Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him.

²They observed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean  — that is, unwashed — hands.

³(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders.

⁴When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they have washed. And there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches. )

⁵So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders, instead of eating bread with ceremonially unclean hands?”

⁶He answered them, “Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.

⁷ They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands.

⁸Abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition.”

⁹He also said to them, “You have a fine way of invalidating God’s command in order to set up your tradition!

¹⁰For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death.

¹¹But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or mother: Whatever benefit you might have received from me is corban’” (that is, an offering devoted to God),

¹²“you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.

¹³You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many other similar things.”

¹⁴Summoning the crowd again, he told them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand:

¹⁵Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”

¹⁶

¹⁷When he went into the house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable.

¹⁸He said to them, “Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don’t you realize that nothing going into a person from the outside can defile him?

¹⁹For it doesn’t go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated” (thus he declared all foods clean ).

²⁰And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.

²¹For from within, out of people’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders,

²²adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

²³All these evil things come from within and defile a person.”

²⁴He got up and departed from there to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but he could not escape notice.

²⁵Instead, immediately after hearing about him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit came and fell at his feet.

²⁶The woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she was asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter.

²⁷He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, because it isn’t right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”

²⁸But she replied to him, “Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”

²⁹Then he told her, “Because of this reply, you may go. The demon has left your daughter.”

³⁰When she went back to her home, she found her child lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.

³¹Again, leaving the region of Tyre, he went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decapolis.

³²They brought to him a deaf man who had difficulty speaking and begged Jesus to lay his hand on him.

³³So he took him away from the crowd in private. After putting his fingers in the man’s ears and spitting, he touched his tongue.

³⁴Looking up to heaven, he sighed deeply and said to him, “Ephphatha!” (that is, “Be opened!”).

³⁵Immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was loosened, and he began to speak clearly.

³⁶He ordered them to tell no one, but the more he ordered them, the more they proclaimed it.

³⁷They were extremely astonished and said, “He has done everything well. He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

¹There was another famine in the land in addition to the one that had occurred in Abraham’s time. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, at Gerar.

²The LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt. Live in the land that I tell you about;

³stay in this land as an alien, and I will be with you and bless you. For I will give all these lands to you and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.

⁴I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of the sky, I will give your offspring all these lands, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed by your offspring,

⁵because Abraham listened to me and kept my mandate, my commands, my statutes, and my instructions.”

⁶So Isaac settled in Gerar.

⁷When the men of the place asked about his wife, he said, “She is my sister,” for he was afraid to say “my wife,” thinking, “The men of the place will kill me on account of Rebekah, for she is a beautiful woman.”

⁸When Isaac had been there for some time, Abimelech king of the Philistines looked down from the window and was surprised to see Isaac caressing his wife Rebekah.

⁹Abimelech sent for Isaac and said, “So she is really your wife! How could you say, ‘She is my sister’?” Isaac answered him, “Because I thought I might die on account of her.”

¹⁰Then Abimelech said, “What is this you’ve done to us? One of the people could easily have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt on us.”

¹¹So Abimelech warned all the people, “Whoever harms this man or his wife will certainly be put to death.”

¹²Isaac sowed seed in that land, and in that year he reaped a hundred times what was sown. The LORD blessed him,

¹³and the man became rich and kept getting richer until he was very wealthy.

¹⁴He had flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and many slaves, and the Philistines were envious of him.

¹⁵Philistines stopped up all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the days of his father Abraham, filling them with dirt.

¹⁶And Abimelech said to Isaac, “Leave us, for you are much too powerful for us.”

¹⁷So Isaac left there, camped in the Gerar Valley, and lived there.

¹⁸Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the days of his father Abraham and that the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died. He gave them the same names his father had given them.

¹⁹Then Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found a well of spring water there.

²⁰But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen and said, “The water is ours!” So he named the well Esek because they argued with him.

