Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

²where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.

³The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.”

⁴Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

⁵The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world.

⁶And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to.

⁷If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

⁸Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

⁹The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here.

¹⁰For it is written: “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully;

¹¹they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

¹²Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

¹³When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

¹⁴Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside.

¹⁵He was teaching in their synagogues, and everyone praised him.

¹⁶He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read,

¹⁷and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

¹⁸“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,

¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

²⁰Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.

²¹He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

²²All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.

²³Jesus said to them, “Surely you will quote this proverb to me: ‘Physician, heal yourself!’ And you will tell me, ‘Do here in your hometown what we have heard that you did in Capernaum.’ ”

²⁴“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown.

²⁵I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.

²⁶Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.

²⁷And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

²⁸All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this.

²⁹They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff.

³⁰But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

³¹Then he went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people.

³²They were amazed at his teaching, because his words had authority.

³³In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice,

³⁴“Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

³⁵“Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.

³⁶All the people were amazed and said to each other, “What words these are! With authority and power he gives orders to impure spirits and they come out!”

³⁷And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding area.

³⁸Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her.

³⁹So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.

⁴⁰At sunset, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them.

⁴¹Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Messiah.

⁴²At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.

⁴³But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

⁴⁴And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

¹Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the LORD, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the LORD burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp.

²When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the LORD and the fire died down.

³So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the LORD had burned among them.

⁴The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, “If only we had meat to eat!

⁵We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.

⁶But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!”

⁷The manna was like coriander seed and looked like resin.

⁸The people went around gathering it, and then ground it in a hand mill or crushed it in a mortar. They cooked it in a pot or made it into loaves. And it tasted like something made with olive oil.

⁹When the dew settled on the camp at night, the manna also came down.

¹⁰Moses heard the people of every family wailing at the entrance to their tents. The LORD became exceedingly angry, and Moses was troubled.

¹¹He asked the LORD, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?

¹²Did I conceive all these people? Did I give them birth? Why do you tell me to carry them in my arms, as a nurse carries an infant, to the land you promised on oath to their ancestors?

¹³Where can I get meat for all these people? They keep wailing to me, ‘Give us meat to eat!’

¹⁴I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me.

¹⁵If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.”

¹⁶The LORD said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you.

¹⁷I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.

¹⁸“Tell the people: ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The LORD heard you when you wailed, “If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!” Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it.

¹⁹You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days,

²⁰but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, “Why did we ever leave Egypt?” ’ ”

²¹But Moses said, “Here I am among six hundred thousand men on foot, and you say, ‘I will give them meat to eat for a whole month!’

²²Would they have enough if flocks and herds were slaughtered for them? Would they have enough if all the fish in the sea were caught for them?”

²³The LORD answered Moses, “Is the LORD’s arm too short? Now you will see whether or not what I say will come true for you.”

²⁴So Moses went out and told the people what the LORD had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the tent.

²⁵Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took some of the power of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied—but did not do so again.

²⁶However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp.

²⁷A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”

²⁸Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”

²⁹But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”

³⁰Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

³¹Now a wind went out from the LORD and drove quail in from the sea. It scattered them up to two cubits deep all around the camp, as far as a day’s walk in any direction.

³²All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than ten homers. Then they spread them out all around the camp.

³³But while the meat was still between their teeth and before it could be consumed, the anger of the LORD burned against the people, and he struck them with a severe plague.

³⁴Therefore the place was named Kibroth Hattaavah, because there they buried the people who had craved other food.

³⁵From Kibroth Hattaavah the people traveled to Hazeroth and stayed there.

¹What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision?

²Much in every way! First of all, the Jews have been entrusted with the very words of God.

³What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness?

⁴Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.”

⁵But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.)

⁶Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world?

⁷Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?”

⁸Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just!

⁹What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin.

¹⁰As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;

¹¹there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.

¹²All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

¹³“Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.”

¹⁴“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”

¹⁵“Their feet are swift to shed blood;

¹⁶ruin and misery mark their ways,

¹⁷and the way of peace they do not know.”

¹⁸“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

¹⁹Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.

²⁰Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

²¹But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.

²²This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile,

²³for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

²⁴and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

²⁵God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—

²⁶he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

²⁷Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith.

²⁸For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

²⁹Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too,

³⁰since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

³¹Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

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 pain as she was about to give birth.

³Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads.

⁴Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born.

⁵She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.” And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.

⁶The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

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

⁸But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.

⁹The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

¹⁰Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: “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 brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

¹¹They triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

¹²Therefore rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”

¹³When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child.

¹⁴The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach.

¹⁵Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.

¹⁶But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.

¹⁷Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.

¹“Call if you will, but who will answer you? To which of the holy ones will you turn?

²Resentment kills a fool, and envy slays the simple.

³I myself have seen a fool taking root, but suddenly his house was cursed.

⁴His children are far from safety, crushed in court without a defender.

⁵The hungry consume his harvest, taking it even from among thorns, and the thirsty pant after his wealth.

⁶For hardship does not spring from the soil, nor does trouble sprout from the ground.

⁷Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward.

⁸“But if I were you, I would appeal to God; I would lay my cause before him.

⁹He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted.

¹⁰He provides rain for the earth; he sends water on the countryside.

¹¹The lowly he sets on high, and those who mourn are lifted to safety.

¹²He thwarts the plans of the crafty, so that their hands achieve no success.

¹³He catches the wise in their craftiness, and the schemes of the wily are swept away.

¹⁴Darkness comes upon them in the daytime; at noon they grope as in the night.

¹⁵He saves the needy from the sword in their mouth; he saves them from the clutches of the powerful.

¹⁶So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts its mouth.

¹⁷“Blessed is the one whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.

¹⁸For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal.

¹⁹From six calamities he will rescue you; in seven no harm will touch you.

²⁰In famine he will deliver you from death, and in battle from the stroke of the sword.

²¹You will be protected from the lash of the tongue, and need not fear when destruction comes.

²²You will laugh at destruction and famine, and need not fear the wild animals.

²³For you will have a covenant with the stones of the field, and the wild animals will be at peace with you.

²⁴You will know that your tent is secure; you will take stock of your property and find nothing missing.

²⁵You will know that your children will be many, and your descendants like the grass of the earth.

²⁶You will come to the grave in full vigor, like sheaves gathered in season.

²⁷“We have examined this, and it is true. So hear it and apply it to yourself.”

¹A psalm of David. LORD, who may dwell in your sacred tent? Who may live on your holy mountain?

²The one whose walk is blameless, who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from their heart;

³whose tongue utters no slander, who does no wrong to a neighbor, and casts no slur on others;

⁴who despises a vile person but honors those who fear the LORD; who keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind;

⁵who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent. Whoever does these things will never be shaken.

¹My son, pay attention to my wisdom, turn your ear to my words of insight,

²that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.

³For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil;

⁴but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword.

⁵Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to the grave.

⁶She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.

⁷Now then, my sons, listen to me; do not turn aside from what I say.

⁸Keep to a path far from her, do not go near the door of her house,

⁹lest you lose your honor to others and your dignity to one who is cruel,

¹⁰lest strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich the house of another.

¹¹At the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are spent.

¹²You will say, “How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction!

¹³I would not obey my teachers or turn my ear to my instructors.

¹⁴And I was soon in serious trouble in the assembly of God’s people.”

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.

¹⁶Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?

¹⁷Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.

¹⁸May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.

¹⁹A loving doe, a graceful deer— may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love.

²⁰Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?

²¹For your ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all your paths.

²²The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the cords of their sins hold them fast.

²³For lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their own great folly.

¹Now the Philistines gathered their forces for war and assembled at Sokoh in Judah. They pitched camp at Ephes Dammim, between Sokoh and Azekah.

²Saul and the Israelites assembled and camped in the Valley of Elah and drew up their battle line to meet the Philistines.

³The Philistines occupied one hill and the Israelites another, with the valley between them.

⁴A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span.

⁵He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels;

⁶on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back.

⁷His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels. His shield bearer went ahead of him.

⁸Goliath stood and shouted to the ranks of Israel, “Why do you come out and line up for battle? Am I not a Philistine, and are you not the servants of Saul? Choose a man and have him come down to me.

⁹If he is able to fight and kill me, we will become your subjects; but if I overcome him and kill him, you will become our subjects and serve us.”

¹⁰Then the Philistine said, “This day I defy the armies of Israel! Give me a man and let us fight each other.”

