Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹“I am the true grapevine, and my Father is the gardener.

²He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn’t produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.

³You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you.

⁴Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me.

⁵“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.

⁶Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.

⁷But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!

⁸When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.

⁹“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.

¹⁰When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

¹¹I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!

¹²This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.

¹³There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command.

¹⁵I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.

¹⁶You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name.

¹⁷This is my command: Love each other.

¹⁸“If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first.

¹⁹The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you to come out of the world, so it hates you.

²⁰Do you remember what I told you? ‘A slave is not greater than the master.’ Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you. And if they had listened to me, they would listen to you.

²¹They will do all this to you because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me.

²²They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin.

²³Anyone who hates me also hates my Father.

²⁴If I hadn’t done such miraculous signs among them that no one else could do, they would not be guilty. But as it is, they have seen everything I did, yet they still hate me and my Father.

²⁵This fulfills what is written in their Scriptures : ‘They hated me without cause.’

²⁶“But I will send you the Advocate — the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me.

²⁷And you must also testify about me because you have been with me from the beginning of my ministry.

¹“At that time the LORD said to me, ‘Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones. Also make a wooden Ark — a sacred chest to store them in. Come up to me on the mountain,

²and I will write on the tablets the same words that were on the ones you smashed. Then place the tablets in the Ark.’

³“So I made an Ark of acacia wood and cut two stone tablets like the first two. Then I went up the mountain with the tablets in my hand.

⁴Once again the LORD wrote the Ten Commandments on the tablets and gave them to me. They were the same words the LORD had spoken to you from the heart of the fire on the day you were assembled at the foot of the mountain.

⁵Then I turned and came down the mountain and placed the tablets in the Ark of the Covenant, which I had made, just as the LORD commanded me. And the tablets are still there in the Ark.”

⁶(The people of Israel set out from the wells of the people of Jaakan and traveled to Moserah, where Aaron died and was buried. His son Eleazar ministered as high priest in his place.

⁷Then they journeyed to Gudgodah, and from there to Jotbathah, a land with many brooks and streams.

⁸At that time the LORD set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the Ark of the LORD’s Covenant, and to stand before the LORD as his ministers, and to pronounce blessings in his name. These are their duties to this day.

⁹That is why the Levites have no share of property or possession of land among the other Israelite tribes. The LORD himself is their special possession, as the LORD your God told them.)

¹⁰“As for me, I stayed on the mountain in the LORD’s presence for forty days and nights, as I had done the first time. And once again the LORD listened to my pleas and agreed not to destroy you.

¹¹Then the LORD said to me, ‘Get up and resume the journey, and lead the people to the land I swore to give to their ancestors, so they may take possession of it.’

¹²“And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the LORD your God, and live in a way that pleases him, and love him and serve him with all your heart and soul.

¹³And you must always obey the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.

¹⁴“Look, the highest heavens and the earth and everything in it all belong to the LORD your God.

¹⁵Yet the LORD chose your ancestors as the objects of his love. And he chose you, their descendants, above all other nations, as is evident today.

¹⁶Therefore, change your hearts and stop being stubborn.

¹⁷“For the LORD your God is the God of gods and Lord of lords. He is the great God, the mighty and awesome God, who shows no partiality and cannot be bribed.

¹⁸He ensures that orphans and widows receive justice. He shows love to the foreigners living among you and gives them food and clothing.

¹⁹So you, too, must show love to foreigners, for you yourselves were once foreigners in the land of Egypt.

²⁰You must fear the LORD your God and worship him and cling to him. Your oaths must be in his name alone.

²¹He alone is your God, the only one who is worthy of your praise, the one who has done these mighty miracles that you have seen with your own eyes.

²²When your ancestors went down into Egypt, there were only seventy of them. But now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky!

¹As God’s partners, we beg you not to accept this marvelous gift of God’s kindness and then ignore it.

²For God says, “At just the right time, I heard you. On the day of salvation, I helped you.” Indeed, the “right time” is now. Today is the day of salvation.

³We live in such a way that no one will stumble because of us, and no one will find fault with our ministry.