²¹Then they dug another well and quarreled over that one also, so he named it Sitnah.

²²He moved from there and dug another, and they did not quarrel over it. He named it Rehoboth and said, “For now the LORD has made space for us, and we will be fruitful in the land.”

²³From there he went up to Beer-sheba,

²⁴and the LORD appeared to him that night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your offspring because of my servant Abraham.”

²⁵So he built an altar there, called on the name of the LORD, and pitched his tent there. Isaac’s servants also dug a well there.

²⁶Now Abimelech came to him from Gerar with Ahuzzath his adviser and Phicol the commander of his army.

²⁷Isaac said to them, “Why have you come to me? You hated me and sent me away from you.”

²⁸They replied, “We have clearly seen how the LORD has been with you. We think there should be an oath between two parties — between us and you. Let us make a covenant with you:

²⁹You will not harm us, just as we have not harmed you but have done only what was good to you, sending you away in peace. You are now blessed by the LORD.”

³⁰So he prepared a banquet for them, and they ate and drank.

³¹They got up early in the morning and swore an oath to each other. Isaac sent them on their way, and they left him in peace.

³²On that same day Isaac’s servants came to tell him about the well they had dug, saying to him, “We have found water!”

³³He called it Sheba. Therefore the name of the city is still Beer-sheba today.

³⁴When Esau was forty years old, he took as his wives Judith daughter of Beeri the Hethite, and Basemath daughter of Elon the Hethite.

³⁵They made life bitter for Isaac and Rebekah.

¹Children, obey your parents in the Lord, because this is right.

²Honor your father and mother, which is the first commandment with a promise,

³so that it may go well with you and that you may have a long life in the land.

⁴Fathers, don’t stir up anger in your children, but bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

⁵Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as you would Christ.

⁶Don’t work only while being watched, as people-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, do God’s will from your heart.

⁷Serve with a good attitude, as to the Lord and not to people,

⁸knowing that whatever good each one does, slave or free, he will receive this back from the Lord.

⁹And masters, treat your slaves the same way, without threatening them, because you know that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him.

¹⁰Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.

¹¹Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil.

¹²For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil, spiritual forces in the heavens.

¹³For this reason take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.

¹⁴Stand, therefore, with truth like a belt around your waist, righteousness like armor on your chest,

¹⁵and your feet sandaled with readiness for the gospel of peace.

¹⁶In every situation take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

¹⁷Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit  — which is the word of God.

¹⁸Pray at all times in the Spirit with every prayer and request, and stay alert with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

¹⁹Pray also for me, that the message may be given to me when I open my mouth to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.

²⁰For this I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I might be bold enough to speak about it as I should.

²¹Tychicus, our dearly loved brother and faithful servant in the Lord, will tell you all the news about me so that you may be informed.

²²I am sending him to you for this very reason, to let you know how we are and to encourage your hearts.

²³Peace to the brothers and sisters, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

²⁴Grace be with all who have undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ.

¹I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom:

²Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; rebuke, correct, and encourage with great patience and teaching.

³For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear.

⁴They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths.

⁵But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

⁶For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time for my departure is close.

⁷I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

⁸There is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved his appearing.

⁹Make every effort to come to me soon,

¹⁰because Demas has deserted me, since he loved this present world, and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia.

¹¹Only Luke is with me. Bring Mark with you, for he is useful to me in the ministry.

¹²I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus.

¹³When you come, bring the cloak I left in Troas with Carpus, as well as the scrolls, especially the parchments.

¹⁴Alexander the coppersmith did great harm to me. The Lord will repay him according to his works.

¹⁵Watch out for him yourself because he strongly opposed our words.

¹⁶At my first defense, no one stood by me, but everyone deserted me. May it not be counted against them.

¹⁷But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that I might fully preach the word and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth.

¹⁸The Lord will rescue me from every evil work and will bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory forever and ever! Amen.

¹⁹Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus.

