Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹When Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard he was making and baptizing more disciples than John

²(though Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were),

³he left Judea and went again to Galilee.

⁴He had to travel through Samaria;

⁵so he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar near the property that Jacob had given his son Joseph.

⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, worn out from his journey, sat down at the well. It was about noon.

⁷A woman of Samaria came to draw water. “Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her,

⁸because his disciples had gone into town to buy food.

⁹“How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

¹⁰Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.”

¹¹“Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’?

¹²You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.”

¹³Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.

¹⁴But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.”

¹⁵“Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.”

¹⁶“Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.”

¹⁷“I don’t have a husband,” she answered. “You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’” Jesus said.

¹⁸“For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

¹⁹“Sir,” the woman replied, “I see that you are a prophet.

²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place to worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹Jesus told her, “Believe me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

²²You Samaritans worship what you do not know. We worship what we do know, because salvation is from the Jews.

²³But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him.

²⁴God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth.”

²⁵The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ ). “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

²⁶Jesus told her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.”

²⁷Just then his disciples arrived, and they were amazed that he was talking with a woman. Yet no one said, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

²⁸Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people,

²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”

³⁰They left the town and made their way to him.

³¹In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³²But he said, “I have food to eat that you don’t know about.”

³³The disciples said to one another, “Could someone have brought him something to eat?”

³⁴“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work,” Jesus told them.

³⁵“Don’t you say, ‘There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest’? Listen to what I’m telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest.

³⁶The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together.

³⁷For in this case the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’

³⁸I sent you to reap what you didn’t labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor.”

³⁹Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, “He told me everything I ever did.”

⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days.

⁴¹Many more believed because of what he said.

⁴²And they told the woman, “We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world.”

⁴³After two days he left there for Galilee.

⁴⁴(Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country. )

⁴⁵When they entered Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him because they had seen everything he did in Jerusalem during the festival. For they also had gone to the festival.

⁴⁶He went again to Cana of Galilee, where he had turned the water into wine. There was a certain royal official whose son was ill at Capernaum.

⁴⁷When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea into Galilee, he went to him and pleaded with him to come down and heal his son, since he was about to die.

⁴⁸Jesus told him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.”

⁴⁹“Sir,” the official said to him, “come down before my boy dies.”

⁵⁰“Go,” Jesus told him, “your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and departed.

⁵¹While he was still going down, his servants met him saying that his boy was alive.

⁵²He asked them at what time he got better. “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him,” they answered.

⁵³The father realized this was the very hour at which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household.

⁵⁴Now this was also the second sign Jesus performed after he came from Judea to Galilee.

¹The LORD spoke to Moses:

²“Consecrate every firstborn male to me, the firstborn from every womb among the Israelites, both man and domestic animal; it is mine.”

³Then Moses said to the people, “Remember this day when you came out of Egypt, out of the place of slavery, for the LORD brought you out of here by the strength of his hand. Nothing leavened may be eaten.

⁴Today, in the month of Abib, you are going out.

⁵When the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Hivites, and Jebusites, which he swore to your fathers that he would give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you must carry out this ceremony in this month.

⁶For seven days you must eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there is to be a festival to the LORD.

⁷Unleavened bread is to be eaten for those seven days. Nothing leavened may be found among you, and no yeast may be found among you in all your territory.

⁸On that day explain to your son, ‘This is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.’

⁹Let it serve as a sign for you on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead, so that the LORD’s instruction may be in your mouth; for the LORD brought you out of Egypt with a strong hand.

¹⁰Keep this statute at its appointed time from year to year.

¹¹“When the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your fathers, and gives it to you,

¹²you are to present to the LORD every firstborn male of the womb. All firstborn offspring of the livestock you own that are males will be the LORD’s.

¹³You must redeem every firstborn of a donkey with a flock animal, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. However, you must redeem every firstborn among your sons.

¹⁴“In the future, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘By the strength of his hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, out of the place of slavery.

¹⁵When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed every firstborn male in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of humans and the firstborn of livestock. That is why I sacrifice to the LORD all the firstborn of the womb that are males, but I redeem all the firstborn of my sons.’

