Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹He looked up and saw rich people putting their gifts into the treasury;

²he also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins.

³He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them;

⁴for all of them have contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in all she had to live on.”

⁵When some were speaking about the temple, how it was adorned with beautiful stones and gifts dedicated to God, he said,

⁶“As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down.”

⁷They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?”

⁸And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them.

⁹“When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.”

¹⁰Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom;

¹¹there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

¹²“But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.

¹³This will give you an opportunity to testify.

¹⁴So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance;

¹⁵for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.

¹⁶You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death.

¹⁷You will be hated by all because of my name.

¹⁸But not a hair of your head will perish.

¹⁹By your endurance you will gain your souls.

²⁰“When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near.

²¹Then those in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those inside the city must leave it, and those out in the country must not enter it;

²²for these are days of vengeance, as a fulfillment of all that is written.

²³Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress on the earth and wrath against this people;

²⁴they will fall by the edge of the sword and be taken away as captives among all nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

²⁵“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves.

²⁶People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

²⁷Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.

²⁸Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

²⁹Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees;

³⁰as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near.

³¹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near.

³²Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place.

³³Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

³⁴“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly,

³⁵like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth.

³⁶Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

³⁷Every day he was teaching in the temple, and at night he would go out and spend the night on the Mount of Olives, as it was called.

³⁸And all the people would get up early in the morning to listen to him in the temple.

¹Then the LORD said to Moses, “Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh: Indeed, by a mighty hand he will let them go; by a mighty hand he will drive them out of his land.”

²God also spoke to Moses and said to him: “I am the LORD.

³I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name ‘The LORD’ I did not make myself known to them.

⁴I also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they resided as aliens.

⁵I have also heard the groaning of the Israelites whom the Egyptians are holding as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant.

⁶Say therefore to the Israelites, ‘I am the LORD, and I will free you from the burdens of the Egyptians and deliver you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment.

⁷I will take you as my people, and I will be your God. You shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has freed you from the burdens of the Egyptians.

⁸I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; I will give it to you for a possession. I am the LORD.’”

⁹Moses told this to the Israelites; but they would not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and their cruel slavery.

¹⁰Then the LORD spoke to Moses,

¹¹“Go and tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his land.”

¹²But Moses spoke to the LORD, “The Israelites have not listened to me; how then shall Pharaoh listen to me, poor speaker that I am?”

¹³Thus the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, and gave them orders regarding the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt, charging them to free the Israelites from the land of Egypt.

¹⁴The following are the heads of their ancestral houses: the sons of Reuben, the firstborn of Israel: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi; these are the families of Reuben.

¹⁵The sons of Simeon: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Shaul, the son of a Canaanite woman; these are the families of Simeon.

¹⁶The following are the names of the sons of Levi according to their genealogies: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari, and the length of Levi’s life was one hundred thirty-seven years.

¹⁷The sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei, by their families.

¹⁸The sons of Kohath: Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel, and the length of Kohath’s life was one hundred thirty-three years.

¹⁹The sons of Merari: Mahli and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites according to their genealogies.

²⁰Amram married Jochebed his father’s sister and she bore him Aaron and Moses, and the length of Amram’s life was one hundred thirty-seven years.

²¹The sons of Izhar: Korah, Nepheg, and Zichri.

²²The sons of Uzziel: Mishael, Elzaphan, and Sithri.

²³Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.

²⁴The sons of Korah: Assir, Elkanah, and Abiasaph; these are the families of the Korahites.

²⁵Aaron’s son Eleazar married one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas. These are the heads of the ancestral houses of the Levites by their families.

²⁶It was this same Aaron and Moses to whom the LORD said, “Bring the Israelites out of the land of Egypt, company by company.”

²⁷It was they who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, the same Moses and Aaron.

²⁸On the day when the LORD spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt,

²⁹he said to him, “I am the LORD; tell Pharaoh king of Egypt all that I am speaking to you.”

³⁰But Moses said in the LORD’s presence, “Since I am a poor speaker, why would Pharaoh listen to me?”

¹I am speaking the truth in Christ — I am not lying; my conscience confirms it by the Holy Spirit —

²I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

³For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my own people, my kindred according to the flesh.

⁴They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises;

⁵to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

⁶It is not as though the word of God had failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel,

⁷and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants; but “It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you.”

⁸This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.

⁹For this is what the promise said, “About this time I will return and Sarah shall have a son.”

¹⁰Nor is that all; something similar happened to Rebecca when she had conceived children by one husband, our ancestor Isaac.

¹¹Even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad (so that God’s purpose of election might continue,

¹²not by works but by his call) she was told, “The elder shall serve the younger.”

¹³As it is written, “I have loved Jacob, but I have hated Esau.”

¹⁴What then are we to say? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means!

¹⁵For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

¹⁶So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who shows mercy.

¹⁷For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.”

¹⁸So then he has mercy on whomever he chooses, and he hardens the heart of whomever he chooses.

¹⁹You will say to me then, “Why then does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”

²⁰But who indeed are you, a human being, to argue with God? Will what is molded say to the one who molds it, “Why have you made me like this?”

²¹Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one object for special use and another for ordinary use?

²²What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the objects of wrath that are made for destruction;

²³and what if he has done so in order to make known the riches of his glory for the objects of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory —

²⁴including us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

²⁵As indeed he says in Hosea, “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”

²⁶“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they shall be called children of the living God.”

²⁷And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel, “Though the number of the children of Israel were like the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved;

²⁸for the Lord will execute his sentence on the earth quickly and decisively.”

²⁹And as Isaiah predicted, “If the Lord of hosts had not left survivors to us, we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomorrah.”

³⁰What then are we to say? Gentiles, who did not strive for righteousness, have attained it, that is, righteousness through faith;

³¹but Israel, who did strive for the righteousness that is based on the law, did not succeed in fulfilling that law.

³²Why not? Because they did not strive for it on the basis of faith, but as if it were based on works. They have stumbled over the stumbling stone,

³³as it is written, “See, I am laying in Zion a stone that will make people stumble, a rock that will make them fall, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

¹Then I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a scroll written on the inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals;

²and I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”

³And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it.

⁴And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.

⁵Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”

⁶Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

⁷He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne.

⁸When he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

⁹They sing a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation;

¹⁰you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God, and they will reign on earth.”

¹¹Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders; they numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,

¹²singing with full voice, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!”

¹³Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, singing, “To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

¹⁴And the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the elders fell down and worshiped.

¹Upon my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer.

²“I will rise now and go about the city, in the streets and in the squares; I will seek him whom my soul loves.” I sought him, but found him not.

³The sentinels found me, as they went about in the city. “Have you seen him whom my soul loves?”

⁴Scarcely had I passed them, when I found him whom my soul loves. I held him, and would not let him go until I brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

⁵I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the wild does: do not stir up or awaken love until it is ready!

⁶What is that coming up from the wilderness, like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the merchant?

⁷Look, it is the litter of Solomon! Around it are sixty mighty men of the mighty men of Israel,

⁸all equipped with swords and expert in war, each with his sword at his thigh because of alarms by night.

⁹King Solomon made himself a palanquin from the wood of Lebanon.

¹⁰He made its posts of silver, its back of gold, its seat of purple; its interior was inlaid with love. Daughters of Jerusalem,

¹¹come out. Look, O daughters of Zion, at King Solomon, at the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of the gladness of his heart.

¹The LORD is king, he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed, he is girded with strength. He has established the world; it shall never be moved;

²your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.

³The floods have lifted up, O LORD, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring.

⁴More majestic than the thunders of mighty waters, more majestic than the waves of the sea, majestic on high is the LORD!

⁵Your decrees are very sure; holiness befits your house, O LORD, forevermore.

¹Like snow in summer or rain in harvest, so honor is not fitting for a fool.

²Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, an undeserved curse goes nowhere.

³A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools.

⁴Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself.

⁵Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes.

⁶It is like cutting off one’s foot and drinking down violence, to send a message by a fool.

⁷The legs of a disabled person hang limp; so does a proverb in the mouth of a fool.

⁸It is like binding a stone in a sling to give honor to a fool.

⁹Like a thornbush brandished by the hand of a drunkard is a proverb in the mouth of a fool.

¹⁰Like an archer who wounds everybody is one who hires a passing fool or drunkard.

¹¹Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who reverts to his folly.

¹²Do you see persons wise in their own eyes? There is more hope for fools than for them.

¹³The lazy person says, “There is a lion in the road! There is a lion in the streets!”

¹⁴As a door turns on its hinges, so does a lazy person in bed.

¹⁵The lazy person buries a hand in the dish, and is too tired to bring it back to the mouth.

¹⁶The lazy person is wiser in self-esteem than seven who can answer discreetly.

¹⁷Like somebody who takes a passing dog by the ears is one who meddles in the quarrel of another.

¹⁸Like a maniac who shoots deadly firebrands and arrows,

¹⁹so is one who deceives a neighbor and says, “I am only joking!”

²⁰For lack of wood the fire goes out, and where there is no whisperer, quarreling ceases.

²¹As charcoal is to hot embers and wood to fire, so is a quarrelsome person for kindling strife.

²²The words of a whisperer are like delicious morsels; they go down into the inner parts of the body.

²³Like the glaze covering an earthen vessel are smooth lips with an evil heart.

²⁴An enemy dissembles in speaking while harboring deceit within;

²⁵when an enemy speaks graciously, do not believe it, for there are seven abominations concealed within;

²⁶though hatred is covered with guile, the enemy’s wickedness will be exposed in the assembly.

²⁷Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and a stone will come back on the one who starts it rolling.

²⁸A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin.

¹When Mordecai learned all that had been done, Mordecai tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went through the city, wailing with a loud and bitter cry;

²he went up to the entrance of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth.

³In every province, wherever the king’s command and his decree came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting and weeping and lamenting, and most of them lay in sackcloth and ashes.

⁴When Esther’s maids and her eunuchs came and told her, the queen was deeply distressed; she sent garments to clothe Mordecai, so that he might take off his sackcloth; but he would not accept them.

⁵Then Esther called for Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs, who had been appointed to attend her, and ordered him to go to Mordecai to learn what was happening and why.

⁶Hathach went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate,

⁷and Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the exact sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries for the destruction of the Jews.

⁸Mordecai also gave him a copy of the written decree issued in Susa for their destruction, that he might show it to Esther, explain it to her, and charge her to go to the king to make supplication to him and entreat him for her people.

⁹Hathach went and told Esther what Mordecai had said.

¹⁰Then Esther spoke to Hathach and gave him a message for Mordecai, saying,

¹¹“All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law — all alike are to be put to death. Only if the king holds out the golden scepter to someone, may that person live. I myself have not been called to come in to the king for thirty days.”

¹²When they told Mordecai what Esther had said,

¹³Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.

¹⁴For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.”

¹⁵Then Esther said in reply to Mordecai,

¹⁶“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. I and my maids will also fast as you do. After that I will go to the king, though it is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”

¹⁷Mordecai then went away and did everything as Esther had ordered him.

¹Open your doors, O Lebanon, so that fire may devour your cedars!

²Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, for the glorious trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has been felled!

³Listen, the wail of the shepherds, for their glory is despoiled! Listen, the roar of the lions, for the thickets of the Jordan are destroyed!

⁴Thus said the LORD my God: Be a shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter.

⁵Those who buy them kill them and go unpunished; and those who sell them say, “Blessed be the LORD, for I have become rich”; and their own shepherds have no pity on them.

⁶For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the earth, says the LORD. I will cause them, every one, to fall each into the hand of a neighbor, and each into the hand of the king; and they shall devastate the earth, and I will deliver no one from their hand.

⁷So, on behalf of the sheep merchants, I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. I took two staffs; one I named Favor, the other I named Unity, and I tended the sheep.

⁸In one month I disposed of the three shepherds, for I had become impatient with them, and they also detested me.

