Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.

²He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people.

³In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’

⁴For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone,

⁵yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’”

⁶And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says.

⁷And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them?

⁸I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

⁹He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt:

¹⁰“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

¹¹The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

¹²I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’

¹³But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’

¹⁴I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

¹⁵People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it.

¹⁶But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.

¹⁷Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

¹⁸A certain ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

¹⁹Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.

²⁰You know the commandments: ‘You shall not commit adultery; You shall not murder; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother.’”

²¹He replied, “I have kept all these since my youth.”

²²When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “There is still one thing lacking. Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”

²³But when he heard this, he became sad; for he was very rich.

²⁴Jesus looked at him and said, “How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!

²⁵Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

²⁶Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?”

²⁷He replied, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.”

²⁸Then Peter said, “Look, we have left our homes and followed you.”

²⁹And he said to them, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God,

³⁰who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.”

³¹Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.

³²For he will be handed over to the Gentiles; and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon.

³³After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again.”

³⁴But they understood nothing about all these things; in fact, what he said was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.

³⁵As he approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging.

³⁶When he heard a crowd going by, he asked what was happening.

³⁷They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.”

³⁸Then he shouted, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!”

³⁹Those who were in front sternly ordered him to be quiet; but he shouted even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”

⁴⁰Jesus stood still and ordered the man to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him,

⁴¹“What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, let me see again.”

⁴²Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has saved you.”

⁴³Immediately he regained his sight and followed him, glorifying God; and all the people, when they saw it, praised God.

¹While Israel was staying at Shittim, the people began to have sexual relations with the women of Moab.

²These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.

³Thus Israel yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the LORD’s anger was kindled against Israel.

⁴The LORD said to Moses, “Take all the chiefs of the people, and impale them in the sun before the LORD, in order that the fierce anger of the LORD may turn away from Israel.”

⁵And Moses said to the judges of Israel, “Each of you shall kill any of your people who have yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor.”

⁶Just then one of the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of meeting.

⁷When Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up and left the congregation. Taking a spear in his hand,

⁸he went after the Israelite man into the tent, and pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman, through the belly. So the plague was stopped among the people of Israel.

⁹Nevertheless those that died by the plague were twenty-four thousand.

¹⁰The LORD spoke to Moses, saying:

¹¹“Phinehas son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the Israelites by manifesting such zeal among them on my behalf that in my jealousy I did not consume the Israelites.

¹²Therefore say, ‘I hereby grant him my covenant of peace.

¹³It shall be for him and for his descendants after him a covenant of perpetual priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the Israelites.’”

¹⁴The name of the slain Israelite man, who was killed with the Midianite woman, was Zimri son of Salu, head of an ancestral house belonging to the Simeonites.

¹⁵The name of the Midianite woman who was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur, who was the head of a clan, an ancestral house in Midian.

¹⁶The LORD said to Moses,

¹⁷“Harass the Midianites, and defeat them;

¹⁸for they have harassed you by the trickery with which they deceived you in the affair of Peor, and in the affair of Cozbi, the daughter of a leader of Midian, their sister; she was killed on the day of the plague that resulted from Peor.”

¹Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes,

²To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

³Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

⁴I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus,

⁵for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind —

⁶just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you —

⁷so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁸He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

⁹God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

¹⁰Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you be in agreement and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose.

¹¹For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters.

¹²What I mean is that each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.”

¹³Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

¹⁴I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius,

¹⁵so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name.

¹⁶(I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)

¹⁷For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.

¹⁸For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

¹⁹For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

²⁰Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

²¹For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.

²²For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,

²³but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

²⁴but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

²⁵For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.

²⁶Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

²⁷But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;

²⁸God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are,

²⁹so that no one might boast in the presence of God.

³⁰He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,

³¹in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

¹Then Job answered:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹⁴My relatives and my close friends have failed me;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹Ascribe to the LORD, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.

²Ascribe to the LORD the glory of his name; worship the LORD in holy splendor.

