Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹When he entered Capernaum again after some days, it was reported that he was at home.

²So many people gathered together that there was no more room, not even in the doorway, and he was speaking the word to them.

³They came to him bringing a paralytic, carried by four of them.

⁴Since they were not able to bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and after digging through it, they lowered the mat on which the paralytic was lying.

⁵Seeing their faith, Jesus told the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

⁶But some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts:

⁷“Why does he speak like this? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

⁸Right away Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were thinking like this within themselves and said to them, “Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?

⁹Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat, and walk’?

¹⁰But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”  — he told the paralytic —

¹¹“I tell you: get up, take your mat, and go home.”

¹²Immediately he got up, took the mat, and went out in front of everyone. As a result, they were all astounded and gave glory to God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

¹³Jesus went out again beside the sea. The whole crowd was coming to him, and he was teaching them.

¹⁴Then, passing by, he saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the toll booth, and he said to him, “Follow me,” and he got up and followed him.

¹⁵While he was reclining at the table in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who were following him.

¹⁶When the scribes who were Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

¹⁷When Jesus heard this, he told them, “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but those who are sick. I didn’t come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

¹⁸Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. People came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but your disciples do not fast?”

¹⁹Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they cannot fast.

²⁰But the time will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.

²¹No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new patch pulls away from the old cloth, and a worse tear is made.

²²And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost as well as the skins. No, new wine is put into fresh wineskins.”

²³On the Sabbath he was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to make their way, picking some heads of grain.

²⁴The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?”

²⁵He said to them, “Have you never read what David and those who were with him did when he was in need and hungry  — 

²⁶how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the Presence  — which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests  — and also gave some to his companions?”

²⁷Then he told them, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.

²⁸So then, the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

¹The LORD came to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised.

²Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the appointed time God had told him.

³Abraham named his son who was born to him — the one Sarah bore to him — Isaac.

⁴When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God had commanded him.

⁵Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

⁶Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears will laugh with me.”

⁷She also said, “Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne a son for him in his old age.”

⁸The child grew and was weaned, and Abraham held a great feast on the day Isaac was weaned.

⁹But Sarah saw the son mocking — the one Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham.

¹⁰So she said to Abraham, “Drive out this slave with her son, for the son of this slave will not be a coheir with my son Isaac!”

¹¹This was very distressing to Abraham because of his son.

¹²But God said to Abraham, “Do not be distressed about the boy and about your slave. Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her, because your offspring will be traced through Isaac,

¹³and I will also make a nation of the slave’s son because he is your offspring.”

¹⁴Early in the morning Abraham got up, took bread and a waterskin, put them on Hagar’s shoulders, and sent her and the boy away. She left and wandered in the Wilderness of Beer-sheba.

¹⁵When the water in the skin was gone, she left the boy under one of the bushes

¹⁶and went and sat at a distance, about a bowshot away, for she said, “I can’t bear to watch the boy die!” While she sat at a distance, she wept loudly.

¹⁷God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What’s wrong, Hagar? Don’t be afraid, for God has heard the boy crying from the place where he is.

¹⁸Get up, help the boy up, and grasp his hand, for I will make him a great nation.”

¹⁹Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well. So she went and filled the waterskin and gave the boy a drink.

²⁰God was with the boy, and he grew; he settled in the wilderness and became an archer.

²¹He settled in the Wilderness of Paran, and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt.

²²At that time Abimelech, accompanied by Phicol the commander of his army, said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything you do.

²³Swear to me by God here and now, that you will not break an agreement with me or with my children and descendants. As I have been loyal to you, so you will be loyal to me and to the country where you are a resident alien.”

²⁴And Abraham said, “I swear it.”

²⁵But Abraham complained to Abimelech because of the well that Abimelech’s servants had seized.

²⁶Abimelech replied, “I don’t know who did this thing. You didn’t report anything to me, so I hadn’t heard about it until today.”

²⁷Abraham took flocks and herds and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a covenant.

²⁸Abraham separated seven ewe lambs from the flock.

²⁹And Abimelech said to Abraham, “Why have you separated these seven ewe lambs?”

