Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand.

²They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him.

³And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.”

⁴Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent.

⁵He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.

⁶The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

⁷Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him;

⁸hearing all that he was doing, they came to him in great numbers from Judea, Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan, and the region around Tyre and Sidon.

⁹He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him;

¹⁰for he had cured many, so that all who had diseases pressed upon him to touch him.

¹¹Whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and shouted, “You are the Son of God!”

¹²But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

¹³He went up the mountain and called to him those whom he wanted, and they came to him.

¹⁴And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message,

¹⁵and to have authority to cast out demons.

¹⁶So he appointed the twelve: Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter);

¹⁷James son of Zebedee and John the brother of James (to whom he gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder);

¹⁸and Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Cananaean,

¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him. Jesus and Beelzebul Then he went home;

²⁰and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat.

²¹When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.”

²²And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.”

²³And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan?

²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

²⁵And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

²⁶And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come.

²⁷But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

²⁸“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter;

²⁹but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” —

³⁰for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

³¹Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him.

³²A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.”

³³And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”

³⁴And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!

³⁵Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

¹The LORD said to Moses: Speak to the priests, the sons of Aaron, and say to them: No one shall defile himself for a dead person among his relatives,

²except for his nearest kin: his mother, his father, his son, his daughter, his brother;

³likewise, for a virgin sister, close to him because she has had no husband, he may defile himself for her.

⁴But he shall not defile himself as a husband among his people and so profane himself.

⁵They shall not make bald spots upon their heads, or shave off the edges of their beards, or make any gashes in their flesh.

⁶They shall be holy to their God, and not profane the name of their God; for they offer the LORD’s offerings by fire, the food of their God; therefore they shall be holy.

⁷They shall not marry a prostitute or a woman who has been defiled; neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband. For they are holy to their God,

⁸and you shall treat them as holy, since they offer the food of your God; they shall be holy to you, for I the LORD, I who sanctify you, am holy.

⁹When the daughter of a priest profanes herself through prostitution, she profanes her father; she shall be burned to death.

¹⁰The priest who is exalted above his fellows, on whose head the anointing oil has been poured and who has been consecrated to wear the vestments, shall not dishevel his hair, nor tear his vestments.

¹¹He shall not go where there is a dead body; he shall not defile himself even for his father or mother.

¹²He shall not go outside the sanctuary and thus profane the sanctuary of his God; for the consecration of the anointing oil of his God is upon him: I am the LORD.

¹³He shall marry only a woman who is a virgin.

¹⁴A widow, or a divorced woman, or a woman who has been defiled, a prostitute, these he shall not marry. He shall marry a virgin of his own kin,

¹⁵that he may not profane his offspring among his kin; for I am the LORD; I sanctify him.

¹⁶The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:

¹⁷Speak to Aaron and say: No one of your offspring throughout their generations who has a blemish may approach to offer the food of his God.

¹⁸For no one who has a blemish shall draw near, one who is blind or lame, or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long,

¹⁹or one who has a broken foot or a broken hand,

²⁰or a hunchback, or a dwarf, or a man with a blemish in his eyes or an itching disease or scabs or crushed testicles.

²¹No descendant of Aaron the priest who has a blemish shall come near to offer the LORD’s offerings by fire; since he has a blemish, he shall not come near to offer the food of his God.

²²He may eat the food of his God, of the most holy as well as of the holy.

²³But he shall not come near the curtain or approach the altar, because he has a blemish, that he may not profane my sanctuaries; for I am the LORD; I sanctify them.

²⁴Thus Moses spoke to Aaron and to his sons and to all the people of Israel.

¹So if you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

²Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth,

³for you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

⁴When Christ who is your life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

⁵Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry).

⁶On account of these the wrath of God is coming on those who are disobedient.

⁷These are the ways you also once followed, when you were living that life.

⁸But now you must get rid of all such things — anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth.

⁹Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices

¹⁰and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.

¹¹In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!

¹²As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience.

¹³Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

¹⁴Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

¹⁵And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in the one body. And be thankful.

¹⁶Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.

¹⁷And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

¹⁸Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

¹⁹Husbands, love your wives and never treat them harshly.

²⁰Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord.

²¹Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart.

²²Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything, not only while being watched and in order to please them, but wholeheartedly, fearing the Lord.

²³Whatever your task, put yourselves into it, as done for the Lord and not for your masters,

²⁴since you know that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward; you serve the Lord Christ.

