Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Meanwhile, when the crowd gathered by the thousands, so that they trampled on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy.

²Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.

³Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.

⁴“I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more.

⁵But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!

⁶Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten in God’s sight.

⁷But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

⁸“And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God;

⁹but whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God.

¹⁰And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

¹¹When they bring you before the synagogues, the rulers, and the authorities, do not worry about how you are to defend yourselves or what you are to say;

¹²for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that very hour what you ought to say.”

¹³Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”

¹⁴But he said to him, “Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?”

¹⁵And he said to them, “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.”

¹⁶Then he told them a parable: “The land of a rich man produced abundantly.

¹⁷And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’

¹⁸Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods.

¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’

²⁰But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’

²¹So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”

²²He said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.

²³For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

²⁴Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!

²⁵And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

²⁶If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?

²⁷Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these.

²⁸But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you — you of little faith!

²⁹And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying.

³⁰For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.

³¹Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

³²“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

³³Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

³⁴For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

³⁵“Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit;

³⁶be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks.

³⁷Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.

³⁸If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.

³⁹“But know this: if the owner of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.

⁴⁰You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

⁴¹Peter said, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for everyone?”

⁴²And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and prudent manager whom his master will put in charge of his slaves, to give them their allowance of food at the proper time?

⁴³Blessed is that slave whom his master will find at work when he arrives.

⁴⁴Truly I tell you, he will put that one in charge of all his possessions.

⁴⁵But if that slave says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and if he begins to beat the other slaves, men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk,

⁴⁶the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and put him with the unfaithful.

⁴⁷That slave who knew what his master wanted, but did not prepare himself or do what was wanted, will receive a severe beating.

⁴⁸But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.

⁴⁹“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!

⁵⁰I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!

⁵¹Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!

⁵²From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;

⁵³they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

⁵⁴He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens.

⁵⁵And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens.

⁵⁶You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

⁵⁷“And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?

⁵⁸Thus, when you go with your accuser before a magistrate, on the way make an effort to settle the case, or you may be dragged before the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer throw you in prison.

⁵⁹I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”

¹The LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying:

²This is a statute of the law that the LORD has commanded: Tell the Israelites to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish and on which no yoke has been laid.

³You shall give it to the priest Eleazar, and it shall be taken outside the camp and slaughtered in his presence.

⁴The priest Eleazar shall take some of its blood with his finger and sprinkle it seven times towards the front of the tent of meeting.

⁵Then the heifer shall be burned in his sight; its skin, its flesh, and its blood, with its dung, shall be burned.

⁶The priest shall take cedarwood, hyssop, and crimson material, and throw them into the fire in which the heifer is burning.

⁷Then the priest shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterwards he may come into the camp; but the priest shall remain unclean until evening.

⁸The one who burns the heifer shall wash his clothes in water and bathe his body in water; he shall remain unclean until evening.

⁹Then someone who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer, and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place; and they shall be kept for the congregation of the Israelites for the water for cleansing. It is a purification offering.

¹⁰The one who gathers the ashes of the heifer shall wash his clothes and be unclean until evening. This shall be a perpetual statute for the Israelites and for the alien residing among them.

¹¹Those who touch the dead body of any human being shall be unclean seven days.

¹²They shall purify themselves with the water on the third day and on the seventh day, and so be clean; but if they do not purify themselves on the third day and on the seventh day, they will not become clean.

¹³All who touch a corpse, the body of a human being who has died, and do not purify themselves, defile the tabernacle of the LORD; such persons shall be cut off from Israel. Since water for cleansing was not dashed on them, they remain unclean; their uncleanness is still on them.

¹⁴This is the law when someone dies in a tent: everyone who comes into the tent, and everyone who is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days.

¹⁵And every open vessel with no cover fastened on it is unclean.

¹⁶Whoever in the open field touches one who has been killed by a sword, or who has died naturally, or a human bone, or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.

¹⁷For the unclean they shall take some ashes of the burnt purification offering, and running water shall be added in a vessel;

¹⁸then a clean person shall take hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle it on the tent, on all the furnishings, on the persons who were there, and on whoever touched the bone, the slain, the corpse, or the grave.

¹⁹The clean person shall sprinkle the unclean ones on the third day and on the seventh day, thus purifying them on the seventh day. Then they shall wash their clothes and bathe themselves in water, and at evening they shall be clean.

²⁰Any who are unclean but do not purify themselves, those persons shall be cut off from the assembly, for they have defiled the sanctuary of the LORD. Since the water for cleansing has not been dashed on them, they are unclean.

²¹It shall be a perpetual statute for them. The one who sprinkles the water for cleansing shall wash his clothes, and whoever touches the water for cleansing shall be unclean until evening.

²²Whatever the unclean person touches shall be unclean, and anyone who touches it shall be unclean until evening.

¹I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin.

²God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel?

³“Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life.”

⁴But what is the divine reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”

⁵So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.

⁶But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

⁷What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened,

⁸as it is written, “God gave them a sluggish spirit, eyes that would not see and ears that would not hear, down to this very day.”

⁹And David says, “Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them;

¹⁰let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and keep their backs forever bent.”

¹¹So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their stumbling salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.

¹²Now if their stumbling means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!

¹³Now I am speaking to you Gentiles. Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I glorify my ministry

¹⁴in order to make my own people jealous, and thus save some of them.

¹⁵For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead!

¹⁶If the part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; and if the root is holy, then the branches also are holy.

¹⁷But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree,

¹⁸do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you.

¹⁹You will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”

²⁰That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe.

²¹For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you.

²²Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off.

²³And even those of Israel, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again.

²⁴For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.

²⁵So that you may not claim to be wiser than you are, brothers and sisters, I want you to understand this mystery: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.

²⁶And so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, “Out of Zion will come the Deliverer; he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.”

²⁷“And this is my covenant with them, when I take away their sins.”

²⁸As regards the gospel they are enemies of God for your sake; but as regards election they are beloved, for the sake of their ancestors;

²⁹for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

³⁰Just as you were once disobedient to God but have now received mercy because of their disobedience,

³¹so they have now been disobedient in order that, by the mercy shown to you, they too may now receive mercy.

³²For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all.

³³O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

³⁴“For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?”

³⁵“Or who has given a gift to him, to receive a gift in return?”

³⁶For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.

¹Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.

²He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,

³and threw him into the pit, and locked and sealed it over him, so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while.

⁴Then I saw thrones, and those seated on them were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.

⁵(The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection.

⁶Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him a thousand years.

⁷When the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison

⁸and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle; they are as numerous as the sands of the sea.

⁹They marched up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down from heaven and consumed them.

¹⁰And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

¹¹Then I saw a great white throne and the one who sat on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them.

¹²And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books.

¹³And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done.

¹⁴Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire;

¹⁵and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

¹“Look, my eye has seen all this, my ear has heard and understood it.

²What you know, I also know; I am not inferior to you.

³But I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to argue my case with God.

⁴As for you, you whitewash with lies; all of you are worthless physicians.

⁵If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom!

⁶Hear now my reasoning, and listen to the pleadings of my lips.

⁷Will you speak falsely for God, and speak deceitfully for him?

⁸Will you show partiality toward him, will you plead the case for God?

⁹Will it be well with you when he searches you out? Or can you deceive him, as one person deceives another?

¹⁰He will surely rebuke you if in secret you show partiality.

¹¹Will not his majesty terrify you, and the dread of him fall upon you?

¹²Your maxims are proverbs of ashes, your defenses are defenses of clay.

¹³“Let me have silence, and I will speak, and let come on me what may.

¹⁴I will take my flesh in my teeth, and put my life in my hand.

¹⁵See, he will kill me; I have no hope; but I will defend my ways to his face.

¹⁶This will be my salvation, that the godless shall not come before him.

¹⁷Listen carefully to my words, and let my declaration be in your ears.

¹⁸I have indeed prepared my case; I know that I shall be vindicated.

¹⁹Who is there that will contend with me? For then I would be silent and die.

²⁰Only grant two things to me, then I will not hide myself from your face:

²¹withdraw your hand far from me, and do not let dread of you terrify me.

²²Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, and you reply to me.

²³How many are my iniquities and my sins? Make me know my transgression and my sin.

²⁴Why do you hide your face, and count me as your enemy?

²⁵Will you frighten a windblown leaf and pursue dry chaff?

²⁶For you write bitter things against me, and make me reap the iniquities of my youth.

²⁷You put my feet in the stocks, and watch all my paths; you set a bound to the soles of my feet.

²⁸One wastes away like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten.

¹The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.

²He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters;

³he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

⁴Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff — they comfort me.

⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

⁶Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long.

¹A wise child loves discipline, but a scoffer does not listen to rebuke.

²From the fruit of their words good persons eat good things, but the desire of the treacherous is for wrongdoing.

³Those who guard their mouths preserve their lives; those who open wide their lips come to ruin.

⁴The appetite of the lazy craves, and gets nothing, while the appetite of the diligent is richly supplied.

⁵The righteous hate falsehood, but the wicked act shamefully and disgracefully.

⁶Righteousness guards one whose way is upright, but sin overthrows the wicked.

⁷Some pretend to be rich, yet have nothing; others pretend to be poor, yet have great wealth.

⁸Wealth is a ransom for a person’s life, but the poor get no threats.

⁹The light of the righteous rejoices, but the lamp of the wicked goes out.

¹⁰By insolence the heedless make strife, but wisdom is with those who take advice.

¹¹Wealth hastily gotten will dwindle, but those who gather little by little will increase it.

¹²Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

¹³Those who despise the word bring destruction on themselves, but those who respect the commandment will be rewarded.

¹⁴The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, so that one may avoid the snares of death.

¹⁵Good sense wins favor, but the way of the faithless is their ruin.

¹⁶The clever do all things intelligently, but the fool displays folly.

¹⁷A bad messenger brings trouble, but a faithful envoy, healing.

¹⁸Poverty and disgrace are for the one who ignores instruction, but one who heeds reproof is honored.

¹⁹A desire realized is sweet to the soul, but to turn away from evil is an abomination to fools.

²⁰Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm.

²¹Misfortune pursues sinners, but prosperity rewards the righteous.

²²The good leave an inheritance to their children’s children, but the sinner’s wealth is laid up for the righteous.

²³The field of the poor may yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.

²⁴Those who spare the rod hate their children, but those who love them are diligent to discipline them.

²⁵The righteous have enough to satisfy their appetite, but the belly of the wicked is empty.

¹Now Samuel died; and all Israel assembled and mourned for him. They buried him at his home in Ramah. Then David got up and went down to the wilderness of Paran.

²There was a man in Maon, whose property was in Carmel. The man was very rich; he had three thousand sheep and a thousand goats. He was shearing his sheep in Carmel.

³Now the name of the man was Nabal, and the name of his wife Abigail. The woman was clever and beautiful, but the man was surly and mean; he was a Calebite.

⁴David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.

⁵So David sent ten young men; and David said to the young men, “Go up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name.

⁶Thus you shall salute him: ‘Peace be to you, and peace be to your house, and peace be to all that you have.

⁷I hear that you have shearers; now your shepherds have been with us, and we did them no harm, and they missed nothing, all the time they were in Carmel.

⁸Ask your young men, and they will tell you. Therefore let my young men find favor in your sight; for we have come on a feast day. Please give whatever you have at hand to your servants and to your son David.’”

⁹When David’s young men came, they said all this to Nabal in the name of David; and then they waited.

¹⁰But Nabal answered David’s servants, “Who is David? Who is the son of Jesse? There are many servants today who are breaking away from their masters.

¹¹Shall I take my bread and my water and the meat that I have butchered for my shearers, and give it to men who come from I do not know where?”

¹²So David’s young men turned away, and came back and told him all this.

¹³David said to his men, “Every man strap on his sword!” And every one of them strapped on his sword; David also strapped on his sword; and about four hundred men went up after David, while two hundred remained with the baggage.

¹⁴But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal’s wife, “David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he shouted insults at them.

¹⁵Yet the men were very good to us, and we suffered no harm, and we never missed anything when we were in the fields, as long as we were with them;

¹⁶they were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep.

¹⁷Now therefore know this and consider what you should do; for evil has been decided against our master and against all his house; he is so ill-natured that no one can speak to him.”

¹⁸Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves, two skins of wine, five sheep ready dressed, five measures of parched grain, one hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys

¹⁹and said to her young men, “Go on ahead of me; I am coming after you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal.

²⁰As she rode on the donkey and came down under cover of the mountain, David and his men came down toward her; and she met them.

²¹Now David had said, “Surely it was in vain that I protected all that this fellow has in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that belonged to him; but he has returned me evil for good.

²²God do so to David and more also, if by morning I leave so much as one male of all who belong to him.”

²³When Abigail saw David, she hurried and alighted from the donkey, and fell before David on her face, bowing to the ground.

²⁴She fell at his feet and said, “Upon me alone, my lord, be the guilt; please let your servant speak in your ears, and hear the words of your servant.

²⁵My lord, do not take seriously this ill-natured fellow, Nabal; for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him; but I, your servant, did not see the young men of my lord, whom you sent.

²⁶“Now then, my lord, as the LORD lives, and as you yourself live, since the LORD has restrained you from bloodguilt and from taking vengeance with your own hand, now let your enemies and those who seek to do evil to my lord be like Nabal.

²⁷And now let this present that your servant has brought to my lord be given to the young men who follow my lord.

²⁸Please forgive the trespass of your servant; for the LORD will certainly make my lord a sure house, because my lord is fighting the battles of the LORD; and evil shall not be found in you so long as you live.

²⁹If anyone should rise up to pursue you and to seek your life, the life of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living under the care of the LORD your God; but the lives of your enemies he shall sling out as from the hollow of a sling.

³⁰When the LORD has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you, and has appointed you prince over Israel,

³¹my lord shall have no cause of grief, or pangs of conscience, for having shed blood without cause or for having saved himself. And when the LORD has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.”

³²David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who sent you to meet me today!

³³Blessed be your good sense, and blessed be you, who have kept me today from bloodguilt and from avenging myself by my own hand!

³⁴For as surely as the LORD the God of Israel lives, who has restrained me from hurting you, unless you had hurried and come to meet me, truly by morning there would not have been left to Nabal so much as one male.”

³⁵Then David received from her hand what she had brought him; he said to her, “Go up to your house in peace; see, I have heeded your voice, and I have granted your petition.”

³⁶Abigail came to Nabal; he was holding a feast in his house, like the feast of a king. Nabal’s heart was merry within him, for he was very drunk; so she told him nothing at all until the morning light.

³⁷In the morning, when the wine had gone out of Nabal, his wife told him these things, and his heart died within him; he became like a stone.

³⁸About ten days later the LORD struck Nabal, and he died.

³⁹When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, “Blessed be the LORD who has judged the case of Nabal’s insult to me, and has kept back his servant from evil; the LORD has returned the evildoing of Nabal upon his own head.” Then David sent and wooed Abigail, to make her his wife.

⁴⁰When David’s servants came to Abigail at Carmel, they said to her, “David has sent us to you to take you to him as his wife.”

⁴¹She rose and bowed down, with her face to the ground, and said, “Your servant is a slave to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.”

⁴²Abigail got up hurriedly and rode away on a donkey; her five maids attended her. She went after the messengers of David and became his wife.

⁴³David also married Ahinoam of Jezreel; both of them became his wives.

⁴⁴Saul had given his daughter Michal, David’s wife, to Palti son of Laish, who was from Gallim.

¹The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

²Stand in the gate of the LORD’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah, you that enter these gates to worship the LORD.

³Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your doings, and let me dwell with you in this place.

⁴Do not trust in these deceptive words: “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.”

⁵For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another,

⁶if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt,

⁷then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors forever and ever.

⁸Here you are, trusting in deceptive words to no avail.

⁹Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known,

¹⁰and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, “We are safe!” — only to go on doing all these abominations?

¹¹Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the LORD.

¹²Go now to my place that was in Shiloh, where I made my name dwell at first, and see what I did to it for the wickedness of my people Israel.

¹³And now, because you have done all these things, says the LORD, and when I spoke to you persistently, you did not listen, and when I called you, you did not answer,

¹⁴therefore I will do to the house that is called by my name, in which you trust, and to the place that I gave to you and to your ancestors, just what I did to Shiloh.

¹⁵And I will cast you out of my sight, just as I cast out all your kinsfolk, all the offspring of Ephraim.

¹⁶As for you, do not pray for this people, do not raise a cry or prayer on their behalf, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.

¹⁷Do you not see what they are doing in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem?

¹⁸The children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven; and they pour out drink offerings to other gods, to provoke me to anger.

¹⁹Is it I whom they provoke? says the LORD. Is it not themselves, to their own hurt?

²⁰Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: My anger and my wrath shall be poured out on this place, on human beings and animals, on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; it will burn and not be quenched.

²¹Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh.

²²For in the day that I brought your ancestors out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to them or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.

²³But this command I gave them, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk only in the way that I command you, so that it may be well with you.”

²⁴Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but, in the stubbornness of their evil will, they walked in their own counsels, and looked backward rather than forward.

²⁵From the day that your ancestors came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day;

²⁶yet they did not listen to me, or pay attention, but they stiffened their necks. They did worse than their ancestors did.

²⁷So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you.

²⁸You shall say to them: This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the LORD their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips.

²⁹Cut off your hair and throw it away; raise a lamentation on the bare heights, for the LORD has rejected and forsaken the generation that provoked his wrath.

³⁰For the people of Judah have done evil in my sight, says the LORD; they have set their abominations in the house that is called by my name, defiling it.

³¹And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire — which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind.

³²Therefore, the days are surely coming, says the LORD, when it will no more be called Topheth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom, but the valley of Slaughter: for they will bury in Topheth until there is no more room.

³³The corpses of this people will be food for the birds of the air, and for the animals of the earth; and no one will frighten them away.

³⁴And I will bring to an end the sound of mirth and gladness, the voice of the bride and bridegroom in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem; for the land shall become a waste.

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.