it, but discipline is wasted on fools.

²³From a wise mind comes wise speech; the words of the wise are persuasive.

²⁴Kind words are like honey — sweet to the soul and healthy for the body.

²⁵There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.

²⁶It is good for workers to have an appetite; an empty stomach drives them on.

²⁷Scoundrels create trouble; their words are a destructive blaze.

²⁸A troublemaker plants seeds of strife; gossip separates the best of friends.

²⁹Violent people mislead their companions, leading them down a harmful path.

³⁰With narrowed eyes, people plot evil; with a smirk, they plan their mischief.

³¹Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained by living a godly life.

³²Better to be patient than powerful; better to have self-control than to conquer a city.

³³We may throw the dice, but the LORD determines how they fall.

¹Then the people of Jerusalem made Ahaziah, Jehoram’s youngest son, their next king, since the marauding bands who came with the Arabs had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah son of Jehoram reigned as king of Judah.

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

³Ahaziah also followed the evil example of King Ahab’s family, for his mother encouraged him in doing wrong.

⁴He did what was evil in the LORD’s sight, just as Ahab’s family had done. They even became his advisers after the death of his father, and they led him to ruin.

⁵Following their evil advice, Ahaziah joined Joram, the son of King Ahab of Israel, in his war against King Hazael of Aram at Ramoth-gilead. When the Arameans wounded Joram in the battle,

⁶he returned to Jezreel to recover from the wounds he had received at Ramoth. Because Joram was wounded, King Ahaziah of Judah went to Jezreel to visit him.

⁷But God had decided that this visit would be Ahaziah’s downfall. While he was there, Ahaziah went out with Joram to meet Jehu grandson of Nimshi, whom the LORD had appointed to destroy the dynasty of Ahab.

⁸While Jehu was executing judgment against the family of Ahab, he happened to meet some of Judah’s officials and Ahaziah’s relatives who were traveling with Ahaziah. So Jehu killed them all.

⁹Then Jehu’s men searched for Ahaziah, and they found him hiding in the city of Samaria. They brought him to Jehu, who killed him. Ahaziah was given a decent burial because the people said, “He was the grandson of Jehoshaphat — a man who sought the LORD with all his heart.” But none of the surviving members of Ahaziah’s family was capable of ruling the kingdom.

¹⁰When Athaliah, the mother of King Ahaziah of Judah, learned that her son was dead, she began to destroy the rest of Judah’s royal family.

¹¹But Ahaziah’s sister Jehosheba, the daughter of King Jehoram, took Ahaziah’s infant son, Joash, and stole him away from among the rest of the king’s children, who were about to be killed. She put Joash and his nurse in a bedroom. In this way, Jehosheba, wife of Jehoiada the priest and sister of Ahaziah, hid the child so that Athaliah could not murder him.

¹²Joash remained hidden in the Temple of God for six years while Athaliah ruled over the land.

¹This is what the LORD says: “The people of Moab have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They desecrated the bones of Edom’s king, burning them to ashes.

²So I will send down fire on the land of Moab, and all the fortresses in Kerioth will be destroyed. The people will fall in the noise of battle, as the warriors shout and the ram’s horn sounds.

³And I will destroy their king and slaughter all their princes,” says the LORD.

⁴This is what the LORD says: “The people of Judah have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They have rejected the instruction of the LORD, refusing to obey his decrees. They have been led astray by the same lies that deceived their ancestors.

⁵So I will send down fire on Judah, and all the fortresses of Jerusalem will be destroyed.”

⁶This is what the LORD says: “The people of Israel have sinned again and again, and I will not let them go unpunished! They sell honorable people for silver and poor people for a pair of sandals.

⁷They trample helpless people in the dust and shove the oppressed out of the way. Both father and son sleep with the same woman, corrupting my holy name.

⁸At their religious festivals, they lounge in clothing their debtors put up as security. In the house of their gods, they drink wine bought with unjust fines.

⁹“But as my people watched, I destroyed the Amorites, though they were as tall as cedars and as strong as oaks. I destroyed the fruit on their branches and dug out their roots.

¹⁰It was I who rescued you from Egypt and led you through the desert for forty years, so you could possess the land of the Amorites.

¹¹I chose some of your sons to be prophets and others to be Nazirites. Can you deny this, my people of Israel?” asks the LORD.

¹²“But you caused the Nazirites to sin by making them drink wine, and you commanded the prophets, ‘Shut up!’

¹³“So I will make you groan like a wagon loaded down with sheaves of grain.

¹⁴Your fastest runners will not get away. The strongest among you will become weak. Even mighty warriors will be unable to save themselves.

¹⁵The archers will not stand their ground. The swiftest runners won’t be fast enough to escape. Even those riding horses won’t be able to save themselves.

¹⁶On that day the most courageous of your fighting men will drop their weapons and run for their lives,” says the LORD.

¹But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.

²So the Twelve called a meeting of all the believers. They said, “We apostles should spend our time teaching the word of God, not running a food program.

³And so, brothers, select seven men who are well respected and are full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will give them this responsibility.

⁴Then we apostles can spend our time in prayer and teaching the word.”

⁵Everyone liked this idea, and they chose the following: Stephen (a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit), Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas of Antioch (an earlier convert to the Jewish faith).

⁶These seven were presented to the apostles, who prayed for them as they laid their hands on them.

⁷So God’s message continued to spread. The number of believers greatly increased in Jerusalem, and many of the Jewish priests were converted, too.

⁸Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed amazing miracles and signs among the people.

⁹But one day some men from the Synagogue of Freed Slaves, as it was called, started to debate with him. They were Jews from Cyrene, Alexandria, Cilicia, and the province of Asia.

¹⁰None of them could stand against the wisdom and the Spirit with which Stephen spoke.

¹¹So they persuaded some men to lie about Stephen, saying, “We heard him blaspheme Moses, and even God.”

¹²This roused the people, the elders, and the teachers of religious law. So they arrested Stephen and brought him before the high council.

¹³The lying witnesses said, “This man is always speaking against the holy Temple and against the law of Moses.

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

¹⁵At this point everyone in the high council stared at Stephen, because his face became as bright as an angel’s.