²⁰Erastus has remained at Corinth; I left Trophimus sick at Miletus.

²¹Make every effort to come before winter. Eubulus greets you, as do Pudens, Linus, Claudia, and all the brothers and sisters.

²²The Lord be with your spirit. Grace be with you all.

¹Job continued his discourse, saying:

²As God lives, who has deprived me of justice, and the Almighty who has made me bitter,

³as long as my breath is still in me and the breath from God remains in my nostrils,

⁴my lips will not speak unjustly, and my tongue will not utter deceit.

⁵I will never affirm that you are right. I will maintain my integrity until I die.

⁶I will cling to my righteousness and never let it go. My conscience will not accuse me as long as I live!

⁷May my enemy be like the wicked and my opponent like the unjust.

⁸For what hope does the godless person have when he is cut off, when God takes away his life?

⁹Will God hear his cry when distress comes on him?

¹⁰Will he delight in the Almighty? Will he call on God at all times?

¹¹I will teach you about God’s power. I will not conceal what the Almighty has planned.

¹²All of you have seen this for yourselves, why do you keep up this empty talk?

¹³This is a wicked man’s lot from God, the inheritance the ruthless receive from the Almighty.

¹⁴Even if his children increase, they are destined for the sword; his descendants will never have enough food.

¹⁵Those who survive him will be buried by the plague, yet their widows will not weep for them.

¹⁶Though he piles up silver like dust and heaps up fine clothing like clay —

¹⁷he may heap it up, but the righteous will wear it, and the innocent will divide up his silver.

¹⁸The house he built is like a moth’s cocoon or a shelter set up by a watchman.

¹⁹He lies down wealthy, but will do so no more; when he opens his eyes, it is gone.

²⁰Terrors overtake him like a flood; a storm wind sweeps him away at night.

²¹An east wind picks him up, and he is gone; it carries him away from his place.

²²It blasts at him without mercy, while he flees desperately from its force.

²³It claps its hands at him and scoffs at him from its place.

¹A psalm of David. When he was in the Wilderness of Judah. [1] God, you are my God; I eagerly seek you. I thirst for you; my body faints for you in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water.

²So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory.

³My lips will glorify you because your faithful love is better than life.

⁴So I will bless you as long as I live; at your name, I will lift up my hands.

⁵You satisfy me as with rich food; my mouth will praise you with joyful lips.

⁶When I think of you as I lie on my bed, I meditate on you during the night watches

⁷because you are my helper; I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings.

⁸I follow close to you; your right hand holds on to me.

⁹But those who intend to destroy my life will go into the depths of the earth.

¹⁰They will be given over to the power of the sword; they will become a meal for jackals.

¹¹But the king will rejoice in God; all who swear by him will boast, for the mouths of liars will be shut.

¹Don’t boast about tomorrow, for you don’t know what a day might bring.

²Let another praise you, and not your own mouth — a stranger, and not your own lips.

³A stone is heavy and sand, a burden, but aggravation from a fool outweighs them both.

⁴Fury is cruel, and anger a flood, but who can withstand jealousy?

⁵Better an open reprimand than concealed love.

⁶The wounds of a friend are trustworthy, but the kisses of an enemy are excessive.

⁷A person who is full tramples on a honeycomb, but to a hungry person, any bitter thing is sweet.

⁸Anyone wandering from his home is like a bird wandering from its nest.

⁹Oil and incense bring joy to the heart, and the sweetness of a friend is better than self-counsel.

¹⁰Don’t abandon your friend or your father’s friend, and don’t go to your brother’s house in your time of calamity; better a neighbor nearby than a brother far away.

¹¹Be wise, my son, and bring my heart joy, so that I can answer anyone who taunts me.

¹²A sensible person sees danger and takes cover; the inexperienced keep going and are punished.

¹³Take his garment, for he has put up security for a stranger; get collateral if it is for foreigners.

