Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

John 21; Exodus 30; 2 Corinthians 1; 2 Thessalonians2; Job 19; Psalms 117; Proverbs 19; Joshua 18; Isaiah 17; Acts 15

John 21

1After these things Jesus showed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias; and he showed himself in this way.

2Gathered there together were Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples.

3Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

4Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.

5Jesus said to them, “Children, you have no fish, have you?” They answered him, “No.”

6He said to them, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.

7That disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on some clothes, for he was naked, and jumped into the sea.

8But the other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, only about a hundred yards off.

9When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there, with fish on it, and bread.

10Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.”

11So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn.

12Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they knew it was the Lord.

13Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.

14This was now the third time that Jesus appeared to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

15When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.”

16A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.”

17He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

18Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”

19(He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”

20Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; he was the one who had reclined next to Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?”

21When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”

22Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!”

23So the rumor spread in the community that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?”

24This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true.

25But there are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

Exodus 30

1You shall make an altar on which to offer incense; you shall make it of acacia wood.

2It shall be one cubit long, and one cubit wide; it shall be square, and shall be two cubits high; its horns shall be of one piece with it.

3You shall overlay it with pure gold, its top, and its sides all around and its horns; and you shall make for it a molding of gold all around.

4And you shall make two golden rings for it; under its molding on two opposite sides of it you shall make them, and they shall hold the poles with which to carry it.

5You shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold.

6You shall place it in front of the curtain that is above the ark of the covenant, in front of the mercy seat that is over the covenant, where I will meet with you.

7Aaron shall offer fragrant incense on it; every morning when he dresses the lamps he shall offer it,

8and when Aaron sets up the lamps in the evening, he shall offer it, a regular incense offering before the LORD throughout your generations.

9You shall not offer unholy incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering; and you shall not pour a drink offering on it.

10Once a year Aaron shall perform the rite of atonement on its horns. Throughout your generations he shall perform the atonement for it once a year with the blood of the atoning sin offering. It is most holy to the LORD.

11The LORD spoke to Moses:

12When you take a census of the Israelites to register them, at registration all of them shall give a ransom for their lives to the LORD, so that no plague may come upon them for being registered.

13This is what each one who is registered shall give: half a shekel according to the shekel of the sanctuary (the shekel is twenty gerahs), half a shekel as an offering to the LORD.

14Each one who is registered, from twenty years old and upward, shall give the LORD’s offering.

15The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less, than the half shekel, when you bring this offering to the LORD to make atonement for your lives.

16You shall take the atonement money from the Israelites and shall designate it for the service of the tent of meeting; before the LORD it will be a reminder to the Israelites of the ransom given for your lives.

17The LORD spoke to Moses:

18You shall make a bronze basin with a bronze stand for washing. You shall put it between the tent of meeting and the altar, and you shall put water in it;

19with the water Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet.

20When they go into the tent of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to make an offering by fire to the LORD, they shall wash with water, so that they may not die.

21They shall wash their hands and their feet, so that they may not die: it shall be a perpetual ordinance for them, for him and for his descendants throughout their generations.

22The LORD spoke to Moses:

23Take the finest spices: of liquid myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet-smelling cinnamon half as much, that is, two hundred fifty, and two hundred fifty of aromatic cane,

24and five hundred of cassia — measured by the sanctuary shekel — and a hin of olive oil;

25and you shall make of these a sacred anointing oil blended as by the perfumer; it shall be a holy anointing oil.

26With it you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of the covenant,

27and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense,

28and the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the basin with its stand;

29you shall consecrate them, so that they may be most holy; whatever touches them will become holy.

30You shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, in order that they may serve me as priests.

31You shall say to the Israelites, “This shall be my holy anointing oil throughout your generations.

32It shall not be used in any ordinary anointing of the body, and you shall make no other like it in composition; it is holy, and it shall be holy to you.

33Whoever compounds any like it or whoever puts any of it on an unqualified person shall be cut off from the people.”

34The LORD said to Moses: Take sweet spices, stacte, and onycha, and galbanum, sweet spices with pure frankincense (an equal part of each),

35and make an incense blended as by the perfumer, seasoned with salt, pure and holy;

36and you shall beat some of it into powder, and put part of it before the covenant in the tent of meeting where I shall meet with you; it shall be for you most holy.