³The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over mighty waters.

⁴The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty.

⁵The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

⁶He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Sirion like a young wild ox.

⁷The voice of the LORD flashes forth flames of fire.

⁸The voice of the LORD shakes the wilderness; the LORD shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

⁹The voice of the LORD causes the oaks to whirl, and strips the forest bare; and in his temple all say, “Glory!”

¹⁰The LORD sits enthroned over the flood; the LORD sits enthroned as king forever.

¹¹May the LORD give strength to his people! May the LORD bless his people with peace!

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.

¹Now the Philistines fought against Israel; and the men of Israel fled before the Philistines, and many fell on Mount Gilboa.

²The Philistines overtook Saul and his sons; and the Philistines killed Jonathan and Abinadab and Malchishua, the sons of Saul.

³The battle pressed hard upon Saul; the archers found him, and he was badly wounded by them.

⁴Then Saul said to his armor-bearer, “Draw your sword and thrust me through with it, so that these uncircumcised may not come and thrust me through, and make sport of me.” But his armor-bearer was unwilling; for he was terrified. So Saul took his own sword and fell upon it.

⁵When his armor-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he also fell upon his sword and died with him.

⁶So Saul and his three sons and his armor-bearer and all his men died together on the same day.

⁷When the men of Israel who were on the other side of the valley and those beyond the Jordan saw that the men of Israel had fled and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook their towns and fled; and the Philistines came and occupied them.

⁸The next day, when the Philistines came to strip the dead, they found Saul and his three sons fallen on Mount Gilboa.

⁹They cut off his head, stripped off his armor, and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the houses of their idols and to the people.

¹⁰They put his armor in the temple of Astarte; and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan.

¹¹But when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul,

¹²all the valiant men set out, traveled all night long, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan. They came to Jabesh and burned them there.

¹³Then they took their bones and buried them under the tamarisk tree in Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

¹Thus said the LORD to me, “Go and buy yourself a linen loincloth, and put it on your loins, but do not dip it in water.”

²So I bought a loincloth according to the word of the LORD, and put it on my loins.

³And the word of the LORD came to me a second time, saying,

⁴“Take the loincloth that you bought and are wearing, and go now to the Euphrates, and hide it there in a cleft of the rock.”

⁵So I went, and hid it by the Euphrates, as the LORD commanded me.

⁶And after many days the LORD said to me, “Go now to the Euphrates, and take from there the loincloth that I commanded you to hide there.”

⁷Then I went to the Euphrates, and dug, and I took the loincloth from the place where I had hidden it. But now the loincloth was ruined; it was good for nothing.

⁸Then the word of the LORD came to me:

⁹Thus says the LORD: Just so I will ruin the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem.

¹⁰This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own will and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing.

¹¹For as the loincloth clings to one’s loins, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, says the LORD, in order that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory. But they would not listen.

¹²You shall speak to them this word: Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Every wine-jar should be filled with wine. And they will say to you, “Do you think we do not know that every wine-jar should be filled with wine?”

¹³Then you shall say to them: Thus says the LORD: I am about to fill all the inhabitants of this land — the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem — with drunkenness.

¹⁴And I will dash them one against another, parents and children together, says the LORD. I will not pity or spare or have compassion when I destroy them.

¹⁵Hear and give ear; do not be haughty, for the LORD has spoken.

¹⁶Give glory to the LORD your God before he brings darkness, and before your feet stumble on the mountains at twilight; while you look for light, he turns it into gloom and makes it deep darkness.

¹⁷But if you will not listen, my soul will weep in secret for your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears, because the LORD’s flock has been taken captive.

¹⁸Say to the king and the queen mother: “Take a lowly seat, for your beautiful crown has come down from your head.”

¹⁹The towns of the Negeb are shut up with no one to open them; all Judah is taken into exile, wholly taken into exile.

²⁰Lift up your eyes and see those who come from the north. Where is the flock that was given you, your beautiful flock?

