Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹Now when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples

²and said to them, “Go into the village in front of you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat. Untie it and bring it.

³If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’”

⁴And they went away and found a colt tied at a door outside in the street, and they untied it.

⁵And some of those standing there said to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”

⁶And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.

⁷And they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it, and he sat on it.

⁸And many spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut from the fields.

⁹And those who went before and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

¹⁰Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest!”

¹¹And he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple. And when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

¹²On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.

¹³And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.

¹⁴And he said to it, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard it.

¹⁵And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons.

¹⁶And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.

¹⁷And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.”

¹⁸And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

¹⁹And when evening came they went out of the city.

²⁰As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.

²¹And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.”

²²And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God.

²³ Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

²⁴Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

²⁵And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

²⁶

²⁷And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him,

²⁸and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?”

²⁹Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.

³⁰Was the baptism of John from heaven or from man? Answer me.”

³¹And they discussed it with one another, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’

³²But shall we say, ‘From man’?” — they were afraid of the people, for they all held that John really was a prophet.

³³So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

¹Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, had bought him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there.

²The LORD was with Joseph, and he became a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master.

³His master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD caused all that he did to succeed in his hands.

⁴So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had.

⁵From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the LORD blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; the blessing of the LORD was on all that he had, in house and field.

⁶So he left all that he had in Joseph's charge, and because of him he had no concern about anything but the food he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.

⁷And after a time his master's wife cast her eyes on Joseph and said, “Lie with me.”

⁸But he refused and said to his master's wife, “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge.

⁹He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?”

¹⁰And as she spoke to Joseph day after day, he would not listen to her, to lie beside her or to be with her.

¹¹But one day, when he went into the house to do his work and none of the men of the house was there in the house,

¹²she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his garment in her hand and fled and got out of the house.

¹³And as soon as she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled out of the house,

¹⁴she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought among us a Hebrew to laugh at us. He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice.

¹⁵And as soon as he heard that I lifted up my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me and fled and got out of the house.”

¹⁶Then she laid up his garment by her until his master came home,

¹⁷and she told him the same story, saying, “The Hebrew servant, whom you have brought among us, came in to me to laugh at me.

¹⁸But as soon as I lifted up my voice and cried, he left his garment beside me and fled out of the house.”

¹⁹As soon as his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, “This is the way your servant treated me,” his anger was kindled.

²⁰And Joseph's master took him and put him into the prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined, and he was there in prison.

²¹But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.

²²And the keeper of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison. Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it.

²³The keeper of the prison paid no attention to anything that was in Joseph's charge, because the LORD was with him. And whatever he did, the LORD made it succeed.

¹Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

²Make room in your hearts for us. We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one.

³I do not say this to condemn you, for I said before that you are in our hearts, to die together and to live together.

⁴I am acting with great boldness toward you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy.

⁵For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn — fighting without and fear within.

⁶But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus,

⁷and not only by his coming but also by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still more.

⁸For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it — though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while.

⁹As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.

¹⁰For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.

¹¹For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter.

¹²So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the one who did the wrong, nor for the sake of the one who suffered the wrong, but in order that your earnestness for us might be revealed to you in the sight of God.

¹³Therefore we are comforted. And besides our own comfort, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.

¹⁴For whatever boasts I made to him about you, I was not put to shame. But just as everything we said to you was true, so also our boasting before Titus has proved true.

¹⁵And his affection for you is even greater, as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling.

¹⁶I rejoice, because I have complete confidence in you.

¹Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

²By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,

³and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

⁴Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

⁵They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.

⁶We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

⁸Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

⁹In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

¹⁰In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

¹¹Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

¹³By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

¹⁵Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

¹⁶So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

¹⁷By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.

¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

¹⁹We love because he first loved us.

²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

²¹And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

¹“Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the does?

²Can you number the months that they fulfill, and do you know the time when they give birth,

³when they crouch, bring forth their offspring, and are delivered of their young?

⁴Their young ones become strong; they grow up in the open; they go out and do not return to them.

⁵“Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey,

⁶to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place?

⁷He scorns the tumult of the city; he hears not the shouts of the driver.

⁸He ranges the mountains as his pasture, and he searches after every green thing.

⁹“Is the wild ox willing to serve you? Will he spend the night at your manger?

¹⁰Can you bind him in the furrow with ropes, or will he harrow the valleys after you?

¹¹Will you depend on him because his strength is great, and will you leave to him your labor?

¹²Do you have faith in him that he will return your grain and gather it to your threshing floor?

¹³“The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love?

¹⁴For she leaves her eggs to the earth and lets them be warmed on the ground,

¹⁵forgetting that a foot may crush them and that the wild beast may trample them.

¹⁶She deals cruelly with her young, as if they were not hers; though her labor be in vain, yet she has no fear,

¹⁷because God has made her forget wisdom and given her no share in understanding.

¹⁸When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider.

¹⁹“Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane?

²⁰Do you make him leap like the locust? His majestic snorting is terrifying.

²¹He paws in the valley and exults in his strength; he goes out to meet the weapons.

²²He laughs at fear and is not dismayed; he does not turn back from the sword.

