Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Now He said to His disciples, “It is inevitable thatstumbling blocks come, but woe to one through whom they come!

²It is better for him if a millstone is hung around his neck and heis thrown into the sea, than that he may cause one of these little ones tosin.

³Be on your guard! If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him.

⁴And if he sins against you seven times a day, and returns to you seven times, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”

⁵The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”

⁶But the Lord said, “If youhad faiththe size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it wouldobey you.

⁷“Now which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him after he comes in from the field, ‘Come immediately and recline at the table to eat’?

⁸On the contrary, will he not say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and properlyclothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; andafterward youmay eat and drink’?

⁹He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he?

¹⁰So you too, when you do all the things which were commanded you, say, ‘We areunworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’ ”

¹¹While He was on the way to Jerusalem, He was passing between Samaria and Galilee.

¹²And as He entered a village, ten men with leprosy who stood at a distance met Him;

¹³and they raised their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

¹⁴When He saw them, He said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they were going, they were cleansed.

¹⁵Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice,

¹⁶and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷But Jesus responded and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine—where are they?

¹⁸Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?”

¹⁹And He said to him, “Stand up and go; your faith hasmade you well.”

²⁰Now He was questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, and He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming withsigns that can be observed;

²¹nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God isin your midst.”

²²And He said to the disciples, “The days will come when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it.

²³And they will say to you, ‘Look there,’ or, ‘Look here!’ Do not leave, and do not run after them.

²⁴For just like the lightning, when it flashes out of one partof the sky, shines to the other partof the sky, so will the Son of Man be in His day.

²⁵But first He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.

²⁶And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man:

²⁷people were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, and they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.

²⁸It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, and they were building;

²⁹but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire andbrimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.

³⁰It will bejust the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.

³¹On that day, the one who will be on thehousetop,with his goods in the house, must not go down to take them out; and likewise the one in the field must not turn back.

³²Remember Lot’s wife.

³³Whoever strives tosave hislife will lose it, and whoever loses his life will keep it.

³⁴I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left.

³⁵There will be two women grinding at the same place; one will be taken and the other will be left.

³⁶[Two men will be in the field; one will be taken and the other will be left.”]

³⁷And responding, they *said to Him, “Where, Lord?” And He said to them, “Where the body is, there also thevultures will be gathered.”

¹Now a man from the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi.

²And the woman conceived and gave birth to a son; and when she saw that he was beautiful, she hid him for three months.

³But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and covered it with tar and pitch. Then she put the child in it and set it among the reeds by the bank of the Nile.

⁴And his sister stood at a distance to find out what would happen to him.

⁵Now the daughter of Pharaoh came down to bathe at the Nile, with her female attendants walking alongside the Nile; and she saw the basket among the reeds and sent her slave woman, and she brought it to her.

⁶When she opened it, she saw the child, and behold, the boy was crying. And she had pity on him and said, “This is one of the Hebrews’ children.”

⁷Then his sister said to Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and call a woman for you who is nursing from the Hebrew women, so that she may nurse the child for you?”

⁸Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Go ahead.” So the girl went and called the child’s mother.

⁹Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him.

¹⁰And the child grew, and she brought him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. And she named him Moses, and said, “Because I drew him out of the water.”

¹¹Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his fellow Hebrews and looked at their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his fellow Hebrews.

¹²So he looked this way and that, and when he saw that there was no one around, he struck and killed the Egyptian, and hid his body in the sand.

¹³Now he went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, “Why are you striking your companion?”

¹⁴But he said, “Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and said, “Surely the matter has become known!”

¹⁵When Pharaoh heard about this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well.

¹⁶Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.

¹⁷Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock.

¹⁸When they came to their father Reuel, he said, “Why have you come back so soon today?”

¹⁹They said, “An Egyptian saved us from the shepherds, and what is more, he even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

²⁰So he said to his daughters, “Where is he then? Why is it that you have left the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.”

²¹And Moses was willing to live with the man. And he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses.

²²Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, “I have been a stranger in a foreign land.”

²³Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel groaned because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage ascended to God.

²⁴So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

²⁵And God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.

¹Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

²through whom we also have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we celebrate in hope of the glory of God.