⁴In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God. We patiently endure troubles and hardships and calamities of every kind.

⁵We have been beaten, been put in prison, faced angry mobs, worked to exhaustion, endured sleepless nights, and gone without food.

⁶We prove ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, by the Holy Spirit within us, and by our sincere love.

⁷We faithfully preach the truth. God’s power is working in us. We use the weapons of righteousness in the right hand for attack and the left hand for defense.

⁸We serve God whether people honor us or despise us, whether they slander us or praise us. We are honest, but they call us impostors.

⁹We are ignored, even though we are well known. We live close to death, but we are still alive. We have been beaten, but we have not been killed.

¹⁰Our hearts ache, but we always have joy. We are poor, but we give spiritual riches to others. We own nothing, and yet we have everything.

¹¹Oh, dear Corinthian friends! We have spoken honestly with you, and our hearts are open to you.

¹²There is no lack of love on our part, but you have withheld your love from us.

¹³I am asking you to respond as if you were my own children. Open your hearts to us!

¹⁴Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness?

¹⁵What harmony can there be between Christ and the devil ? How can a believer be a partner with an unbeliever?

¹⁶And what union can there be between God’s temple and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God said: “I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people.

¹⁷Therefore, come out from among unbelievers, and separate yourselves from them, says the LORD. Don’t touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you.

¹⁸And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty. ”

¹Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly.

²Indeed, we all make many mistakes. For if we could control our tongues, we would be perfect and could also control ourselves in every other way.

³We can make a large horse go wherever we want by means of a small bit in its mouth.

⁴And a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong.

⁵In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire.

⁶And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.

⁷People can tame all kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, and fish,

⁸but no one can tame the tongue. It is restless and evil, full of deadly poison.

⁹Sometimes it praises our Lord and Father, and sometimes it curses those who have been made in the image of God.

¹⁰And so blessing and cursing come pouring out of the same mouth. Surely, my brothers and sisters, this is not right!

¹¹Does a spring of water bubble out with both fresh water and bitter water?

¹²Does a fig tree produce olives, or a grapevine produce figs? No, and you can’t draw fresh water from a salty spring.

¹³If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.

¹⁴But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying.

¹⁵For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.

¹⁶For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind.

¹⁷But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and the fruit of good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.

¹⁸And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

¹Then the LORD said to Job,

²“Do you still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God’s critic, but do you have the answers?”

³Then Job replied to the LORD,

⁴“I am nothing — how could I ever find the answers? I will cover my mouth with my hand.

⁵I have said too much already. I have nothing more to say.”

⁶Then the LORD answered Job from the whirlwind:

⁷“Brace yourself like a man, because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.

⁸“Will you discredit my justice and condemn me just to prove you are right?

⁹Are you as strong as God? Can you thunder with a voice like his?

¹⁰All right, put on your glory and splendor, your honor and majesty.

¹¹Give vent to your anger. Let it overflow against the proud.

¹²Humiliate the proud with a glance; walk on the wicked where they stand.

¹³Bury them in the dust. Imprison them in the world of the dead.

¹⁴Then even I would praise you, for your own strength would save you.

¹⁵“Take a look at Behemoth, which I made, just as I made you. It eats grass like an ox.

¹⁶See its powerful loins and the muscles of its belly.

¹⁷Its tail is as strong as a cedar. The sinews of its thighs are knit tightly together.

¹⁸Its bones are tubes of bronze. Its limbs are bars of iron.

¹⁹It is a prime example of God’s handiwork, and only its Creator can threaten it.

²⁰The mountains offer it their best food, where all the wild animals play.

²¹It lies under the lotus plants, hidden by the reeds in the marsh.

²²The lotus plants give it shade among the willows beside the stream.

²³It is not disturbed by the raging river, not concerned when the swelling Jordan rushes around it.

²⁴No one can catch it off guard or put a ring in its nose and lead it away.

¹The LORD, the Mighty One, is God, and he has spoken; he has summoned all humanity from where the sun rises to where it sets.

²From Mount Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines in glorious radiance.