²⁵For the wrongdoer will be paid back for whatever wrong has been done, and there is no partiality.

¹See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.

²Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.

³And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

⁴Everyone who commits sin is guilty of lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.

⁵You know that he was revealed to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.

⁶No one who abides in him sins; no one who sins has either seen him or known him.

⁷Little children, let no one deceive you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

⁸Everyone who commits sin is a child of the devil; for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.

⁹Those who have been born of God do not sin, because God’s seed abides in them; they cannot sin, because they have been born of God.

¹⁰The children of God and the children of the devil are revealed in this way: all who do not do what is right are not from God, nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.

¹¹For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

¹²We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.

¹³Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you.

¹⁴We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death.

¹⁵All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them.

¹⁶We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us — and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.

¹⁷How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?

¹⁸Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.

¹⁹And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him

²⁰whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

²¹Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God;

²²and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

²³And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

²⁴All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

¹Who is like the wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? Wisdom makes one’s face shine, and the hardness of one’s countenance is changed.

²Keep the king’s command because of your sacred oath.

³Do not be terrified; go from his presence, do not delay when the matter is unpleasant, for he does whatever he pleases.

⁴For the word of the king is powerful, and who can say to him, “What are you doing?”

⁵Whoever obeys a command will meet no harm, and the wise mind will know the time and way.

⁶For every matter has its time and way, although the troubles of mortals lie heavy upon them.

⁷Indeed, they do not know what is to be, for who can tell them how it will be?

⁸No one has power over the wind to restrain the wind, or power over the day of death; there is no discharge from the battle, nor does wickedness deliver those who practice it.

⁹All this I observed, applying my mind to all that is done under the sun, while one person exercises authority over another to the other’s hurt.

¹⁰Then I saw the wicked buried; they used to go in and out of the holy place, and were praised in the city where they had done such things. This also is vanity.

¹¹Because sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the human heart is fully set to do evil.

¹²Though sinners do evil a hundred times and prolong their lives, yet I know that it will be well with those who fear God, because they stand in fear before him,

¹³but it will not be well with the wicked, neither will they prolong their days like a shadow, because they do not stand in fear before God.

¹⁴There is a vanity that takes place on earth, that there are righteous people who are treated according to the conduct of the wicked, and there are wicked people who are treated according to the conduct of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

¹⁵So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun.

¹⁶When I applied my mind to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on earth, how one’s eyes see sleep neither day nor night,

¹⁷then I saw all the work of God, that no one can find out what is happening under the sun. However much they may toil in seeking, they will not find it out; even though those who are wise claim to know, they cannot find it out.

¹Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights!

²Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host!

³Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars!

⁴Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!

⁵Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created.

⁶He established them forever and ever; he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

⁷Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps,

⁸fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!

⁹Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars!

¹⁰Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!

¹¹Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth!

¹²Young men and women alike, old and young together!

¹³Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven.

¹⁴He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the LORD!

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.

¹No sooner had Boaz gone up to the gate and sat down there than the next-of-kin, of whom Boaz had spoken, came passing by. So Boaz said, “Come over, friend; sit down here.” And he went over and sat down.

²Then Boaz took ten men of the elders of the city, and said, “Sit down here”; so they sat down.

³He then said to the next-of-kin, “Naomi, who has come back from the country of Moab, is selling the parcel of land that belonged to our kinsman Elimelech.

⁴So I thought I would tell you of it, and say: Buy it in the presence of those sitting here, and in the presence of the elders of my people. If you will redeem it, redeem it; but if you will not, tell me, so that I may know; for there is no one prior to you to redeem it, and I come after you.” So he said, “I will redeem it.”

⁵Then Boaz said, “The day you acquire the field from the hand of Naomi, you are also acquiring Ruth the Moabite, the widow of the dead man, to maintain the dead man’s name on his inheritance.”

⁶At this, the next-of-kin said, “I cannot redeem it for myself without damaging my own inheritance. Take my right of redemption yourself, for I cannot redeem it.”

⁷Now this was the custom in former times in Israel concerning redeeming and exchanging: to confirm a transaction, the one took off a sandal and gave it to the other; this was the manner of attesting in Israel.

⁸So when the next-of-kin said to Boaz, “Acquire it for yourself,” he took off his sandal.

⁹Then Boaz said to the elders and all the people, “Today you are witnesses that I have acquired from the hand of Naomi all that belonged to Elimelech and all that belonged to Chilion and Mahlon.