37When you make incense according to this composition, you shall not make it for yourselves; it shall be regarded by you as holy to the LORD.

38Whoever makes any like it to use as perfume shall be cut off from the people.

2 Corinthians 1

1Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God that is in Corinth, including all the saints throughout Achaia:

2Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation,

4who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God.

5For just as the sufferings of Christ are abundant for us, so also our consolation is abundant through Christ.

6If we are being afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation; if we are being consoled, it is for your consolation, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are also suffering.

7Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our consolation.

8We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself.

9Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

10He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again,

11as you also join in helping us by your prayers, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.

12Indeed, this is our boast, the testimony of our conscience: we have behaved in the world with frankness and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God — and all the more toward you.

13For we write you nothing other than what you can read and also understand; I hope you will understand until the end —

14as you have already understood us in part — that on the day of the Lord Jesus we are your boast even as you are our boast.

15Since I was sure of this, I wanted to come to you first, so that you might have a double favor;

16I wanted to visit you on my way to Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia and have you send me on to Judea.

17Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this? Do I make my plans according to ordinary human standards, ready to say “Yes, yes” and “No, no” at the same time?

18As surely as God is faithful, our word to you has not been “Yes and No.”

19For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not “Yes and No”; but in him it is always “Yes.”

20For in him every one of God’s promises is a “Yes.” For this reason it is through him that we say the “Amen,” to the glory of God.

21But it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us,

22by putting his seal on us and giving us his Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.

23But I call on God as witness against me: it was to spare you that I did not come again to Corinth.

24I do not mean to imply that we lord it over your faith; rather, we are workers with you for your joy, because you stand firm in the faith.

Job 19

1Then Job answered:

2“How long will you torment me, and break me in pieces with words?

3These ten times you have cast reproach upon me; are you not ashamed to wrong me?

4And even if it is true that I have erred, my error remains with me.

5If indeed you magnify yourselves against me, and make my humiliation an argument against me,

6know then that God has put me in the wrong, and closed his net around me.

7Even when I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I am not answered; I call aloud, but there is no justice.

8He has walled up my way so that I cannot pass, and he has set darkness upon my paths.

9He has stripped my glory from me, and taken the crown from my head.

10He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone, he has uprooted my hope like a tree.

11He has kindled his wrath against me, and counts me as his adversary.

12His troops come on together; they have thrown up siegeworks against me, and encamp around my tent.

13“He has put my family far from me, and my acquaintances are wholly estranged from me.

14My relatives and my close friends have failed me;

15the guests in my house have forgotten me; my serving girls count me as a stranger; I have become an alien in their eyes.

16I call to my servant, but he gives me no answer; I must myself plead with him.

17My breath is repulsive to my wife; I am loathsome to my own family.

18Even young children despise me; when I rise, they talk against me.

19All my intimate friends abhor me, and those whom I loved have turned against me.

20My bones cling to my skin and to my flesh, and I have escaped by the skin of my teeth.

21Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me!

22Why do you, like God, pursue me, never satisfied with my flesh?

23“O that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a book!

24O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on a rock forever!

25For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;

26and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God,

27whom I shall see on my side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!

28If you say, ‘How we will persecute him!’ and, ‘The root of the matter is found in him’;

29be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, so that you may know there is a judgment.”

Psalms 117

1Praise the LORD, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples!

2For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the LORD endures forever. Praise the LORD!

Proverbs 19

1Better the poor walking in integrity than one perverse of speech who is a fool.

2Desire without knowledge is not good, and one who moves too hurriedly misses the way.

3One’s own folly leads to ruin, yet the heart rages against the LORD.

4Wealth brings many friends, but the poor are left friendless.

5A false witness will not go unpunished, and a liar will not escape.

6Many seek the favor of the generous, and everyone is a friend to a giver of gifts.

7If the poor are hated even by their kin, how much more are they shunned by their friends! When they call after them, they are not there.

8To get wisdom is to love oneself; to keep understanding is to prosper.

9A false witness will not go unpunished, and the liar will perish.

10It is not fitting for a fool to live in luxury, much less for a slave to rule over princes.

11Those with good sense are slow to anger, and it is their glory to overlook an offense.

12A king’s anger is like the growling of a lion, but his favor is like dew on the grass.

13A stupid child is ruin to a father, and a wife’s quarreling is a continual dripping of rain.

14House and wealth are inherited from parents, but a prudent wife is from the LORD.