³Our God approaches, and he is not silent. Fire devours everything in his way, and a great storm rages around him.

⁴He calls on the heavens above and earth below to witness the judgment of his people.

⁵“Bring my faithful people to me — those who made a covenant with me by giving sacrifices.”

⁶Then let the heavens proclaim his justice, for God himself will be the judge. Interlude

⁷“O my people, listen as I speak. Here are my charges against you, O Israel: I am God, your God!

⁸I have no complaint about your sacrifices or the burnt offerings you constantly offer.

⁹But I do not need the bulls from your barns or the goats from your pens.

¹⁰For all the animals of the forest are mine, and I own the cattle on a thousand hills.

¹¹I know every bird on the mountains, and all the animals of the field are mine.

¹²If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for all the world is mine and everything in it.

¹³Do I eat the meat of bulls? Do I drink the blood of goats?

¹⁴Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High.

¹⁵Then call on me when you are in trouble, and I will rescue you, and you will give me glory.”

¹⁶But God says to the wicked: “Why bother reciting my decrees and pretending to obey my covenant?

¹⁷For you refuse my discipline and treat my words like trash.

¹⁸When you see thieves, you approve of them, and you spend your time with adulterers.

¹⁹Your mouth is filled with wickedness, and your tongue is full of lies.

²⁰You sit around and slander your brother — your own mother’s son.

²¹While you did all this, I remained silent, and you thought I didn’t care. But now I will rebuke you, listing all my charges against you.

²²Repent, all of you who forget me, or I will tear you apart, and no one will help you.

²³But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me. If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the salvation of God.”

¹Wisdom has built her house; she has carved its seven columns.

²She has prepared a great banquet, mixed the wines, and set the table.

³She has sent her servants to invite everyone to come. She calls out from the heights overlooking the city.

⁴“Come in with me,” she urges the simple. To those who lack good judgment, she says,

⁵“Come, eat my food, and drink the wine I have mixed.

⁶Leave your simple ways behind, and begin to live; learn to use good judgment.”

⁷Anyone who rebukes a mocker will get an insult in return. Anyone who corrects the wicked will get hurt.

⁸So don’t bother correcting mockers; they will only hate you. But correct the wise, and they will love you.

⁹Instruct the wise, and they will be even wiser. Teach the righteous, and they will learn even more.

¹⁰Fear of the LORD is the foundation of wisdom. Knowledge of the Holy One results in good judgment.

¹¹Wisdom will multiply your days and add years to your life.

¹²If you become wise, you will be the one to benefit. If you scorn wisdom, you will be the one to suffer.

¹³The woman named Folly is brash. She is ignorant and doesn’t know it.

¹⁴She sits in her doorway on the heights overlooking the city.

¹⁵She calls out to men going by who are minding their own business.

¹⁶“Come in with me,” she urges the simple. To those who lack good judgment, she says,

¹⁷“Stolen water is refreshing; food eaten in secret tastes the best!”

¹⁸But little do they know that the dead are there. Her guests are in the depths of the grave.

¹There was a famine during David’s reign that lasted for three years, so David asked the LORD about it. And the LORD said, “The famine has come because Saul and his family are guilty of murdering the Gibeonites.”

²So the king summoned the Gibeonites. They were not part of Israel but were all that was left of the nation of the Amorites. The people of Israel had sworn not to kill them, but Saul, in his zeal for Israel and Judah, had tried to wipe them out.

³David asked them, “What can I do for you? How can I make amends so that you will bless the LORD’s people again?”

⁴“Well, money can’t settle this matter between us and the family of Saul,” the Gibeonites replied. “Neither can we demand the life of anyone in Israel.” “What can I do then?” David asked. “Just tell me and I will do it for you.”

⁵Then they replied, “It was Saul who planned to destroy us, to keep us from having any place at all in the territory of Israel.

⁶So let seven of Saul’s sons be handed over to us, and we will execute them before the LORD at Gibeon, on the mountain of the LORD. ” “All right,” the king said, “I will do it.”