¹⁶So let it be a sign on your hand and a symbol on your forehead, for the LORD brought us out of Egypt by the strength of his hand.”

¹⁷When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them along the road to the land of the Philistines, even though it was nearby; for God said, “The people will change their minds and return to Egypt if they face war.”

¹⁸So he led the people around toward the Red Sea along the road of the wilderness. And the Israelites left the land of Egypt in battle formation.

¹⁹Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, because Joseph had made the Israelites swear a solemn oath, saying, “God will certainly come to your aid; then you must take my bones with you from this place.”

²⁰They set out from Succoth and camped at Etham on the edge of the wilderness.

²¹The LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to lead them on their way during the day and in a pillar of fire to give them light at night, so that they could travel day or night.

²²The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night never left its place in front of the people.

¹I commend to you our sister Phoebe, who is a servant of the church in Cenchreae.

²So you should welcome her in the Lord in a manner worthy of the saints and assist her in whatever matter she may require your help. For indeed she has been a benefactor of many — and of me also.

³Give my greetings to Prisca and Aquila, my coworkers in Christ Jesus,

⁴who risked their own necks for my life. Not only do I thank them, but so do all the Gentile churches.

⁵Greet also the church that meets in their home. Greet my dear friend Epaenetus, who is the first convert to Christ from Asia.

⁶Greet Mary, who has worked very hard for you.

⁷Greet Andronicus and Junia, my fellow Jews and fellow prisoners. They are noteworthy in the eyes of the apostles, and they were also in Christ before me.

⁸Greet Ampliatus, my dear friend in the Lord.

⁹Greet Urbanus, our coworker in Christ, and my dear friend Stachys.

¹⁰Greet Apelles, who is approved in Christ. Greet those who belong to the household of Aristobulus.

¹¹Greet Herodion, my fellow Jew. Greet those who belong to the household of Narcissus who are in the Lord.

¹²Greet Tryphaena and Tryphosa, who have worked hard in the Lord. Greet my dear friend Persis, who has worked very hard in the Lord.

¹³Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; also his mother — and mine.

¹⁴Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers and sisters who are with them.

¹⁵Greet Philologus and Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them.

¹⁶Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ send you greetings.

¹⁷Now I urge you, brothers and sisters, to watch out for those who create divisions and obstacles contrary to the teaching that you learned. Avoid them,

¹⁸because such people do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites. They deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting with smooth talk and flattering words.

¹⁹The report of your obedience has reached everyone. Therefore I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise about what is good, and yet innocent about what is evil.

²⁰The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

²¹Timothy, my coworker, and Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater, my fellow countrymen, greet you.

²²I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.

²³Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus greet you.

²⁴

²⁵Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation about Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery kept silent for long ages

²⁶but now revealed and made known through the prophetic Scriptures, according to the command of the eternal God to advance the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles —

²⁷to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ — to him be the glory forever! Amen.

¹A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

²She was pregnant and cried out in labor and agony as she was about to give birth.

³Then another sign appeared in heaven: There was a great fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on its heads were seven crowns.

⁴Its tail swept away a third of the stars in heaven and hurled them to the earth. And the dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she did give birth it might devour her child.

⁵She gave birth to a Son, a male who is going to rule all nations with an iron rod. Her child was caught up to God and to his throne.

⁶The woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, to be nourished there for 1,260 days.

⁷Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought,

⁸but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer.

⁹So the great dragon was thrown out — the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him.

¹⁰Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have now come, because the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been thrown down.

¹¹They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; for they did not love their lives to the point of death.

¹²Therefore rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you with great fury, because he knows his time is short.

¹³When the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth, he persecuted the woman who had given birth to the male child.

¹⁴The woman was given two wings of a great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent’s presence to her place in the wilderness, where she was nourished for a time, times, and half a time.

¹⁵From his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river flowing after the woman, to sweep her away with a flood.

¹⁶But the earth helped the woman. The earth opened its mouth and swallowed up the river that the dragon had spewed from his mouth.