15Laziness brings on deep sleep; an idle person will suffer hunger.

16Those who keep the commandment will live; those who are heedless of their ways will die.

17Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and will be repaid in full.

18Discipline your children while there is hope; do not set your heart on their destruction.

19A violent tempered person will pay the penalty; if you effect a rescue, you will only have to do it again.

20Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom for the future.

21The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will be established.

22What is desirable in a person is loyalty, and it is better to be poor than a liar.

23The fear of the LORD is life indeed; filled with it one rests secure and suffers no harm.

24The lazy person buries a hand in the dish, and will not even bring it back to the mouth.

25Strike a scoffer, and the simple will learn prudence; reprove the intelligent, and they will gain knowledge.

26Those who do violence to their father and chase away their mother are children who cause shame and bring reproach.

27Cease straying, my child, from the words of knowledge, in order that you may hear instruction.

28A worthless witness mocks at justice, and the mouth of the wicked devours iniquity.

29Condemnation is ready for scoffers, and flogging for the backs of fools.

Joshua 18

1Then the whole congregation of the Israelites assembled at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there. The land lay subdued before them.

2There remained among the Israelites seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been apportioned.

3So Joshua said to the Israelites, “How long will you be slack about going in and taking possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your ancestors, has given you?

4Provide three men from each tribe, and I will send them out that they may begin to go throughout the land, writing a description of it with a view to their inheritances. Then come back to me.

5They shall divide it into seven portions, Judah continuing in its territory on the south, and the house of Joseph in their territory on the north.

6You shall describe the land in seven divisions and bring the description here to me; and I will cast lots for you here before the LORD our God.

7The Levites have no portion among you, for the priesthood of the LORD is their heritage; and Gad and Reuben and the half-tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan eastward, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave them.”

8So the men started on their way; and Joshua charged those who went to write the description of the land, saying, “Go throughout the land and write a description of it, and come back to me; and I will cast lots for you here before the LORD in Shiloh.”

9So the men went and traversed the land and set down in a book a description of it by towns in seven divisions; then they came back to Joshua in the camp at Shiloh,

10and Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the LORD; and there Joshua apportioned the land to the Israelites, to each a portion.

11The lot of the tribe of Benjamin according to its families came up, and the territory allotted to it fell between the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Joseph.

12On the north side their boundary began at the Jordan; then the boundary goes up to the slope of Jericho on the north, then up through the hill country westward; and it ends at the wilderness of Beth-aven.

13From there the boundary passes along southward in the direction of Luz, to the slope of Luz (that is, Bethel), then the boundary goes down to Ataroth-addar, on the mountain that lies south of Lower Beth-horon.

14Then the boundary goes in another direction, turning on the western side southward from the mountain that lies to the south, opposite Beth-horon, and it ends at Kiriath-baal (that is, Kiriath-jearim), a town belonging to the tribe of Judah. This forms the western side.

15The southern side begins at the outskirts of Kiriath-jearim; and the boundary goes from there to Ephron, to the spring of the Waters of Nephtoah;

16then the boundary goes down to the border of the mountain that overlooks the valley of the son of Hinnom, which is at the north end of the valley of Rephaim; and it then goes down the valley of Hinnom, south of the slope of the Jebusites, and downward to En-rogel;

17then it bends in a northerly direction going on to En-shemesh, and from there goes to Geliloth, which is opposite the ascent of Adummim; then it goes down to the Stone of Bohan, Reuben’s son;

18and passing on to the north of the slope of Beth-arabah it goes down to the Arabah;

19then the boundary passes on to the north of the slope of Beth-hoglah; and the boundary ends at the northern bay of the Dead Sea, at the south end of the Jordan: this is the southern border.

20The Jordan forms its boundary on the eastern side. This is the inheritance of the tribe of Benjamin, according to its families, boundary by boundary all around.

21Now the towns of the tribe of Benjamin according to their families were Jericho, Beth-hoglah, Emek-keziz,

22Beth-arabah, Zemaraim, Bethel,

23Avvim, Parah, Ophrah,

24Chephar-ammoni, Ophni, and Geba — twelve towns with their villages:

25Gibeon, Ramah, Beeroth,

26Mizpeh, Chephirah, Mozah,

27Rekem, Irpeel, Taralah,

28Zela, Haeleph, Jebus (that is, Jerusalem), Gibeah and Kiriath-jearim — fourteen towns with their villages. This is the inheritance of the tribe of Benjamin according to its families.