²¹What will you say when they set as head over you those whom you have trained to be your allies? Will not pangs take hold of you, like those of a woman in labor?

²²And if you say in your heart, “Why have these things come upon me?” it is for the greatness of your iniquity that your skirts are lifted up, and you are violated.

²³Can Ethiopians change their skin or leopards their spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to do evil.

²⁴I will scatter you like chaff driven by the wind from the desert.

²⁵This is your lot, the portion I have measured out to you, says the LORD, because you have forgotten me and trusted in lies.

²⁶I myself will lift up your skirts over your face, and your shame will be seen.

²⁷I have seen your abominations, your adulteries and neighings, your shameless prostitutions on the hills of the countryside. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will it be before you are made clean?

¹When we had parted from them and set sail, we came by a straight course to Cos, and the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara.

²When we found a ship bound for Phoenicia, we went on board and set sail.

³We came in sight of Cyprus; and leaving it on our left, we sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre, because the ship was to unload its cargo there.

⁴We looked up the disciples and stayed there for seven days. Through the Spirit they told Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.

⁵When our days there were ended, we left and proceeded on our journey; and all of them, with wives and children, escorted us outside the city. There we knelt down on the beach and prayed

⁶and said farewell to one another. Then we went on board the ship, and they returned home.

⁷When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemais; and we greeted the believers and stayed with them for one day.

⁸The next day we left and came to Caesarea; and we went into the house of Philip the evangelist, one of the seven, and stayed with him.

⁹He had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy.

¹⁰While we were staying there for several days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.

¹¹He came to us and took Paul’s belt, bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’”

¹²When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem.

¹³Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.”

¹⁴Since he would not be persuaded, we remained silent except to say, “The Lord’s will be done.”

¹⁵After these days we got ready and started to go up to Jerusalem.

¹⁶Some of the disciples from Caesarea also came along and brought us to the house of Mnason of Cyprus, an early disciple, with whom we were to stay.

¹⁷When we arrived in Jerusalem, the brothers welcomed us warmly.

¹⁸The next day Paul went with us to visit James; and all the elders were present.

¹⁹After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.

²⁰When they heard it, they praised God. Then they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands of believers there are among the Jews, and they are all zealous for the law.

²¹They have been told about you that you teach all the Jews living among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, and that you tell them not to circumcise their children or observe the customs.

²²What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come.

²³So do what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow.

²⁴Join these men, go through the rite of purification with them, and pay for the shaving of their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself observe and guard the law.

²⁵But as for the Gentiles who have become believers, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from fornication.”

²⁶Then Paul took the men, and the next day, having purified himself, he entered the temple with them, making public the completion of the days of purification when the sacrifice would be made for each of them.

²⁷When the seven days were almost completed, the Jews from Asia, who had seen him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd. They seized him,

²⁸shouting, “Fellow Israelites, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place; more than that, he has actually brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.”

²⁹For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian with him in the city, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple.

³⁰Then all the city was aroused, and the people rushed together. They seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the doors were shut.

³¹While they were trying to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in an uproar.

³²Immediately he took soldiers and centurions and ran down to them. When they saw the tribune and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.

³³Then the tribune came, arrested him, and ordered him to be bound with two chains; he inquired who he was and what he had done.

³⁴Some in the crowd shouted one thing, some another; and as he could not learn the facts because of the uproar, he ordered him to be brought into the barracks.

³⁵When Paul came to the steps, the violence of the mob was so great that he had to be carried by the soldiers.

³⁶The crowd that followed kept shouting, “Away with him!”

³⁷Just as Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the tribune, “May I say something to you?” The tribune replied, “Do you know Greek?

³⁸Then you are not the Egyptian who recently stirred up a revolt and led the four thousand assassins out into the wilderness?”

³⁹Paul replied, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of an important city; I beg you, let me speak to the people.”

⁴⁰When he had given him permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned to the people for silence; and when there was a great hush, he addressed them in the Hebrew language, saying: