Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.

²Five of them were foolish and five were wise.

³The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them.

⁴The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps.

⁵The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

⁶“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

⁷“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.

⁸The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

⁹“ ‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

¹⁰“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

¹¹“Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

¹²“But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

¹³“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

¹⁴“Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them.

¹⁵To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.

¹⁶The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more.

¹⁷So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more.

¹⁸But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

¹⁹“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them.

²⁰The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’

²¹“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

²²“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’

²³“His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

²⁴“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed.

²⁵So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

²⁶“His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed?

²⁷Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

²⁸“ ‘So take the bag of gold from him and give it to the one who has ten bags.

²⁹For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them.

³⁰And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

³¹“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne.

³²All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

³³He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

³⁴“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.

³⁵For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,

³⁶I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

³⁷“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?

³⁸When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?

³⁹When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

⁴⁰“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

⁴¹“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

⁴²For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,

⁴³I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

⁴⁴“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

⁴⁵“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

⁴⁶“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

¹Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar;

²so she said to Abram, “The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.” Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

³So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife.

⁴He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress.

⁵Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me.”

⁶“Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

⁷The angel of the LORD found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur.

⁸And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.

⁹Then the angel of the LORD told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.”

¹⁰The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”

¹¹The angel of the LORD also said to her: “You are now pregnant and you will give birth to a son. You shall name him Ishmael, for the LORD has heard of your misery.

¹²He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”

¹³She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.”

¹⁴That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

¹⁵So Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son she had borne.

¹⁶Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

¹Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also.

²I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain.

³Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek.

⁴This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.

⁵We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

⁶As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message.

⁷On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.

⁸For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.

⁹James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.

¹⁰All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

¹¹When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.

¹²For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.

¹³The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

¹⁴When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

¹⁵“We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles

¹⁶know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

¹⁷“But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!

¹⁸If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.

¹⁹“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.

²⁰I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

²¹I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

¹My spirit is broken, my days are cut short, the grave awaits me.

²Surely mockers surround me; my eyes must dwell on their hostility.

³“Give me, O God, the pledge you demand. Who else will put up security for me?

⁴You have closed their minds to understanding; therefore you will not let them triumph.

⁵If anyone denounces their friends for reward, the eyes of their children will fail.

⁶“God has made me a byword to everyone, a man in whose face people spit.

⁷My eyes have grown dim with grief; my whole frame is but a shadow.

⁸The upright are appalled at this; the innocent are aroused against the ungodly.

⁹Nevertheless, the righteous will hold to their ways, and those with clean hands will grow stronger.

¹⁰“But come on, all of you, try again! I will not find a wise man among you.

¹¹My days have passed, my plans are shattered. Yet the desires of my heart

¹²turn night into day; in the face of the darkness light is near.

¹³If the only home I hope for is the grave, if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness,

¹⁴if I say to corruption, ‘You are my father,’ and to the worm, ‘My mother’ or ‘My sister,’

¹⁵where then is my hope— who can see any hope for me?

¹⁶Will it go down to the gates of death? Will we descend together into the dust?”

¹For the director of music. According to mahalath. A maskil of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their ways are vile; there is no one who does good.

²God looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God.

³Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.

⁴Do all these evildoers know nothing? They devour my people as though eating bread; they never call on God.

⁵But there they are, overwhelmed with dread, where there was nothing to dread. God scattered the bones of those who attacked you; you put them to shame, for God despised them.

⁶Oh, that salvation for Israel would come out of Zion! When God restores his people, let Jacob rejoice and Israel be glad!

¹Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife.

²A prudent servant will rule over a disgraceful son and will share the inheritance as one of the family.

³The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the LORD tests the heart.

⁴A wicked person listens to deceitful lips; a liar pays attention to a destructive tongue.

⁵Whoever mocks the poor shows contempt for their Maker; whoever gloats over disaster will not go unpunished.

⁶Children’s children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children.

⁷Eloquent lips are unsuited to a godless fool— how much worse lying lips to a ruler!

⁸A bribe is seen as a charm by the one who gives it; they think success will come at every turn.

⁹Whoever would foster love covers over an offense, but whoever repeats the matter separates close friends.

¹⁰A rebuke impresses a discerning person more than a hundred lashes a fool.

¹¹Evildoers foster rebellion against God; the messenger of death will be sent against them.

¹²Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool bent on folly.

¹³Evil will never leave the house of one who pays back evil for good.

¹⁴Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out.

¹⁵Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent— the LORD detests them both.

¹⁶Why should fools have money in hand to buy wisdom, when they are not able to understand it?

¹⁷A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.

¹⁸One who has no sense shakes hands in pledge and puts up security for a neighbor.

¹⁹Whoever loves a quarrel loves sin; whoever builds a high gate invites destruction.

²⁰One whose heart is corrupt does not prosper; one whose tongue is perverse falls into trouble.

²¹To have a fool for a child brings grief; there is no joy for the parent of a godless fool.

²²A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.

²³The wicked accept bribes in secret to pervert the course of justice.

²⁴A discerning person keeps wisdom in view, but a fool’s eyes wander to the ends of the earth.

²⁵A foolish son brings grief to his father and bitterness to the mother who bore him.

²⁶If imposing a fine on the innocent is not good, surely to flog honest officials is not right.

²⁷The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint, and whoever has understanding is even-tempered.

²⁸Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.

¹In the seventh year Jehoiada showed his strength. He made a covenant with the commanders of units of a hundred: Azariah son of Jeroham, Ishmael son of Jehohanan, Azariah son of Obed, Maaseiah son of Adaiah, and Elishaphat son of Zikri.

²They went throughout Judah and gathered the Levites and the heads of Israelite families from all the towns. When they came to Jerusalem,

³the whole assembly made a covenant with the king at the temple of God. Jehoiada said to them, “The king’s son shall reign, as the LORD promised concerning the descendants of David.

⁴Now this is what you are to do: A third of you priests and Levites who are going on duty on the Sabbath are to keep watch at the doors,

⁵a third of you at the royal palace and a third at the Foundation Gate, and all the others are to be in the courtyards of the temple of the LORD.

⁶No one is to enter the temple of the LORD except the priests and Levites on duty; they may enter because they are consecrated, but all the others are to observe the LORD’s command not to enter.

⁷The Levites are to station themselves around the king, each with weapon in hand. Anyone who enters the temple is to be put to death. Stay close to the king wherever he goes.”

⁸The Levites and all the men of Judah did just as Jehoiada the priest ordered. Each one took his men—those who were going on duty on the Sabbath and those who were going off duty—for Jehoiada the priest had not released any of the divisions.

⁹Then he gave the commanders of units of a hundred the spears and the large and small shields that had belonged to King David and that were in the temple of God.

¹⁰He stationed all the men, each with his weapon in his hand, around the king—near the altar and the temple, from the south side to the north side of the temple.

¹¹Jehoiada and his sons brought out the king’s son and put the crown on him; they presented him with a copy of the covenant and proclaimed him king. They anointed him and shouted, “Long live the king!”

¹²When Athaliah heard the noise of the people running and cheering the king, she went to them at the temple of the LORD.

¹³She looked, and there was the king, standing by his pillar at the entrance. The officers and the trumpeters were beside the king, and all the people of the land were rejoicing and blowing trumpets, and musicians with their instruments were leading the praises. Then Athaliah tore her robes and shouted, “Treason! Treason!”

¹⁴Jehoiada the priest sent out the commanders of units of a hundred, who were in charge of the troops, and said to them: “Bring her out between the ranks and put to the sword anyone who follows her.” For the priest had said, “Do not put her to death at the temple of the LORD.”

¹⁵So they seized her as she reached the entrance of the Horse Gate on the palace grounds, and there they put her to death.

¹⁶Jehoiada then made a covenant that he, the people and the king would be the LORD’s people.

¹⁷All the people went to the temple of Baal and tore it down. They smashed the altars and idols and killed Mattan the priest of Baal in front of the altars.

¹⁸Then Jehoiada placed the oversight of the temple of the LORD in the hands of the Levitical priests, to whom David had made assignments in the temple, to present the burnt offerings of the LORD as written in the Law of Moses, with rejoicing and singing, as David had ordered.

¹⁹He also stationed gatekeepers at the gates of the LORD’s temple so that no one who was in any way unclean might enter.

²⁰He took with him the commanders of hundreds, the nobles, the rulers of the people and all the people of the land and brought the king down from the temple of the LORD. They went into the palace through the Upper Gate and seated the king on the royal throne.

²¹All the people of the land rejoiced, and the city was calm, because Athaliah had been slain with the sword.

¹Hear this word, people of Israel, the word the LORD has spoken against you—against the whole family I brought up out of Egypt:

²“You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your sins.”

³Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so?

⁴Does a lion roar in the thicket when it has no prey? Does it growl in its den when it has caught nothing?

⁵Does a bird swoop down to a trap on the ground when no bait is there? Does a trap spring up from the ground if it has not caught anything?

⁶When a trumpet sounds in a city, do not the people tremble? When disaster comes to a city, has not the LORD caused it?

⁷Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.

⁸The lion has roared— who will not fear? The Sovereign LORD has spoken— who can but prophesy?

⁹Proclaim to the fortresses of Ashdod and to the fortresses of Egypt: “Assemble yourselves on the mountains of Samaria; see the great unrest within her and the oppression among her people.”

¹⁰“They do not know how to do right,” declares the LORD, “who store up in their fortresses what they have plundered and looted.”

¹¹Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “An enemy will overrun your land, pull down your strongholds and plunder your fortresses.”

¹²This is what the LORD says: “As a shepherd rescues from the lion’s mouth only two leg bones or a piece of an ear, so will the Israelites living in Samaria be rescued, with only the head of a bed and a piece of fabric from a couch.”

¹³“Hear this and testify against the descendants of Jacob,” declares the Lord, the LORD God Almighty.

¹⁴“On the day I punish Israel for her sins, I will destroy the altars of Bethel; the horns of the altar will be cut off and fall to the ground.

¹⁵I will tear down the winter house along with the summer house; the houses adorned with ivory will be destroyed and the mansions will be demolished,” declares the LORD.

¹Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?”

²To this he replied: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran.

³‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’

⁴“So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.

⁵He gave him no inheritance here, not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child.

⁶God spoke to him in this way: ‘For four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated.

⁷But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’

⁸Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

⁹“Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him

¹⁰and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.

¹¹“Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food.

¹²When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit.

¹³On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family.

¹⁴After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all.

¹⁵Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died.

¹⁶Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.

¹⁷“As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased.

¹⁸Then ‘a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.’

¹⁹He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.

²⁰“At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for by his family.

²¹When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.

²²Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

²³“When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.

²⁴He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian.

²⁵Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.

²⁶The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?’

²⁷“But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?

²⁸Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’

²⁹When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.

³⁰“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.

³¹When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say:

³²‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.

³³“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

³⁴I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’

³⁵“This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

³⁶He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness.

³⁷“This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.’

³⁸He was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors; and he received living words to pass on to us.

³⁹“But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

⁴⁰They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’

⁴¹That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in what their own hands had made.

⁴²But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets: “ ‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?

⁴³You have taken up the tabernacle of Molek and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile’ beyond Babylon.

⁴⁴“Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the covenant law with them in the wilderness. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen.

⁴⁵After receiving the tabernacle, our ancestors under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David,

⁴⁶who enjoyed God’s favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷But it was Solomon who built a house for him.

⁴⁸“However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:

⁴⁹“ ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be?

⁵⁰Has not my hand made all these things?’

⁵¹“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!

⁵²Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—

⁵³you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”

⁵⁴When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.

⁵⁵But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

⁵⁶“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

⁵⁷At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him,

⁵⁸dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

⁶⁰Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.