¹⁰I have also acquired Ruth the Moabite, the wife of Mahlon, to be my wife, to maintain the dead man’s name on his inheritance, in order that the name of the dead may not be cut off from his kindred and from the gate of his native place; today you are witnesses.”

¹¹Then all the people who were at the gate, along with the elders, said, “We are witnesses. May the LORD make the woman who is coming into your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you produce children in Ephrathah and bestow a name in Bethlehem;

¹²and, through the children that the LORD will give you by this young woman, may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah.”

¹³So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the LORD made her conceive, and she bore a son.

¹⁴Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel!

¹⁵He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.”

¹⁶Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse.

¹⁷The women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

¹⁸Now these are the descendants of Perez: Perez became the father of Hezron,

¹⁹Hezron of Ram, Ram of Amminadab,

²⁰Amminadab of Nahshon, Nahshon of Salmon,

²¹Salmon of Boaz, Boaz of Obed,

²²Obed of Jesse, and Jesse of David.

¹Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came forth from the loins of Judah; who swear by the name of the LORD, and invoke the God of Israel, but not in truth or right.

²For they call themselves after the holy city, and lean on the God of Israel; the LORD of hosts is his name.

³The former things I declared long ago, they went out from my mouth and I made them known; then suddenly I did them and they came to pass.

⁴Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass,

⁵I declared them to you from long ago, before they came to pass I announced them to you, so that you would not say, “My idol did them, my carved image and my cast image commanded them.”

⁶You have heard; now see all this; and will you not declare it? From this time forward I make you hear new things, hidden things that you have not known.

⁷They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, so that you could not say, “I already knew them.”

⁸You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would deal very treacherously, and that from birth you were called a rebel.

⁹For my name’s sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, so that I may not cut you off.

¹⁰See, I have refined you, but not like silver; I have tested you in the furnace of adversity.

¹¹For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for why should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

¹²Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called: I am He; I am the first, and I am the last.

¹³My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I summon them, they stand at attention.

¹⁴Assemble, all of you, and hear! Who among them has declared these things? The LORD loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.

¹⁵I, even I, have spoken and called him, I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.

¹⁶Draw near to me, hear this! From the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there. And now the Lord GOD has sent me and his spirit.

¹⁷Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the LORD your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go.

¹⁸O that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your prosperity would have been like a river, and your success like the waves of the sea;

¹⁹your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.

²⁰Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it forth to the end of the earth; say, “The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!”

²¹They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split open the rock and the water gushed out.

²²“There is no peace,” says the LORD, “for the wicked.”

¹After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.

²There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them,

³and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together — by trade they were tentmakers.

⁴Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.

⁵When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus.

⁶When they opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”

⁷Then he left the synagogue and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue.

⁸Crispus, the official of the synagogue, became a believer in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul became believers and were baptized.

⁹One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent;

¹⁰for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.”

¹¹He stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

¹²But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal.

¹³They said, “This man is persuading people to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law.”

¹⁴Just as Paul was about to speak, Gallio said to the Jews, “If it were a matter of crime or serious villainy, I would be justified in accepting the complaint of you Jews;

¹⁵but since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves; I do not wish to be a judge of these matters.”

¹⁶And he dismissed them from the tribunal.

¹⁷Then all of them seized Sosthenes, the official of the synagogue, and beat him in front of the tribunal. But Gallio paid no attention to any of these things.

¹⁸After staying there for a considerable time, Paul said farewell to the believers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila. At Cenchreae he had his hair cut, for he was under a vow.

¹⁹When they reached Ephesus, he left them there, but first he himself went into the synagogue and had a discussion with the Jews.

²⁰When they asked him to stay longer, he declined;

²¹but on taking leave of them, he said, “I will return to you, if God wills.” Then he set sail from Ephesus.

²²When he had landed at Caesarea, he went up to Jerusalem and greeted the church, and then went down to Antioch.

²³After spending some time there he departed and went from place to place through the region of Galatia and Phrygia, strengthening all the disciples.

²⁴Now there came to Ephesus a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria. He was an eloquent man, well-versed in the scriptures.

²⁵He had been instructed in the Way of the Lord; and he spoke with burning enthusiasm and taught accurately the things concerning Jesus, though he knew only the baptism of John.

²⁶He began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately.

²⁷And when he wished to cross over to Achaia, the believers encouraged him and wrote to the disciples to welcome him. On his arrival he greatly helped those who through grace had become believers,

²⁸for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public, showing by the scriptures that the Messiah is Jesus.