³⁰He replied, “You are to accept the seven ewe lambs from me so that this act will serve as my witness that I dug this well.”

³¹Therefore that place was called Beer-sheba because it was there that the two of them swore an oath.

³²After they had made a covenant at Beer-sheba, Abimelech and Phicol, the commander of his army, left and returned to the land of the Philistines.

³³Abraham planted a tamarisk tree in Beer-sheba, and there he called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God.

³⁴And Abraham lived as an alien in the land of the Philistines for many days.

¹Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by God’s will: To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.

²Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.

⁴For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.

⁵He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,

⁶to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.

⁷In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace

⁸that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding.

⁹He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he purposed in Christ

¹⁰as a plan for the right time  — to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him.

¹¹In him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will,

¹²so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.

¹³In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed.

¹⁴The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.

¹⁵This is why, since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints,

¹⁶I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.

¹⁷I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him.

¹⁸I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what is the wealth of his glorious inheritance in the saints,

¹⁹and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the mighty working of his strength.

²⁰He exercised this power in Christ by raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavens  —

²¹far above every ruler and authority, power and dominion, and every title given, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

²²And he subjected everything under his feet and appointed him as head over everything for the church,

²³which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way.

¹Don’t rebuke an older man, but exhort him as a father, younger men as brothers,

²older women as mothers, and the younger women as sisters with all purity.

³Support widows who are genuinely in need.

⁴But if any widow has children or grandchildren, let them learn to practice godliness toward their own family first and to repay their parents, for this pleases God.

⁵The widow who is truly in need and left all alone has put her hope in God and continues night and day in her petitions and prayers;

⁶however, she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives.

⁷Command this also, so that they will be above reproach.

⁸But if anyone does not provide for his own family, especially for his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

⁹No widow is to be enrolled on the list for support unless she is at least sixty years old, has been the wife of one husband,

¹⁰and is well known for good works  — that is, if she has brought up children, shown hospitality, washed the saints’ feet, helped the afflicted, and devoted herself to every good work.

¹¹But refuse to enroll younger widows, for when they are drawn away from Christ by desire, they want to marry

¹²and will therefore receive condemnation because they have renounced their original pledge.

¹³At the same time, they also learn to be idle, going from house to house; they are not only idle, but are also gossips and busybodies, saying things they shouldn’t say.

¹⁴Therefore, I want younger women to marry, have children, manage their households, and give the adversary no opportunity to accuse us.

¹⁵For some have already turned away to follow Satan.

¹⁶If any believing woman has widows in her family, let her help them. Let the church not be burdened, so that it can help widows in genuine need.

¹⁷The elders who are good leaders are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.

¹⁸For the Scripture says: Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain, and the worker is worthy of his wages.

¹⁹Don’t accept an accusation against an elder unless it is supported by two or three witnesses.

²⁰Publicly rebuke those who sin, so that the rest will be afraid.

²¹I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels to observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing out of favoritism.

²²Don’t be too quick to appoint anyone as an elder, and don’t share in the sins of others. Keep yourself pure.

²³Don’t continue drinking only water, but use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.

²⁴Some people’s sins are obvious, preceding them to judgment, but the sins of others surface later.

²⁵Likewise, good works are obvious, and those that are not obvious cannot remain hidden.

¹Then Eliphaz the Temanite replied:

²Can a man be of any use to God? Can even a wise man be of use to him?

³Does it delight the Almighty if you are righteous? Does he profit if you perfect your behavior?

⁴Does he correct you and take you to court because of your piety?

⁵Isn’t your wickedness abundant and aren’t your iniquities endless?

⁶For you took collateral from your brothers without cause, stripping off their clothes and leaving them naked.

⁷You gave no water to the thirsty and withheld food from the famished,

⁸while the land belonged to a powerful man and an influential man lived on it.

⁹You sent widows away empty-handed, and the strength of the fatherless was crushed.

¹⁰Therefore snares surround you, and sudden dread terrifies you,

¹¹or darkness, so you cannot see, and a flood of water covers you.