¹⁴If one blesses his neighbor with a loud voice early in the morning, it will be counted as a curse to him.

¹⁵An endless dripping on a rainy day and a nagging wife are alike;

¹⁶the one who controls her controls the wind and grasps oil with his right hand.

¹⁷Iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens another.

¹⁸Whoever tends a fig tree will eat its fruit, and whoever looks after his master will be honored.

¹⁹As water reflects the face, so the heart reflects the person.

²⁰Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and people’s eyes are never satisfied.

²¹A crucible refines silver, a smelter refines gold, and a person refines his praise.

²²Though you grind a fool in a mortar with a pestle along with grain, you will not separate his foolishness from him.

²³Know well the condition of your flock, and pay attention to your herds,

²⁴for wealth is not forever; not even a crown lasts for all time.

²⁵When hay is removed and new growth appears and the grain from the hills is gathered in,

²⁶lambs will provide your clothing, and goats, the price of a field;

²⁷there will be enough goat’s milk for your food — food for your household and nourishment for your female servants.

¹Manasseh was twelve years old when he became king, and he reigned fifty-five years in Jerusalem.

²He did what was evil in the LORD’s sight, imitating the detestable practices of the nations that the LORD had dispossessed before the Israelites.

³He rebuilt the high places that his father Hezekiah had torn down and reestablished the altars for the Baals. He made Asherah poles, and he bowed in worship to all the stars in the sky and served them.

⁴He built altars in the LORD’s temple, where the LORD had said, “Jerusalem is where my name will remain forever.”

⁵He built altars to all the stars in the sky in both courtyards of the LORD’s temple.

⁶He passed his sons through the fire in Ben Hinnom Valley. He practiced witchcraft, divination, and sorcery, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did a huge amount of evil in the LORD’s sight, angering him.

⁷Manasseh set up a carved image of the idol, which he had made, in God’s temple that God had spoken about to David and his son Solomon: “I will establish my name forever in this temple and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel.

⁸I will never again remove the feet of the Israelites from the land where I stationed your ancestors, if only they will be careful to do all I have commanded them through Moses — all the law, statutes, and judgments.”

⁹So Manasseh caused Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to stray so that they did worse evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites.

¹⁰The LORD spoke to Manasseh and his people, but they didn’t listen.

¹¹So he brought against them the military commanders of the king of Assyria. They captured Manasseh with hooks, bound him with bronze shackles, and took him to Babylon.

¹²When he was in distress, he sought the favor of the LORD his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his ancestors.

¹³He prayed to him, and the LORD was receptive to his prayer. He granted his request and brought him back to Jerusalem, to his kingdom. So Manasseh came to know that the LORD is God.

¹⁴After this, he built the outer wall of the city of David from west of Gihon in the valley to the entrance of the Fish Gate; he brought it around the Ophel, and he heightened it considerably. He also placed military commanders in all the fortified cities of Judah.

¹⁵He removed the foreign gods and the idol from the LORD’s temple, along with all the altars that he had built on the mountain of the LORD’s temple and in Jerusalem, and he threw them outside the city.

¹⁶He built the altar of the LORD and offered fellowship and thank offerings on it. Then he told Judah to serve the LORD, the God of Israel.

¹⁷However, the people still sacrificed at the high places, but only to the LORD their God.

¹⁸The rest of the events of Manasseh’s reign, along with his prayer to his God and the words of the seers who spoke to him in the name of the LORD, the God of Israel, are written in the Events of Israel’s Kings.

¹⁹His prayer and how God was receptive to his prayer, and all his sin and unfaithfulness and the sites where he built high places and set up Asherah poles and carved images before he humbled himself, they are written in the Events of Hozai.

²⁰Manasseh rested with his fathers, and he was buried in his own house. His son Amon became king in his place.

²¹Amon was twenty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned two years in Jerusalem.

²²He did what was evil in the LORD’s sight, just as his father Manasseh had done. Amon sacrificed to all the carved images that his father Manasseh had made, and he served them.

²³But he did not humble himself before the LORD like his father Manasseh humbled himself; instead, Amon increased his guilt.

²⁴So his servants conspired against him and put him to death in his own house.

²⁵The common people killed all who had conspired against King Amon, and they made his son Josiah king in his place.

¹The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time:

²“Get up! Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach the message that I tell you.”

³Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the LORD’s command. Now Nineveh was an extremely great city, a three-day walk.

⁴Jonah set out on the first day of his walk in the city and proclaimed, “In forty days Nineveh will be demolished!”

⁵Then the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and dressed in sackcloth — from the greatest of them to the least.

⁶When word reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his royal robe, put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

⁷Then he issued a decree in Nineveh: By order of the king and his nobles: No person or animal, herd or flock, is to taste anything at all. They must not eat or drink water.

⁸Furthermore, both people and animals must be covered with sackcloth, and everyone must call out earnestly to God. Each must turn from his evil ways and from his wrongdoing.

⁹Who knows? God may turn and relent; he may turn from his burning anger so that we will not perish.

¹⁰God saw their actions — that they had turned from their evil ways  — so God relented from the disaster he had threatened them with. And he did not do it.

¹After they passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a Jewish synagogue.

²As usual, Paul went into the synagogue, and on three Sabbath days reasoned with them from the Scriptures,

³explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and rise from the dead: “This Jesus I am proclaiming to you is the Messiah.”

⁴Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, including a large number of God-fearing Greeks, as well as a number of the leading women.

⁵But the Jews became jealous, and they brought together some wicked men from the marketplace, formed a mob, and started a riot in the city. Attacking Jason’s house, they searched for them to bring them out to the public assembly.

⁶When they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city officials, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here too,

⁷and Jason has welcomed them. They are all acting contrary to Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king — Jesus.”

⁸The crowd and city officials who heard these things were upset.

⁹After taking a security bond from Jason and the others, they released them.

¹⁰As soon as it was night, the brothers and sisters sent Paul and Silas away to Berea. Upon arrival, they went into the synagogue of the Jews.

¹¹The people here were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, since they received the word with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

¹²Consequently, many of them believed, including a number of the prominent Greek women as well as men.

¹³But when the Jews from Thessalonica found out that the word of God had been proclaimed by Paul at Berea, they came there too, agitating and upsetting the crowds.

¹⁴Then the brothers and sisters immediately sent Paul away to go to the coast, but Silas and Timothy stayed on there.

¹⁵Those who escorted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving instructions for Silas and Timothy to come to him as quickly as possible, they departed.

¹⁶While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed when he saw that the city was full of idols.

¹⁷So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with those who worshiped God, as well as in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there.

¹⁸Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also debated with him. Some said, “What is this ignorant show-off trying to say?” Others replied, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign deities” — because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

¹⁹They took him and brought him to the Areopagus, and said, “May we learn about this new teaching you are presenting?

²⁰Because what you say sounds strange to us, and we want to know what these things mean.”

²¹Now all the Athenians and the foreigners residing there spent their time on nothing else but telling or hearing something new.

²²Paul stood in the middle of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every respect.

²³For as I was passing through and observing the objects of your worship, I even found an altar on which was inscribed: ‘To an Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.

²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it  — he is Lord of heaven and earth  — does not live in shrines made by hands.

²⁵Neither is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives everyone life and breath and all things.

²⁶From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live.

²⁷He did this so that they might seek God, and perhaps they might reach out and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.

²⁸For in him we live and move and have our being, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’

²⁹Since we are God’s offspring then, we shouldn’t think that the divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image fashioned by human art and imagination.

³⁰“Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent,

³¹because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

³²When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some began to ridicule him, but others said, “We’d like to hear from you again about this.”

³³So Paul left their presence.

³⁴However, some people joined him and believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.