⁷The king spared Jonathan’s son Mephibosheth, who was Saul’s grandson, because of the oath David and Jonathan had sworn before the LORD.

⁸But he gave them Saul’s two sons Armoni and Mephibosheth, whose mother was Rizpah daughter of Aiah. He also gave them the five sons of Saul’s daughter Merab, the wife of Adriel son of Barzillai from Meholah.

⁹The men of Gibeon executed them on the mountain before the LORD. So all seven of them died together at the beginning of the barley harvest.

¹⁰Then Rizpah daughter of Aiah, the mother of two of the men, spread burlap on a rock and stayed there the entire harvest season. She prevented the scavenger birds from tearing at their bodies during the day and stopped wild animals from eating them at night.

¹¹When David learned what Rizpah, Saul’s concubine, had done,

¹²he went to the people of Jabesh-gilead and retrieved the bones of Saul and his son Jonathan. (When the Philistines had killed Saul and Jonathan on Mount Gilboa, the people of Jabesh-gilead stole their bodies from the public square of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hung them.)

¹³So David obtained the bones of Saul and Jonathan, as well as the bones of the men the Gibeonites had executed.

¹⁴Then the king ordered that they bury the bones in the tomb of Kish, Saul’s father, at the town of Zela in the land of Benjamin. After that, God ended the famine in the land.

¹⁵Once again the Philistines were at war with Israel. And when David and his men were in the thick of battle, David became weak and exhausted.

¹⁶Ishbi-benob was a descendant of the giants ; his bronze spearhead weighed more than seven pounds, and he was armed with a new sword. He had cornered David and was about to kill him.

¹⁷But Abishai son of Zeruiah came to David’s rescue and killed the Philistine. Then David’s men declared, “You are not going out to battle with us again! Why risk snuffing out the light of Israel?”

¹⁸After this, there was another battle against the Philistines at Gob. As they fought, Sibbecai from Hushah killed Saph, another descendant of the giants.

¹⁹During another battle at Gob, Elhanan son of Jair from Bethlehem killed the brother of Goliath of Gath. The handle of his spear was as thick as a weaver’s beam!

²⁰In another battle with the Philistines at Gath, they encountered a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all, who was also a descendant of the giants.

²¹But when he defied and taunted Israel, he was killed by Jonathan, the son of David’s brother Shimea.

²²These four Philistines were descendants of the giants of Gath, but David and his warriors killed them.

¹King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came with all the armies from the kingdoms he ruled, and he fought against Jerusalem and the towns of Judah. At that time this message came to Jeremiah from the LORD:

²“Go to King Zedekiah of Judah, and tell him, ‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I am about to hand this city over to the king of Babylon, and he will burn it down.

³You will not escape his grasp but will be captured and taken to meet the king of Babylon face to face. Then you will be exiled to Babylon.

⁴“‘But listen to this promise from the LORD, O Zedekiah, king of Judah. This is what the LORD says: You will not be killed in war

⁵but will die peacefully. People will burn incense in your memory, just as they did for your ancestors, the kings who preceded you. They will mourn for you, crying, “Alas, our master is dead!” This I have decreed, says the LORD.’”

⁶So Jeremiah the prophet delivered the message to King Zedekiah of Judah.

⁷At this time the Babylonian army was besieging Jerusalem, Lachish, and Azekah — the only fortified cities of Judah not yet captured.

⁸This message came to Jeremiah from the LORD after King Zedekiah made a covenant with the people, proclaiming freedom for the slaves.

⁹He had ordered all the people to free their Hebrew slaves — both men and women. No one was to keep a fellow Judean in bondage.

¹⁰The officials and all the people had obeyed the king’s command,

¹¹but later they changed their minds. They took back the men and women they had freed, forcing them to be slaves again.

¹²So the LORD gave them this message through Jeremiah:

¹³“This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: I made a covenant with your ancestors long ago when I rescued them from their slavery in Egypt.

¹⁴I told them that every Hebrew slave must be freed after serving six years. But your ancestors paid no attention to me.

¹⁵Recently you repented and did what was right, following my command. You freed your slaves and made a solemn covenant with me in the Temple that bears my name.

