Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard, “Jesus is making and baptizing more disciples than John”

²— although it was not Jesus himself but his disciples who baptized —

³he left Judea and started back to Galilee.

⁴But he had to go through Samaria.

⁵So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

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

⁸(His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)

⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)

¹⁰Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?

¹²Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?”

¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,

¹⁴but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

¹⁵The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.”

¹⁷The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’;

¹⁸for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!”

¹⁹The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet.

²⁰Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.

²³But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him.

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

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

²⁶Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

²⁷Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?”

²⁸Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people,

²⁹“Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?”

³⁰They left the city and were on their way to him.

³¹Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³²But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.”

³³So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?”

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

³⁵Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.

³⁶The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.

³⁷For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’

³⁸I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

³⁹Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.”

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

⁴¹And many more believed because of his word.

⁴²They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

⁴³When the two days were over, he went from that place to Galilee

⁴⁴(for Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in the prophet’s own country).

⁴⁵When he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the festival; for they too had gone to the festival.

⁴⁶Then he came again to Cana in Galilee where he had changed the water into wine. Now there was a royal official whose son lay ill in Capernaum.

⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death.

⁴⁸Then Jesus said to him, “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe.”

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

⁵⁰Jesus said to him, “Go; your son will live.” The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started on his way.

⁵¹As he was going down, his slaves met him and told him that his child was alive.

⁵²So he asked them the hour when he began to recover, and they said to him, “Yesterday at one in the afternoon the fever left him.”

⁵³The father realized that this was the hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live.” So he himself believed, along with his whole household.

⁵⁴Now this was the second sign that Jesus did after coming from Judea to Galilee.

¹The LORD said to Moses:

²Consecrate to me all the firstborn; whatever is the first to open the womb among the Israelites, of human beings and animals, is mine.

³Moses said to the people, “Remember this day on which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, because the LORD brought you out from there by strength of hand; no leavened bread shall be eaten.

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

⁵When the LORD brings you into the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, which he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, you shall keep this observance in this month.

⁶Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a festival to the LORD.

⁷Unleavened bread shall be eaten for seven days; no leavened bread shall be seen in your possession, and no leaven shall be seen among you in all your territory.

⁸You shall tell your child on that day, ‘It is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.’

⁹It shall serve for you as a sign on your hand and as a reminder on your forehead, so that the teaching of the LORD may be on your lips; for with a strong hand the LORD brought you out of Egypt.

¹⁰You shall keep this ordinance at its proper time from year to year.

¹¹“When the LORD has brought you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to you and your ancestors, and has given it to you,

¹²you shall set apart to the LORD all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your livestock that are males shall be the LORD’s.

¹³But every firstborn donkey you shall redeem with a sheep; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. Every firstborn male among your children you shall redeem.

¹⁴When in the future your child asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall answer, ‘By strength of hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt, from the house of slavery.

¹⁵When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the LORD killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from human firstborn to the firstborn of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the LORD every male that first opens the womb, but every firstborn of my sons I redeem.’

¹⁶It shall serve as a sign on your hand and as an emblem on your forehead that by strength of hand the LORD brought us out of Egypt.”

¹⁷When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was nearer; for God thought, “If the people face war, they may change their minds and return to Egypt.”

¹⁸So God led the people by the roundabout way of the wilderness toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of the land of Egypt prepared for battle.

¹⁹And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph who had required a solemn oath of the Israelites, saying, “God will surely take notice of you, and then you must carry my bones with you from here.”

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

²¹The LORD went in front of them in a pillar of cloud by day, to lead them along the way, and in a pillar of fire by night, to give them light, so that they might travel by day and by night.

²²Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.

¹I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church at Cenchreae,

²so that you may welcome her in the Lord as is fitting for the saints, and help her in whatever she may require from you, for she has been a benefactor of many and of myself as well.

³Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus,

⁴and who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.

⁵Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert in Asia for Christ.

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

⁷Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives who were in prison with me; they are prominent among the apostles, and they were in Christ before I was.

⁸Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord.

⁹Greet Urbanus, our co-worker in Christ, and my beloved Stachys.

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

¹¹Greet my relative Herodion. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus.

¹²Greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphaena and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.

¹³Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord; and greet his mother — a mother to me also.

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

¹⁵Greet Philologus, 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 greet you.

¹⁷I urge you, brothers and sisters, to keep an eye on those who cause dissensions and offenses, in opposition to the teaching that you have learned; avoid them.

¹⁸For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.

¹⁹For while your obedience is known to all, so that I rejoice over you, I want you to be wise in what is good and guileless in what is evil.

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

²¹Timothy, my co-worker, greets you; so do Lucius and Jason and Sosipater, my relatives.

²²I Tertius, the writer of 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 God who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the proclamation of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages

²⁶but is now disclosed, and through the prophetic writings is made known to all the Gentiles, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith —

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

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

²She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pangs, in the agony of giving birth.

³Then another portent appeared in heaven: a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads.

⁴His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born.

⁵And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne;

⁶and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, so that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days.

⁷And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back,

⁸but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.