¹¹On hearing the Philistine’s words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.

¹²Now David was the son of an Ephrathite named Jesse, who was from Bethlehem in Judah. Jesse had eight sons, and in Saul’s time he was very old.

¹³Jesse’s three oldest sons had followed Saul to the war: The firstborn was Eliab; the second, Abinadab; and the third, Shammah.

¹⁴David was the youngest. The three oldest followed Saul,

¹⁵but David went back and forth from Saul to tend his father’s sheep at Bethlehem.

¹⁶For forty days the Philistine came forward every morning and evening and took his stand.

¹⁷Now Jesse said to his son David, “Take this ephah of roasted grain and these ten loaves of bread for your brothers and hurry to their camp.

¹⁸Take along these ten cheeses to the commander of their unit. See how your brothers are and bring back some assurance from them.

¹⁹They are with Saul and all the men of Israel in the Valley of Elah, fighting against the Philistines.”

²⁰Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry.

²¹Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other.

²²David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were.

²³As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine champion from Gath, stepped out from his lines and shouted his usual defiance, and David heard it.

²⁴Whenever the Israelites saw the man, they all fled from him in great fear.

²⁵Now the Israelites had been saying, “Do you see how this man keeps coming out? He comes out to defy Israel. The king will give great wealth to the man who kills him. He will also give him his daughter in marriage and will exempt his family from taxes in Israel.”

²⁶David asked the men standing near him, “What will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

²⁷They repeated to him what they had been saying and told him, “This is what will be done for the man who kills him.”

²⁸When Eliab, David’s oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, “Why have you come down here? And with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is; you came down only to watch the battle.”

²⁹“Now what have I done?” said David. “Can’t I even speak?”

³⁰He then turned away to someone else and brought up the same matter, and the men answered him as before.

³¹What David said was overheard and reported to Saul, and Saul sent for him.

³²David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

³³Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a young man, and he has been a warrior from his youth.”

³⁴But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock,

³⁵I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it.

³⁶Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God.

³⁷The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you.”

³⁸Then Saul dressed David in his own tunic. He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head.

³⁹David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off.

⁴⁰Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the stream, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, with his sling in his hand, approached the Philistine.

⁴¹Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David.

⁴²He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him.

⁴³He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.

⁴⁴“Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!”

⁴⁵David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

⁴⁶This day the LORD will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.

⁴⁷All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.”

⁴⁸As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him.

⁴⁹Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

⁵⁰So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

⁵¹David ran and stood over him. He took hold of the Philistine’s sword and drew it from the sheath. After he killed him, he cut off his head with the sword. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran.

⁵²Then the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with a shout and pursued the Philistines to the entrance of Gath and to the gates of Ekron. Their dead were strewn along the Shaaraim road to Gath and Ekron.

⁵³When the Israelites returned from chasing the Philistines, they plundered their camp.

⁵⁴David took the Philistine’s head and brought it to Jerusalem; he put the Philistine’s weapons in his own tent.

⁵⁵As Saul watched David going out to meet the Philistine, he said to Abner, commander of the army, “Abner, whose son is that young man?” Abner replied, “As surely as you live, Your Majesty, I don’t know.”

⁵⁶The king said, “Find out whose son this young man is.”

⁵⁷As soon as David returned from killing the Philistine, Abner took him and brought him before Saul, with David still holding the Philistine’s head.

⁵⁸“Whose son are you, young man?” Saul asked him. David said, “I am the son of your servant Jesse of Bethlehem.”

¹“I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I.’

²All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations—

³a people who continually provoke me to my very face, offering sacrifices in gardens and burning incense on altars of brick;

⁴who sit among the graves and spend their nights keeping secret vigil; who eat the flesh of pigs, and whose pots hold broth of impure meat;

⁵who say, ‘Keep away; don’t come near me, for I am too sacred for you!’ Such people are smoke in my nostrils, a fire that keeps burning all day.

⁶“See, it stands written before me: I will not keep silent but will pay back in full; I will pay it back into their laps—

⁷both your sins and the sins of your ancestors,” says the LORD. “Because they burned sacrifices on the mountains and defied me on the hills, I will measure into their laps the full payment for their former deeds.”