¹⁷So the dragon was furious with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring  — those who keep the commands of God and hold firmly to the testimony about Jesus.

¹⁸The dragon stood on the sand of the sea.

¹One day the sons of God came again to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them to present himself before the LORD.

²The LORD asked Satan, “Where have you come from?” “From roaming through the earth,” Satan answered him, “and walking around on it.”

³Then the LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? No one else on earth is like him, a man of perfect integrity, who fears God and turns away from evil. He still retains his integrity, even though you incited me against him, to destroy him for no good reason.”

⁴“Skin for skin!” Satan answered the LORD. “A man will give up everything he owns in exchange for his life.

⁵But stretch out your hand and strike his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face.”

⁶“Very well,” the LORD told Satan, “he is in your power; only spare his life.”

⁷So Satan left the LORD’s presence and infected Job with terrible boils from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

⁸Then Job took a piece of broken pottery to scrape himself while he sat among the ashes.

⁹His wife said to him, “Are you still holding on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”

¹⁰“You speak as a foolish woman speaks,” he told her. “Should we accept only good from God and not adversity?” Throughout all this Job did not sin in what he said.

¹¹Now when Job’s three friends — Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite — heard about all this adversity that had happened to him, each of them came from his home. They met together to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.

¹²When they looked from a distance, they could barely recognize him. They wept aloud, and each man tore his robe and threw dust into the air and on his head.

¹³Then they sat on the ground with him seven days and nights, but no one spoke a word to him because they saw that his suffering was very intense.

¹A psalm of thanksgiving. [1] Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to God!

²Serve the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

³Acknowledge that the LORD is God. He made us, and we are his — his people, the sheep of his pasture.

⁴Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name.

⁵For the LORD is good, and his faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness, through all generations.

¹My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,

²listening closely to wisdom and directing your heart to understanding;

³furthermore, if you call out to insight and lift your voice to understanding,

⁴if you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure,

⁵then you will understand the fear of the LORD and discover the knowledge of God.

⁶For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

⁷He stores up success for the upright; He is a shield for those who live with integrity

⁸so that he may guard the paths of justice and protect the way of his faithful followers.

⁹Then you will understand righteousness, justice, and integrity — every good path.

¹⁰For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will delight you.

¹¹Discretion will watch over you, and understanding will guard you.

¹²It will rescue you from the way of evil — from anyone who says perverse things,

¹³from those who abandon the right paths to walk in ways of darkness,

¹⁴from those who enjoy doing evil and celebrate perversion,

¹⁵whose paths are crooked, and whose ways are devious.

¹⁶It will rescue you from a forbidden woman, from a wayward woman with her flattering talk,

¹⁷who abandons the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God;

¹⁸for her house sinks down to death and her ways to the land of the departed spirits.

¹⁹None return who go to her; none reach the paths of life.

²⁰So follow the way of the good, and keep to the paths of the righteous.

²¹For the upright will inhabit the land, and those of integrity will remain in it;

²²but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous ripped out of it.

¹After the death of Moses the LORD’s servant, the LORD spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’s assistant:

²“Moses my servant is dead. Now you and all the people prepare to cross over the Jordan to the land I am giving the Israelites.

³I have given you every place where the sole of your foot treads, just as I promised Moses.

⁴Your territory will be from the wilderness and Lebanon to the great river, the Euphrates River — all the land of the Hittites  — and west to the Mediterranean Sea.

⁵No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. I will be with you, just as I was with Moses. I will not leave you or abandon you.

⁶“Be strong and courageous, for you will distribute the land I swore to their fathers to give them as an inheritance.

⁷Above all, be strong and very courageous to observe carefully the whole instruction my servant Moses commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or the left, so that you will have success wherever you go.

⁸This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to meditate on it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do.

⁹Haven’t I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

¹⁰Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people:

¹¹“Go through the camp and tell the people, ‘Get provisions ready for yourselves, for within three days you will be crossing the Jordan to go in and take possession of the land the LORD your God is giving you to inherit.’”