⁹So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die; what is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed; and let those that are left devour the flesh of one another!”

¹⁰I took my staff Favor and broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples.

¹¹So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep merchants, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD.

¹²I then said to them, “If it seems right to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” So they weighed out as my wages thirty shekels of silver.

¹³Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it into the treasury” — this lordly price at which I was valued by them. So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them into the treasury in the house of the LORD.

¹⁴Then I broke my second staff Unity, annulling the family ties between Judah and Israel.

¹⁵Then the LORD said to me: Take once more the implements of a worthless shepherd.

¹⁶For I am now raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering, or heal the maimed, or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.

¹⁷Oh, my worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! Let his arm be completely withered, his right eye utterly blinded!

¹While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul passed through the interior regions and came to Ephesus, where he found some disciples.

²He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” They replied, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”

³Then he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” They answered, “Into John’s baptism.”

⁴Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus.”

⁵On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

⁶When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied —

⁷altogether there were about twelve of them.

⁸He entered the synagogue and for three months spoke out boldly, and argued persuasively about the kingdom of God.

⁹When some stubbornly refused to believe and spoke evil of the Way before the congregation, he left them, taking the disciples with him, and argued daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.

¹⁰This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia, both Jews and Greeks, heard the word of the Lord.

¹¹God did extraordinary miracles through Paul,

¹²so that when the handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were brought to the sick, their diseases left them, and the evil spirits came out of them.

¹³Then some itinerant Jewish exorcists tried to use the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.”

¹⁴Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this.

¹⁵But the evil spirit said to them in reply, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?”

¹⁶Then the man with the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered them all, and so overpowered them that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.

¹⁷When this became known to all residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks, everyone was awestruck; and the name of the Lord Jesus was praised.

¹⁸Also many of those who became believers confessed and disclosed their practices.

¹⁹A number of those who practiced magic collected their books and burned them publicly; when the value of these books was calculated, it was found to come to fifty thousand silver coins.

²⁰So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.

²¹Now after these things had been accomplished, Paul resolved in the Spirit to go through Macedonia and Achaia, and then to go on to Jerusalem. He said, “After I have gone there, I must also see Rome.”

²²So he sent two of his helpers, Timothy and Erastus, to Macedonia, while he himself stayed for some time longer in Asia.

²³About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the Way.

²⁴A man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the artisans.

²⁵These he gathered together, with the workers of the same trade, and said, “Men, you know that we get our wealth from this business.

²⁶You also see and hear that not only in Ephesus but in almost the whole of Asia this Paul has persuaded and drawn away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods.

²⁷And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be scorned, and she will be deprived of her majesty that brought all Asia and the world to worship her.”

²⁸When they heard this, they were enraged and shouted, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

²⁹The city was filled with the confusion; and people rushed together to the theater, dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus, Macedonians who were Paul’s travel companions.

³⁰Paul wished to go into the crowd, but the disciples would not let him;

³¹even some officials of the province of Asia, who were friendly to him, sent him a message urging him not to venture into the theater.

³²Meanwhile, some were shouting one thing, some another; for the assembly was in confusion, and most of them did not know why they had come together.

³³Some of the crowd gave instructions to Alexander, whom the Jews had pushed forward. And Alexander motioned for silence and tried to make a defense before the people.

³⁴But when they recognized that he was a Jew, for about two hours all of them shouted in unison, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”

³⁵But when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Citizens of Ephesus, who is there that does not know that the city of the Ephesians is the temple keeper of the great Artemis and of the statue that fell from heaven?

³⁶Since these things cannot be denied, you ought to be quiet and do nothing rash.

³⁷You have brought these men here who are neither temple robbers nor blasphemers of our goddess.

³⁸If therefore Demetrius and the artisans with him have a complaint against anyone, the courts are open, and there are proconsuls; let them bring charges there against one another.

³⁹If there is anything further you want to know, it must be settled in the regular assembly.

⁴⁰For we are in danger of being charged with rioting today, since there is no cause that we can give to justify this commotion.”

⁴¹When he had said this, he dismissed the assembly.