⁹The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world — he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

¹⁰Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

¹¹But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.

¹²Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

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

¹⁴But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to her place where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time.

¹⁵Then from his mouth the serpent poured water like a river after the woman, to sweep her away with the flood.

¹⁶But the earth came to the help of the woman; it opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth.

¹⁷Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus.

¹⁸Then the dragon took his stand on the sand of the seashore.

¹One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the LORD.

²The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.”

³The LORD said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity, although you incited me against him, to destroy him for no reason.”

⁴Then Satan answered the LORD, “Skin for skin! All that people have they will give to save their lives.

⁵But stretch out your hand now and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse you to your face.”

⁶The LORD said to Satan, “Very well, he is in your power; only spare his life.”

⁷So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and inflicted loathsome sores on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head.

⁸Job took a potsherd with which to scrape himself, and sat among the ashes.

⁹Then his wife said to him, “Do you still persist in your integrity? Curse God, and die.”

¹⁰But he said to her, “You speak as any foolish woman would speak. Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

¹¹Now when Job’s three friends heard of all these troubles that had come upon him, each of them set out from his home — Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. They met together to go and console and comfort him.

¹²When they saw him from a distance, they did not recognize him, and they raised their voices and wept aloud; they tore their robes and threw dust in the air upon their heads.

¹³They sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.

¹Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth.

²Worship the LORD with gladness; come into his presence with singing.

³Know that the LORD is God. It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

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

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

¹My child, if you accept my words and treasure up my commandments within you,

²making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;

³if you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding;

⁴if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures —

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

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

⁷he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly,

⁸guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his faithful ones.

⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;

¹⁰for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

¹¹prudence will watch over you; and understanding will guard you.

¹²It will save you from the way of evil, from those who speak perversely,

¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness,

¹⁴who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil;

¹⁵those whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.

¹⁶You will be saved from the loose woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words,

¹⁷who forsakes the partner of her youth and forgets her sacred covenant;

¹⁸for her way leads down to death, and her paths to the shades;

¹⁹those who go to her never come back, nor do they regain the paths of life.

²⁰Therefore walk in the way of the good, and keep to the paths of the just.

²¹For the upright will abide in the land, and the innocent will remain in it;

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

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

²“My servant Moses is dead. Now proceed to cross the Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the Israelites.

³Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, as I promised to Moses.

⁴From the wilderness and the Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, to the Great Sea in the west shall be your territory.

⁵No one shall be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.

⁶Be strong and courageous; for you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.

⁷Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to act in accordance with all the law that my servant Moses commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, so that you may be successful wherever you go.

⁸This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to act in accordance with all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful.

⁹I hereby command you: Be strong and courageous; do not be frightened or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

¹⁰Then Joshua commanded the officers of the people,

¹¹“Pass through the camp, and command the people: ‘Prepare your provisions; for in three days you are to cross over the Jordan, to go in to take possession of the land that the LORD your God gives you to possess.’”

¹²To the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh Joshua said,

¹³“Remember the word that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, ‘The LORD your God is providing you a place of rest, and will give you this land.’

¹⁴Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan. But all the warriors among you shall cross over armed before your kindred and shall help them,

¹⁵until the LORD gives rest to your kindred as well as to you, and they too take possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving them. Then you shall return to your own land and take possession of it, the land that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you beyond the Jordan to the east.”

¹⁶They answered Joshua: “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.

¹⁷Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the LORD your God be with you, as he was with Moses!

¹⁸Whoever rebels against your orders and disobeys your words, whatever you command, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.”

¹See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the LORD of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

²But for you who revere my name the sun of righteousness shall rise, with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.

³And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the LORD of hosts.

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

⁵Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes.

⁶He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not 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 to defend himself:

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,

³because you are especially familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews; therefore I beg of you to listen to me patiently.

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

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

⁶And now I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors,

⁷a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship day and night. It is for this hope, your Excellency, that I am accused by Jews!

⁸Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?

⁹“Indeed, I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰And that is what I did in Jerusalem; with authority received from the chief priests, I not only locked up many of the saints in prison, but I also cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death.

¹¹By punishing them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to blaspheme; and since I was so furiously enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities.

¹²“With this in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,

¹³when at midday along the road, your Excellency, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions.

¹⁴When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

¹⁶But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you.

¹⁷I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles — to whom I am sending you

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

¹⁹“After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,

²⁰but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance.

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

²²To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place:

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

²⁴While he was making this defense, Festus exclaimed, “You are out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning is driving you insane!”

²⁵But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking the sober truth.

²⁶Indeed the king knows about these things, and to him I speak freely; for I am certain that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this was not done in a corner.

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

²⁸Agrippa said to Paul, “Are you so quickly persuading me to become a Christian?”

²⁹Paul replied, “Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am — except for these chains.”

³⁰Then the king got up, and with him the governor and Bernice and those who had been seated with them;

³¹and as they were leaving, they said to one another, “This man is doing nothing to deserve death or imprisonment.”

³²Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to the emperor.”