¹²Joshua said to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh:

¹³“Remember what Moses the LORD’s servant commanded you when he said, ‘The LORD your God will give you rest, and he will give you this land.’

¹⁴Your wives, dependents, and livestock may remain in the land Moses gave you on this side of the Jordan. But your best soldiers must cross over in battle formation ahead of your brothers and help them

¹⁵until the LORD gives your brothers rest, as he has given you, and they too possess the land the LORD your God is giving them. You may then return to the land of your inheritance and take possession of what Moses the LORD’s servant gave you on the east side of the Jordan.”

¹⁶They answered Joshua, “Everything you have commanded us we will do, and everywhere you send us we will go.

¹⁷We will obey you, just as we obeyed Moses in everything. Certainly the LORD your God will be with you, as he was with Moses.

¹⁸Anyone who rebels against your order and does not obey your words in all that you command him, will be put to death. Above all, be strong and courageous!”

¹“For look, the day is coming, burning like a furnace, when all the arrogant and everyone who commits wickedness will become stubble. The coming day will consume them,” says the LORD of Armies, “not leaving them root or branches.

²But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings, and you will go out and playfully jump like calves from the stall.

³You will trample the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day I am preparing,” says the LORD of Armies.

⁴“Remember the instruction of Moses my servant, the statutes and ordinances I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

⁵Look, I am going to send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.

⁶And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. Otherwise, I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

¹Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and began his defense:

²“I consider myself fortunate, that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews,

³especially since you are very knowledgeable about all the Jewish customs and controversies. Therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently.

⁴“All the Jews know my way of life from my youth, which was spent from the beginning among my own people and in Jerusalem.

⁵They have known me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest sect of our religion I lived as a Pharisee.

⁶And now I stand on trial because of the hope in what God promised to our ancestors,

⁷the promise our twelve tribes hope to reach as they earnestly serve him night and day. King Agrippa, I am being accused by the Jews because of this hope.

⁸Why do any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?

⁹In fact, I myself was convinced that it was necessary to do many things in opposition to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰I actually did this in Jerusalem, and I locked up many of the saints in prison, since I had received authority for that from the chief priests. When they were put to death, I was in agreement against them.

¹¹In all the synagogues I often punished them and tried to make them blaspheme. Since I was terribly enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities.

¹²“I was traveling to Damascus under these circumstances with authority and a commission from the chief priests.

¹³King Agrippa, while on the road at midday, I saw a light from heaven brighter than the sun, shining around me and those traveling with me.

¹⁴We all fell to the ground, and I heard a voice speaking to me in Aramaic, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵“I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ “And the Lord replied: ‘I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting.

¹⁶But get up and stand on your feet. For I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and a witness of what you have seen and will see of me.

¹⁷I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them

¹⁸to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a share among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

¹⁹“So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.

²⁰Instead, I preached to those in Damascus first, and to those in Jerusalem and in all the region of Judea, and to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works worthy of repentance.

²¹For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and were trying to kill me.

²²To this very day, I have had help from God, and I stand and testify to both small and great, saying nothing other than what the prophets and Moses said would take place  —

²³that the Messiah must suffer, and that, as the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light to our people and to the Gentiles.”

²⁴As he was saying these things in his defense, Festus exclaimed in a loud voice, “You’re out of your mind, Paul! Too much study is driving you mad.”

²⁵But Paul replied, “I’m not out of my mind, most excellent Festus. On the contrary, I’m speaking words of truth and good judgment.

²⁶For the king knows about these matters, and I can speak boldly to him. For I am convinced that none of these things has escaped his notice, since this was not done in a corner.

²⁷King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you believe.”

²⁸Agrippa said to Paul, “Are you going to persuade me to become a Christian so easily?”

²⁹“I wish before God,” replied Paul, “that whether easily or with difficulty, not only you but all who listen to me today might become as I am — except for these chains.”

³⁰The king, the governor, Bernice, and those sitting with them got up,

³¹and when they had left they talked with each other and said, “This man is not doing anything to deserve death or imprisonment.”

³²Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been released if he had not appealed to Caesar.”