⁸This is what the LORD says: “As when juice is still found in a cluster of grapes and people say, ‘Don’t destroy it, there is still a blessing in it,’ so will I do in behalf of my servants; I will not destroy them all.

⁹I will bring forth descendants from Jacob, and from Judah those who will possess my mountains; my chosen people will inherit them, and there will my servants live.

¹⁰Sharon will become a pasture for flocks, and the Valley of Achor a resting place for herds, for my people who seek me.

¹¹“But as for you who forsake the LORD and forget my holy mountain, who spread a table for Fortune and fill bowls of mixed wine for Destiny,

¹²I will destine you for the sword, and all of you will fall in the slaughter; for I called but you did not answer, I spoke but you did not listen. You did evil in my sight and chose what displeases me.”

¹³Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: “My servants will eat, but you will go hungry; my servants will drink, but you will go thirsty; my servants will rejoice, but you will be put to shame.

¹⁴My servants will sing out of the joy of their hearts, but you will cry out from anguish of heart and wail in brokenness of spirit.

¹⁵You will leave your name for my chosen ones to use in their curses; the Sovereign LORD will put you to death, but to his servants he will give another name.

¹⁶Whoever invokes a blessing in the land will do so by the one true God; whoever takes an oath in the land will swear by the one true God. For the past troubles will be forgotten and hidden from my eyes.

¹⁷“See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.

¹⁸But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.

¹⁹I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.

²⁰“Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.

²¹They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

²²No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands.

²³They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them.

²⁴Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.

²⁵The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent’s food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain,” says the LORD.

¹Then the high priest asked Stephen, “Are these charges true?”

²To this he replied: “Brothers and fathers, listen to me! The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran.

³‘Leave your country and your people,’ God said, ‘and go to the land I will show you.’

⁴“So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Harran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living.

⁵He gave him no inheritance here, not even enough ground to set his foot on. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child.

⁶God spoke to him in this way: ‘For four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated.

⁷But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’

⁸Then he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him eight days after his birth. Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.

⁹“Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him

¹⁰and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.

¹¹“Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food.

¹²When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit.

¹³On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family.

¹⁴After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all.

¹⁵Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died.

¹⁶Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.

¹⁷“As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased.

¹⁸Then ‘a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.’

¹⁹He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.

²⁰“At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for by his family.

²¹When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.

²²Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

²³“When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.

²⁴He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian.

²⁵Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.

²⁶The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?’

²⁷“But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us?

²⁸Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’

²⁹When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.

³⁰“After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.

³¹When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say:

³²‘I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’ Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.

³³“Then the Lord said to him, ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.

³⁴I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.’

³⁵“This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush.

³⁶He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness.

³⁷“This is the Moses who told the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your own people.’

³⁸He was in the assembly in the wilderness, with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our ancestors; and he received living words to pass on to us.

³⁹“But our ancestors refused to obey him. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.

⁴⁰They told Aaron, ‘Make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who led us out of Egypt—we don’t know what has happened to him!’

⁴¹That was the time they made an idol in the form of a calf. They brought sacrifices to it and reveled in what their own hands had made.

⁴²But God turned away from them and gave them over to the worship of the sun, moon and stars. This agrees with what is written in the book of the prophets: “ ‘Did you bring me sacrifices and offerings forty years in the wilderness, people of Israel?

⁴³You have taken up the tabernacle of Molek and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile’ beyond Babylon.

⁴⁴“Our ancestors had the tabernacle of the covenant law with them in the wilderness. It had been made as God directed Moses, according to the pattern he had seen.

⁴⁵After receiving the tabernacle, our ancestors under Joshua brought it with them when they took the land from the nations God drove out before them. It remained in the land until the time of David,

⁴⁶who enjoyed God’s favor and asked that he might provide a dwelling place for the God of Jacob.

⁴⁷But it was Solomon who built a house for him.

⁴⁸“However, the Most High does not live in houses made by human hands. As the prophet says:

⁴⁹“ ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. What kind of house will you build for me? says the Lord. Or where will my resting place be?

⁵⁰Has not my hand made all these things?’

⁵¹“You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!

⁵²Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him—

⁵³you who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it.”

⁵⁴When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.

⁵⁵But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.

⁵⁶“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”

⁵⁷At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him,

⁵⁸dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul.

⁵⁹While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

⁶⁰Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.