³And not only this, but we also celebrate in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance;

⁴and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope;

⁵and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

⁶For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

⁷For one will hardly die for a righteous person; though perhaps for the good person someone would even dare to die.

⁸But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

⁹Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.

¹⁰For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.

¹¹And not only this, but we also celebrate in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

¹²Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all mankind, because all sinned—

¹³for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not counted against anyone when there is no law.

¹⁴Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the violation committed by Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

¹⁵But the gracious gift is not like the offense. For if by the offense of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many.

¹⁶The gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from one offense, resulting in condemnation, but on the other hand the gracious gift arose from many offenses, resulting in justification.

¹⁷For if by the offense of the one, death reigned through the one, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

¹⁸So then, as through one offense the result was condemnation to all mankind, so also through one act of righteousness the result was justification of life to all mankind.

¹⁹For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

²⁰The Law came in so that the offense would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

²¹so that, as sin reigned in death, so also grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John,

²who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, everything that he saw.

³Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it; for the time is near.

⁴John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before His throne,

⁵and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood—

⁶and He made us into a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

⁷BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.

⁸“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and whois to come, the Almighty.”

⁹I, John, your brother and fellow participant in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

¹⁰I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet,

¹¹saying, “Write on a scroll what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.”

¹²Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. And after turning I saw seven golden lampstands;

¹³and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and wrapped around the chest with a golden sash.

¹⁴His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire.

¹⁵His feet were like burnished bronze when it has been heated to a glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters.

¹⁶In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength.

¹⁷When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last,

¹⁸and the living One; and Iwas dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.

¹⁹Therefore write the things which you have seen,and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things.

²⁰As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.

¹Cast your bread on the surface of the waters, for you will find it after many days.

²Divide your portion to seven, or even to eight, for you do not know what misfortune may occur on the earth.

³If the clouds are full, they pour out rain on the earth; and whether a tree falls toward the south or toward the north, wherever the tree falls, there it lies.

⁴One who watches the wind will not sow and one who looks at the clouds will not harvest.

⁵Just as you do not know the path of the wind, and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes everything.

⁶Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle in the evening, for you do not know whether one or the other will succeed, or whether both of them alike will be good.

⁷The light is pleasant, and it is good for the eyes to see the sun.

⁸Indeed, if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything that is to come will be futility.

⁹Rejoice, young man, during your childhood, and let your heart be pleasant during the days of young manhood. And follow the impulses of your heart and the desires of your eyes. Yet know that God will bring you to judgment for all these things.

¹⁰So remove sorrow from your heart and keep pain away from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.

¹I will sing of the graciousness of the LORD forever; To all generations I will make Your faithfulness known with my mouth.

²For I have said, “Graciousness will be built up forever; In the heavens You will establish Your faithfulness.”

³“I have made a covenant with My chosen; I have sworn to My servant David,

⁴I will establish your descendants forever And build up your throne to all generations.” Selah

⁵The heavens will praise Your wonders, LORD; Your faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones.

⁶For who in the skies is comparable to the LORD? Who among the sons of the mighty is like the LORD,

⁷A God greatly feared in the council of the holy ones, And awesome above all those who are around Him?

⁸LORD God of armies, who is like You, mighty LORD? Your faithfulness also surrounds You.

⁹You rule the surging of the sea; When its waves rise, You calm them.

¹⁰You Yourself crushed Rahab like one who is slain; You scattered Your enemies with Your mighty arm.

¹¹The heavens are Yours, the earth also is Yours; The world and all it contains, You have established them.

¹²The north and the south, You have created them; Tabor and Hermon shout for joy at Your name.

¹³You have a strong arm; Your hand is mighty, Your right hand is exalted.

¹⁴Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; Mercy and truth go before You.

¹⁵Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound! LORD, they walk in the light of Your face.

¹⁶In Your name they rejoice all the day, And by Your righteousness they are exalted.

¹⁷For You are the glory of their strength, And by Your favor our horn is exalted.

¹⁸For our shield belongs to the LORD, And our king to the Holy One of Israel.

¹⁹Once You spoke in vision to Your godly ones, And said, “I have given help to one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from the people.

²⁰I have found My servant David; With My holy oil I have anointed him,

²¹With whom My hand will be established; My arm also will strengthen him.

²²The enemy will not deceive him, Nor will the son of wickedness afflict him.

²³But I will crush his adversaries before him, And strike those who hate him.

²⁴My faithfulness and My favor will be with him, And in My name his horn will be exalted.

²⁵I will also place his hand on the sea, And his right hand on the rivers.

²⁶He will call to Me, ‘You are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’

²⁷I will also make him My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth.

²⁸I will maintain My favor for him forever, And My covenant shall be confirmed to him.

²⁹So I will establish his descendants forever, And his throne as the days of heaven.

³⁰“If his sons abandon My Law And do not walk in My judgments,

³¹If they violate My statutes And do not keep My commandments,

³²Then I will punish their wrongdoing with the rod, And their guilt with afflictions.

³³But I will not withhold My favor from him, Nor deal falsely in My faithfulness.

³⁴I will not violate My covenant, Nor will I alter the utterance of My lips.

³⁵Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David.

³⁶His descendants shall endure forever, And his throne as the sun before Me.

³⁷It shall be established forever like the moon, And a witness in the sky is faithful.” Selah

³⁸But You have rejected and refused, You have been full of wrath against Your anointed.

³⁹You have repudiated the covenant of Your servant; You have profaned his crown in the dust.

⁴⁰You have broken down all his walls; You have brought his strongholds to ruin.

⁴¹All who pass along the way plunder him; He has become a disgrace to his neighbors.

⁴²You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries; You have made all his enemies rejoice.

⁴³You also turn back the edge of his sword, And have not made him stand in battle.

⁴⁴You have put an end to his splendor And cast his throne to the ground.

⁴⁵You have shortened the days of his youth; You have covered him with shame. Selah

⁴⁶How long, LORD? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath burn like fire?

⁴⁷Remember what my lifespan is; For what futility You have created all the sons of mankind!

⁴⁸What man can live and not see death? Can he save his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah

⁴⁹Where are Your former acts of favor, Lord, Which You swore to David in Your faithfulness?

⁵⁰Remember, Lord, the taunt against Your servants; How I carry in my heart the taunts of all the many peoples,

⁵¹With which Your enemies have taunted, LORD, With which they have taunted the footsteps of Your anointed.

⁵²Blessed be the LORD forever! Amen and Amen.

¹A good name is to be more desired than great wealth; Favor is better than silver and gold.

²The rich and the poor have a common bond, The LORD is the Maker of them all.

³A prudent person sees evil and hides himself, But the naive proceed, and pay the penalty.

⁴The reward of humility and the fear of the LORD Are riches, honor, and life.

⁵Thorns and snares are in the way of the perverse; One who guards himself will be far from them.

⁶Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he grows older he will not abandon it.

⁷The rich rules over the poor, And the borrower becomes the lender’s slave.

⁸One who sows injustice will reap disaster, And the rod of his fury will perish.

⁹One who is generous will be blessed, Because he gives some of his food to the poor.

¹⁰Drive out the scoffer, and strife will leave, Even quarreling and dishonor will cease.

¹¹One who loves purity of heart And whose speech is gracious, the king is his friend.

¹²The eyes of the LORD protect knowledge, But He overthrows the words of the treacherous person.

¹³The lazy one says, “There is a lion outside; I will be killed in the streets!”

¹⁴The mouth of an adulteress is a deep pit; He who is cursed of the LORD will fall into it.

¹⁵Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; The rod of discipline will remove it far from him.

¹⁶One who oppresses the poor to make more for himself, Or gives to the rich, will only come to poverty.

¹⁷Extend your ear and hear the words of the wise, And apply your mind to my knowledge;

¹⁸For it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, So that they may be ready on your lips.

¹⁹So that your trust may be in the LORD, I have taught you today, you indeed.

²⁰Have I not written to you excellent things Of counsels and knowledge,

²¹To make you know the certainty of the words of truth, So that you may correctly answer him who sent you?

²²Do not rob the poor because he is poor, Nor crush the needy at the gate;

²³For the LORD will plead their case And take the life of those who rob them.

²⁴Do not make friends with a person given to anger, Or go with a hot-tempered person,

²⁵Or you will learn his ways And find a snare for yourself.

²⁶Do not be among those who shake hands, Among those who become guarantors for debts.

²⁷If you have nothing with which to repay, Why should he take your bed from under you?

²⁸Do not move the ancient boundary Which your fathers have set.

²⁹Do you see a person skilled in his work? He will stand before kings; He will not stand before obscure people.

¹On that day the Book of Moses was read aloud as the people listened; and there was found written in it that no Ammonite or Moabite was ever to enter the assembly of God,

²because they did not meet the sons of Israel with bread and water, but hired Balaam against them to curse them. However, our God turned the curse into a blessing.

³So when they heard the Law, they excluded all foreigners from Israel.

⁴Now prior to this, Eliashib the priest, who was appointed over the chambers of the house of our God, being related to Tobiah,

⁵had prepared a large room for him, where previously they used to put the grain offerings, the frankincense, the utensils and the tithes of grain, wine, and oil prescribed for the Levites, the singers, and the gatekeepers, and the contributions for the priests.

⁶But during all this time I was not in Jerusalem, for in the thirty-second year of Artaxerxes king of Babylon I had come to the king. After some time, however, I requested a leave of absence from the king,

⁷and I came to Jerusalem and learned about the evil that Eliashib had committed for Tobiah, by preparing a room for him in the courtyards of the house of God.

⁸It was very displeasing to me, so I threw all of Tobiah’s household articles out of the room.

⁹Then I gave an order, and they cleansed the rooms; and I returned the utensils of the house of God there with the grain offering and the frankincense.

¹⁰I also discovered that the portions of the Levites had not been given to them, so the Levites and the singers who performed the service had gone away, each to his own field.

¹¹So I reprimanded the officials and said, “Why has the house of God been neglected?” Then I gathered them together and stationed them at their posts.

¹²All Judah then brought the tithe of the grain, wine, and oil into the storehouses.

¹³To be in charge of the storehouses, I appointed Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and Pedaiah from the Levites, and in addition to them was Hanan the son of Zaccur, the son of Mattaniah; for they were considered reliable, and it was their task to distribute to their kinsmen.

¹⁴Remember me for this, my God, and do not wipe out my loyal deeds which I have performed for the house of my God and its services.

¹⁵In those days I saw in Judah people who were treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys, as well as wine, grapes, figs, and every kind of load, and they were bringing them into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. So I admonished them on the day they sold food.

¹⁶Also people of Tyre were living there who imported fish and all kinds of merchandise, and sold them to the sons of Judah on the Sabbath, even in Jerusalem.

¹⁷Then I reprimanded the nobles of Judah and said to them, “What is this evil thing that you are doing, by profaning the Sabbath day?

¹⁸Did your fathers not do the same, so that our God brought on us and on this city all this trouble? Yet you are adding to the wrath against Israel by profaning the Sabbath.”

¹⁹And it came about that just as it became dark at the gates of Jerusalem before the Sabbath, I ordered that the doors be shut, and that they were not to open them until after the Sabbath. Then I stationed some of my servants at the gates so that no load would enter on the Sabbath day.

²⁰Once or twice the traders and merchants of every kind of merchandise spent the night outside Jerusalem.

²¹Then I warned them and said to them, “Why do you spend the night in front of the wall? If you do so again, I will use force against you.” From that time on they did not come on the Sabbath.

²²And I ordered the Levites that they were to purify themselves and come as gatekeepers to sanctify the Sabbath day. For this also remember me, my God, and have compassion on me according to the greatness of Your mercy.

²³In those days I also saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.

²⁴As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them knew how to speak the language of Judah, but only the language of his own people.

²⁵So I quarreled with them and cursed them, and struck some of them and pulled out their hair, and made them swear by God, “You shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor take any of their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

²⁶Did Solomon the king of Israel not sin regarding these things? Yet among the many nations there was no king like him, and he was loved by his God, and God made him king over all Israel; yet the foreign women caused even him to sin.

²⁷Has it not then been reported about you that you have committed all this great evil by acting unfaithfully against our God, by marrying foreign women?”

²⁸Even one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, became a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite, so I chased him away from me.

²⁹Remember them, my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priesthood and the Levites.

³⁰So I purified them from everything foreign, and assigned duties to the priests and the Levites, each in his work,

³¹and I arranged for the delivery of wood at appointed times and for the first fruits. Remember me, my God, for good.

¹In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev.

²Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to seek the favor of the LORD,

³speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the LORD of armies, and to the prophets, saying, “Shall I weep in the fifth month and fast, as I have done these many years?”

⁴Then the word of the LORD of armies came to me, saying,

⁵“Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted?

⁶And when you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?

⁷Are these not the words which the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and carefree along with its cities around it, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?’ ”

⁸Then the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying,

⁹“This is what the LORD of armies has said: ‘Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother;

¹⁰and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.’

¹¹But they refused to pay attention, and turned a stubborn shoulder and plugged their ears from hearing.

¹²They also made their hearts as hard as a diamond so that they could not hear the Law and the words which the LORD of armies had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came from the LORD of armies.

¹³And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,” says the LORD of armies;

¹⁴“but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they did not know. So the land was desolated behind them so that no one went back and forth, since they made the pleasant land desolate.”

¹Some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

²And after Paul and Barnabas had a heated argument and debate with them, the brothers determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue.

³Therefore, after being sent on their way by the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles, and they were bringing great joy to all the brothers and sisters.

⁴When they arrived in Jerusalem, they were received by the church, the apostles, and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.

⁵But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to keep the Law of Moses.”

⁶The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter.

⁷After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe.

⁸And God, who knows the heart, testified to them giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He also did to us;

⁹and He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.

¹⁰Since this is the case, why are you putting God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our forefathers nor we have been able to bear?

¹¹But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, in the same way as they also are.”

¹²All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles.

¹³After they stopped speaking, James responded, saying, “Brothers, listen to me.

¹⁴Simeon has described how God first concerned Himself about taking a people for His name from among the Gentiles.

¹⁵The words of the Prophets agree with this, just as it is written:

¹⁶‘AFTER THESE THINGS I will return, AND I WILL REBUILD THE FALLEN TABERNACLE OF DAVID, AND I WILL REBUILD ITS RUINS, AND I WILL RESTORE IT,

¹⁷SO THAT THE REST OF MANKIND MAY SEEK THE LORD, AND ALL THE GENTILES WHO ARE CALLED BY MY NAME,’

¹⁸SAYS THE LORD, WHO MAKES THESE THINGS known from long ago.

¹⁹Therefore, it is my judgment that we do not cause trouble for those from the Gentiles who are turning to God,

²⁰but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols, from acts of sexual immorality, from what has been strangled, and from blood.

²¹For from ancient generations Moses has those who preach him in every city, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

²²Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas: Judas who was called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brothers,

²³and they sent this letter with them: “The apostles and the brothers who are elders, to the brothers and sisters in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia who are from the Gentiles: Greetings.

²⁴Since we have heard that some of our number to whom we gave no instruction have confused you by their teaching, upsetting your souls,

²⁵it seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,

²⁶men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

²⁷Therefore, we have sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will also report the same things by word of mouth.

²⁸For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials:

²⁹that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from acts of sexual immorality; if you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell.”

³⁰So when they were sent away, they went down to Antioch; and after gathering the congregation together, they delivered the letter.

³¹When they had read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement.

³²Judas and Silas, also being prophets themselves, encouraged and strengthened the brothers and sisters with a lengthy message.

³³After they had spent time there, they were sent away from the brothers and sisters in peace to those who had sent them out.

³⁴

³⁵But Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also.

³⁶After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Let’s return and visit the brothers and sisters in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.”

³⁷Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, along with them also.

³⁸But Paul was of the opinion that they should not take along with them this man who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work.

³⁹Now it turned into such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.

⁴⁰But Paul chose Silas, and left after being entrusted by the brothers to the grace of the Lord.

⁴¹And he was traveling through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.