Isaiah 17

1An oracle concerning Damascus. See, Damascus will cease to be a city, and will become a heap of ruins.

2Her towns will be deserted forever; they will be places for flocks, which will lie down, and no one will make them afraid.

3The fortress will disappear from Ephraim, and the kingdom from Damascus; and the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the children of Israel, — says the LORD of hosts.

4On that day the glory of Jacob will be brought low, and the fat of his flesh will grow lean.

5And it shall be as when reapers gather standing grain and their arms harvest the ears, and as when one gleans the ears of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

6Gleanings will be left in it, as when an olive tree is beaten — two or three berries in the top of the highest bough, four or five on the branches of a fruit tree, — says the LORD God of Israel.

7On that day people will regard their Maker, and their eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel;

8they will not have regard for the altars, the work of their hands, and they will not look to what their own fingers have made, either the sacred poles or the altars of incense.

9On that day their strong cities will be like the deserted places of the Hivites and the Amorites, which they deserted because of the children of Israel, and there will be desolation.

10For you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not remembered the Rock of your refuge; therefore, though you plant pleasant plants and set out slips of an alien god,

11though you make them grow on the day that you plant them, and make them blossom in the morning that you sow; yet the harvest will flee away in a day of grief and incurable pain.

12Ah, the thunder of many peoples, they thunder like the thundering of the sea! Ah, the roar of nations, they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!

13The nations roar like the roaring of many waters, but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away, chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind and whirling dust before the storm.

14At evening time, lo, terror! Before morning, they are no more. This is the fate of those who despoil us, and the lot of those who plunder us.

Acts 15

1Then certain individuals came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.”

2And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to discuss this question with the apostles and the elders.

3So they were sent on their way by the church, and as they passed through both Phoenicia and Samaria, they reported the conversion of the Gentiles, and brought great joy to all the believers.

4When they came to Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.

5But some believers who belonged to the sect of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary for them to be circumcised and ordered to keep the law of Moses.”

6The apostles and the elders met together to consider this matter.

7After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “My brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that I should be the one through whom the Gentiles would hear the message of the good news and become believers.

8And God, who knows the human heart, testified to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us;

9and in cleansing their hearts by faith he has made no distinction between them and us.

10Now therefore why are you putting God to the test by placing on the neck of the disciples a yoke that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear?

11On the contrary, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

12The whole assembly kept silence, and listened to Barnabas and Paul as they told of all the signs and wonders that God had done through them among the Gentiles.

13After they finished speaking, James replied, “My brothers, listen to me.

14Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles, to take from among them a people for his name.

15This agrees with the words of the prophets, as it is written,

16‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the dwelling of David, which has fallen; from its ruins I will rebuild it, and I will set it up,

17so that all other peoples may seek the Lord — even all the Gentiles over whom my name has been called. Thus says the Lord, who has been making these things

18known from long ago.’

19Therefore I have reached the decision that we should not trouble those Gentiles who are turning to God,

20but we should write to them to abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication and from whatever has been strangled and from blood.

21For in every city, for generations past, Moses has had those who proclaim him, for he has been read aloud every sabbath in the synagogues.”

22Then the apostles and the elders, with the consent of the whole church, decided to choose men from among their members and to send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. They sent Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leaders among the brothers,

23with the following letter: “The brothers, both the apostles and the elders, to the believers of Gentile origin in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings.

24Since we have heard that certain persons who have gone out from us, though with no instructions from us, have said things to disturb you and have unsettled your minds,

25we have decided unanimously to choose representatives and send them to you, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul,

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

27We have therefore sent Judas and Silas, who themselves will tell you the same things by word of mouth.

28For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to impose on you no further burden than these essentials:

29that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”

30So they were sent off and went down to Antioch. When they gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter.

31When its members read it, they rejoiced at the exhortation.

32Judas and Silas, who were themselves prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the believers.

33After they had been there for some time, they were sent off in peace by the believers to those who had sent them.

34

35But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, and there, with many others, they taught and proclaimed the word of the Lord.

36After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Come, let us return and visit the believers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.”

37Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark.

38But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not accompanied them in the work.

39The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.

40But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord.

41He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.