¹⁶But now you have shrugged off your oath and defiled my name by taking back the men and women you had freed, forcing them to be slaves once again.

¹⁷“Therefore, this is what the LORD says: Since you have not obeyed me by setting your countrymen free, I will set you free to be destroyed by war, disease, and famine. You will be an object of horror to all the nations of the earth.

¹⁸Because you have broken the terms of our covenant, I will cut you apart just as you cut apart the calf when you walked between its halves to solemnize your vows.

¹⁹Yes, I will cut you apart, whether you are officials of Judah or Jerusalem, court officials, priests, or common people — for you have broken your oath.

²⁰I will give you to your enemies, and they will kill you. Your bodies will be food for the vultures and wild animals.

²¹“I will hand over King Zedekiah of Judah and his officials to the army of the king of Babylon. And although they have left Jerusalem for a while,

²²I will call the Babylonian armies back again. They will fight against this city and will capture it and burn it down. I will see to it that all the towns of Judah are destroyed, with no one living there.”

¹The same thing happened in Iconium. Paul and Barnabas went to the Jewish synagogue and preached with such power that a great number of both Jews and Greeks became believers.

²Some of the Jews, however, spurned God’s message and poisoned the minds of the Gentiles against Paul and Barnabas.

³But the apostles stayed there a long time, preaching boldly about the grace of the Lord. And the Lord proved their message was true by giving them power to do miraculous signs and wonders.

⁴But the people of the town were divided in their opinion about them. Some sided with the Jews, and some with the apostles.

⁵Then a mob of Gentiles and Jews, along with their leaders, decided to attack and stone them.

⁶When the apostles learned of it, they fled to the region of Lycaonia — to the towns of Lystra and Derbe and the surrounding area.

⁷And there they preached the Good News.

⁸While they were at Lystra, Paul and Barnabas came upon a man with crippled feet. He had been that way from birth, so he had never walked. He was sitting

⁹and listening as Paul preached. Looking straight at him, Paul realized he had faith to be healed.

¹⁰So Paul called to him in a loud voice, “Stand up!” And the man jumped to his feet and started walking.

¹¹When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they shouted in their local dialect, “These men are gods in human form!”

¹²They decided that Barnabas was the Greek god Zeus and that Paul was Hermes, since he was the chief speaker.

¹³Now the temple of Zeus was located just outside the town. So the priest of the temple and the crowd brought bulls and wreaths of flowers to the town gates, and they prepared to offer sacrifices to the apostles.

¹⁴But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard what was happening, they tore their clothing in dismay and ran out among the people, shouting,

¹⁵“Friends, why are you doing this? We are merely human beings — just like you! We have come to bring you the Good News that you should turn from these worthless things and turn to the living God, who made heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them.

¹⁶In the past he permitted all the nations to go their own ways,

¹⁷but he never left them without evidence of himself and his goodness. For instance, he sends you rain and good crops and gives you food and joyful hearts.”

¹⁸But even with these words, Paul and Barnabas could scarcely restrain the people from sacrificing to them.

¹⁹Then some Jews arrived from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowds to their side. They stoned Paul and dragged him out of town, thinking he was dead.

²⁰But as the believers gathered around him, he got up and went back into the town. The next day he left with Barnabas for Derbe.

²¹After preaching the Good News in Derbe and making many disciples, Paul and Barnabas returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch of Pisidia,

²²where they strengthened the believers. They encouraged them to continue in the faith, reminding them that we must suffer many hardships to enter the Kingdom of God.

²³Paul and Barnabas also appointed elders in every church. With prayer and fasting, they turned the elders over to the care of the Lord, in whom they had put their trust.

²⁴Then they traveled back through Pisidia to Pamphylia.

²⁵They preached the word in Perga, then went down to Attalia.

²⁶Finally, they returned by ship to Antioch of Syria, where their journey had begun. The believers there had entrusted them to the grace of God to do the work they had now completed.

²⁷Upon arriving in Antioch, they called the church together and reported everything God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles, too.

²⁸And they stayed there with the believers for a long time.