¹²Isn’t God as high as the heavens? And look at the highest stars — how lofty they are!

¹³Yet you say, “What does God know? Can he judge through total darkness?

¹⁴Clouds veil him so that he cannot see, as he walks on the circle of the sky.”

¹⁵Will you continue on the ancient path that wicked men have walked?

¹⁶They were snatched away before their time, and their foundations were washed away by a river.

¹⁷They were the ones who said to God, “Leave us alone!” and “What can the Almighty do to us?”

¹⁸But it was he who filled their houses with good things. The counsel of the wicked is far from me!

¹⁹The righteous see this and rejoice; the innocent mock them, saying,

²⁰“Surely our opponents are destroyed, and fire has consumed what they left behind.”

²¹Come to terms with God and be at peace; in this way good will come to you.

²²Receive instruction from his mouth, and place his sayings in your heart.

²³If you return to the Almighty, you will be renewed. If you banish injustice from your tent

²⁴and consign your gold to the dust, the gold of Ophir to the stones in the wadis,

²⁵the Almighty will be your gold and your finest silver.

²⁶Then you will delight in the Almighty and lift up your face to God.

²⁷You will pray to him, and he will hear you, and you will fulfill your vows.

²⁸When you make a decision, it will be carried out, and light will shine on your ways.

²⁹When others are humiliated and you say, “Lift them up,” God will save the humble.

³⁰He will even rescue the guilty one, who will be rescued by the purity of your hands.

¹For the choir director: “Do Not Destroy.” A of David. [1] Do you really speak righteously, you mighty ones? Do you judge people fairly?

²No, you practice injustice in your hearts; with your hands you weigh out violence in the land.

³The wicked go astray from the womb; liars wander about from birth.

⁴They have venom like the venom of a snake, like the deaf cobra that stops up its ears,

⁵that does not listen to the sound of the charmers who skillfully weave spells.

⁶God, knock the teeth out of their mouths; LORD, tear out the young lions’ fangs.

⁷May they vanish like water that flows by; may they aim their blunted arrows.

⁸Like a slug that moves along in slime, like a woman’s miscarried child, may they not see the sun.

⁹Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns — whether green or burning — he will sweep them away.

¹⁰The righteous one will rejoice when he sees the retribution; he will wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.

¹¹Then people will say, “Yes, there is a reward for the righteous! There is a God who judges on earth!”

¹A good name is to be chosen over great wealth; favor is better than silver and gold.

²Rich and poor have this in common: the LORD makes them all.

³A sensible person sees danger and takes cover, but the inexperienced keep going and are punished.

⁴Humility, the fear of the LORD, results in wealth, honor, and life.

⁵There are thorns and snares on the way of the crooked; the one who guards himself stays far from them.

⁶Start a youth out on his way; even when he grows old he will not depart from it.

⁷The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is a slave to the lender.

⁸The one who sows injustice will reap disaster, and the rod of his fury will be destroyed.

⁹A generous person will be blessed, for he shares his food with the poor.

¹⁰Drive out a mocker, and conflict goes too; then quarreling and dishonor will cease.

¹¹The one who loves a pure heart and gracious lips — the king is his friend.

¹²The LORD’s eyes keep watch over knowledge, but he overthrows the words of the treacherous.

¹³The slacker says, “There’s a lion outside! I’ll be killed in the public square!”

¹⁴The mouth of the forbidden woman is a deep pit; a man cursed by the LORD will fall into it.

¹⁵Foolishness is bound to the heart of a youth; a rod of discipline will separate it from him.

¹⁶Oppressing the poor to enrich oneself, and giving to the rich — both lead only to poverty.

¹⁷Listen closely, pay attention to the words of the wise, and apply your mind to my knowledge.

¹⁸For it is pleasing if you keep them within you and if they are constantly on your lips.

¹⁹I have instructed you today — even you — so that your confidence may be in the LORD.

²⁰Haven’t I written for you thirty sayings about counsel and knowledge,

²¹in order to teach you true and reliable words, so that you may give a dependable report to those who sent you?

²²Don’t rob a poor person because he is poor, and don’t crush the oppressed at the city gate,

²³for the LORD will champion their cause and will plunder those who plunder them.

²⁴Don’t make friends with an angry person, and don’t be a companion of a hot-tempered one,

²⁵or you will learn his ways and entangle yourself in a snare.

²⁶Don’t be one of those who enter agreements, who put up security for loans.

²⁷If you have nothing with which to pay, even your bed will be taken from under you.

²⁸Don’t move an ancient boundary marker that your fathers set up.

²⁹Do you see a person skilled in his work? He will stand in the presence of kings. He will not stand in the presence of the unknown.

¹Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. He did not do what was right in the LORD’s sight like his ancestor David,

²for he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and made cast images of the Baals.

³He burned incense in Ben Hinnom Valley and burned his children in the fire, imitating the detestable practices of the nations the LORD had dispossessed before the Israelites.

⁴He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places, on the hills, and under every green tree.

⁵So the LORD his God handed Ahaz over to the king of Aram. He attacked him and took many captives to Damascus. Ahaz was also handed over to the king of Israel, who struck him with great force:

⁶Pekah son of Remaliah killed one hundred twenty thousand in Judah in one day — all brave men — because they had abandoned the LORD God of their ancestors.

⁷An Ephraimite warrior named Zichri killed the king’s son Maaseiah, Azrikam governor of the palace, and Elkanah who was second to the king.

⁸Then the Israelites took two hundred thousand captives from their brothers — women, sons, and daughters. They also took a great deal of plunder from them and brought it to Samaria.

⁹A prophet of the LORD named Oded was there. He went out to meet the army that came to Samaria and said to them, “Look, the LORD God of your ancestors handed them over to you because of his wrath against Judah, but you slaughtered them in a rage that has reached heaven.

¹⁰Now you plan to reduce the people of Judah and Jerusalem, male and female, to slavery. Are you not also guilty before the LORD your God?

¹¹Listen to me and return the captives you took from your brothers, for the LORD’s burning anger is on you.”

¹²So some men who were leaders of the Ephraimites — Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berechiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai — stood in opposition to those coming from the war.

¹³They said to them, “You must not bring the captives here, for you plan to bring guilt on us from the LORD to add to our sins and our guilt. For we have much guilt, and burning anger is on Israel.”

¹⁴The army left the captives and the plunder in the presence of the officers and the congregation.

¹⁵Then the men who were designated by name took charge of the captives and provided clothes for their naked ones from the plunder. They clothed them, gave them sandals, food and drink, dressed their wounds, and provided donkeys for all the feeble. The Israelites brought them to Jericho, the City of Palms, among their brothers. Then they returned to Samaria.

¹⁶At that time King Ahaz asked the king of Assyria for help.

¹⁷The Edomites came again, attacked Judah, and took captives.

¹⁸The Philistines also raided the cities of the Judean foothills and the Negev of Judah. They captured and occupied Beth-shemesh, Aijalon, and Gederoth, as well as Soco, Timnah, and Gimzo with their surrounding villages.

¹⁹For the LORD humbled Judah because of King Ahaz of Judah, who threw off restraint in Judah and was unfaithful to the LORD.

²⁰Then King Tiglath-pileser of Assyria came against Ahaz; he oppressed him and did not give him support.

²¹Although Ahaz plundered the LORD’s temple and the palace of the king and of the rulers and gave the plunder to the king of Assyria, it did not help him.

²²At the time of his distress, King Ahaz himself became more unfaithful to the LORD.

²³He sacrificed to the gods of Damascus which had defeated him; he said, “Since the gods of the kings of Aram are helping them, I will sacrifice to them so that they will help me.” But they were the downfall of him and of all Israel.

²⁴Then Ahaz gathered up the utensils of God’s temple, cut them into pieces, shut the doors of the LORD’s temple, and made himself altars on every street corner in Jerusalem.

²⁵He made high places in every city of Judah to offer incense to other gods, and he angered the LORD, the God of his ancestors.

²⁶As for the rest of his deeds and all his ways, from beginning to end, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Judah and Israel.

²⁷Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried in the city, in Jerusalem, but they did not bring him into the tombs of the kings of Israel. His son Hezekiah became king in his place.

¹The Lord GOD showed me this: a basket of summer fruit.

²He asked me, “What do you see, Amos?” I replied, “A basket of summer fruit.” The LORD said to me, “The end has come for my people Israel; I will no longer spare them.

³In that day the temple songs will become wailing”  — this is the Lord GOD’s declaration. “Many dead bodies, thrown everywhere! Silence!”

⁴Hear this, you who trample on the needy and do away with the poor of the land,

⁵asking, “When will the New Moon be over so we may sell grain, and the Sabbath, so we may market wheat? We can reduce the measure while increasing the price and cheat with dishonest scales.

⁶We can buy the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and even sell the chaff!”

⁷The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: I will never forget all their deeds.

⁸Because of this, won’t the land quake and all who dwell in it mourn? All of it will rise like the Nile; it will surge and then subside like the Nile in Egypt.

⁹And in that day — this is the declaration of the Lord GOD  — I will make the sun go down at noon; I will darken the land in the daytime.

¹⁰I will turn your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation; I will cause everyone to wear sackcloth and every head to be shaved. I will make that grief like mourning for an only son and its outcome like a bitter day.

¹¹Look, the days are coming — this is the declaration of the Lord GOD  — when I will send a famine through the land: not a famine of bread or a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.

¹²People will stagger from sea to sea and roam from north to east seeking the word of the LORD, but they will not find it.

¹³In that day the beautiful young women, the young men also, will faint from thirst.

¹⁴Those who swear by the guilt of Samaria and say, “As your god lives, Dan,” or, “As the way of Beer-sheba lives”  — they will fall, never to rise again.

¹About that time King Herod violently attacked some who belonged to the church,

²and he executed James, John’s brother, with the sword.

³When he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter too, during the Festival of Unleavened Bread.

⁴After the arrest, he put him in prison and assigned four squads of four soldiers each to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover.

⁵So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was praying fervently to God for him.

⁶When Herod was about to bring him out for trial, that very night Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while the sentries in front of the door guarded the prison.

⁷Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell. Striking Peter on the side, he woke him up and said, “Quick, get up!” And the chains fell off his wrists.

⁸“Get dressed,” the angel told him, “and put on your sandals.” And he did. “Wrap your cloak around you,” he told him, “and follow me.”

⁹So he went out and followed, and he did not know that what the angel did was really happening, but he thought he was seeing a vision.

¹⁰After they passed the first and second guards, they came to the iron gate that leads into the city, which opened to them by itself. They went outside and passed one street, and suddenly the angel left him.

¹¹When Peter came to himself, he said, “Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from Herod’s grasp and from all that the Jewish people expected.”

¹²As soon as he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many had assembled and were praying.

¹³He knocked at the door of the outer gate, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer.

¹⁴She recognized Peter’s voice, and because of her joy, she did not open the gate but ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the outer gate.

¹⁵“You’re out of your mind!” they told her. But she kept insisting that it was true, and they said, “It’s his angel.”

¹⁶Peter, however, kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were amazed.

¹⁷Motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. “Tell these things to James and the brothers,” he said, and he left and went to another place.

¹⁸At daylight, there was a great commotion among the soldiers as to what had become of Peter.

¹⁹After Herod had searched and did not find him, he interrogated the guards and ordered their execution. Then Herod went down from Judea to Caesarea and stayed there.

²⁰Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon. Together they presented themselves before him. After winning over Blastus, who was in charge of the king’s bedroom, they asked for peace, because their country was supplied with food from the king’s country.

²¹On an appointed day, dressed in royal robes and seated on the throne, Herod delivered a speech to them.

²²The assembled people began to shout, “It’s the voice of a god and not of a man!”

²³At once an angel of the Lord struck him because he did not give the glory to God, and he was eaten by worms and died.

²⁴But the word of God flourished and multiplied.

²⁵After they had completed their relief mission, Barnabas and Saul returned to Jerusalem, taking along John who was called Mark.