²³Upon him rattle the quiver, the flashing spear, and the javelin.

²⁴With fierceness and rage he swallows the ground; he cannot stand still at the sound of the trumpet.

²⁵When the trumpet sounds, he says ‘Aha!’ He smells the battle from afar, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

²⁶“Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south?

²⁷Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?

²⁸On the rock he dwells and makes his home, on the rocky crag and stronghold.

²⁹From there he spies out the prey; his eyes behold it from far away.

³⁰His young ones suck up blood, and where the slain are, there is he.”

¹I said, “I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle, so long as the wicked are in my presence.”

²I was mute and silent; I held my peace to no avail, and my distress grew worse.

³My heart became hot within me. As I mused, the fire burned; then I spoke with my tongue:

⁴“O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!

⁵Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah

⁶Surely a man goes about as a shadow! Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!

⁷“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you.

⁸Deliver me from all my transgressions. Do not make me the scorn of the fool!

⁹I am mute; I do not open my mouth, for it is you who have done it.

¹⁰Remove your stroke from me; I am spent by the hostility of your hand.

¹¹When you discipline a man with rebukes for sin, you consume like a moth what is dear to him; surely all mankind is a mere breath! Selah

¹²“Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; hold not your peace at my tears! For I am a sojourner with you, a guest, like all my fathers.

¹³Look away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more!”

¹Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice?

²On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand;

³beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud:

⁴“To you, O men, I call, and my cry is to the children of man.

⁵O simple ones, learn prudence; O fools, learn sense.

⁶Hear, for I will speak noble things, and from my lips will come what is right,

⁷for my mouth will utter truth; wickedness is an abomination to my lips.

⁸All the words of my mouth are righteous; there is nothing twisted or crooked in them.

⁹They are all straight to him who understands, and right to those who find knowledge.

¹⁰Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold,

¹¹for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.

¹²“I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion.

¹³The fear of the LORD is hatred of evil. Pride and arrogance and the way of evil and perverted speech I hate.

¹⁴I have counsel and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength.

¹⁵By me kings reign, and rulers decree what is just;

¹⁶by me princes rule, and nobles, all who govern justly.

¹⁷I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

¹⁸Riches and honor are with me, enduring wealth and righteousness.

¹⁹My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold, and my yield than choice silver.

²⁰I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice,

²¹granting an inheritance to those who love me, and filling their treasuries.

²²“The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.

²³Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.

²⁴When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.

²⁵Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth,

²⁶before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world.

²⁷When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,

²⁸when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep,

²⁹when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth,

³⁰then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,

³¹rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.

³²“And now, O sons, listen to me: blessed are those who keep my ways.

³³Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.

³⁴Blessed is the one who listens to me, watching daily at my gates, waiting beside my doors.

³⁵For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the LORD,

³⁶but he who fails to find me injures himself; all who hate me love death.”

¹After some days, at the time of wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife with a young goat. And he said, “I will go in to my wife in the chamber.” But her father would not allow him to go in.

²And her father said, “I really thought that you utterly hated her, so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister more beautiful than she? Please take her instead.”

³And Samson said to them, “This time I shall be innocent in regard to the Philistines, when I do them harm.”

⁴So Samson went and caught 300 foxes and took torches. And he turned them tail to tail and put a torch between each pair of tails.

⁵And when he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to the stacked grain and the standing grain, as well as the olive orchards.

⁶Then the Philistines said, “Who has done this?” And they said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he has taken his wife and given her to his companion.” And the Philistines came up and burned her and her father with fire.

⁷And Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will be avenged on you, and after that I will quit.”

⁸And he struck them hip and thigh with a great blow, and he went down and stayed in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹Then the Philistines came up and encamped in Judah and made a raid on Lehi.

¹⁰And the men of Judah said, “Why have you come up against us?” They said, “We have come up to bind Samson, to do to him as he did to us.”

¹¹Then 3,000 men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then is this that you have done to us?” And he said to them, “As they did to me, so have I done to them.”

¹²And they said to him, “We have come down to bind you, that we may give you into the hands of the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not attack me yourselves.”

¹³They said to him, “No; we will only bind you and give you into their hands. We will surely not kill you.” So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. Then the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him, and the ropes that were on his arms became as flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands.

¹⁵And he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, and put out his hand and took it, and with it he struck 1,000 men.

¹⁶And Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey have I struck down a thousand men.”

¹⁷As soon as he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone out of his hand. And that place was called Ramath-lehi.

¹⁸And he was very thirsty, and he called upon the LORD and said, “You have granted this great salvation by the hand of your servant, and shall I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

¹⁹And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore; it is at Lehi to this day.

²⁰And he judged Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.

¹At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent envoys with letters and a present to Hezekiah, for he heard that he had been sick and had recovered.

²And Hezekiah welcomed them gladly. And he showed them his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the spices, the precious oil, his whole armory, all that was found in his storehouses. There was nothing in his house or in all his realm that Hezekiah did not show them.

³Then Isaiah the prophet came to King Hezekiah, and said to him, “What did these men say? And from where did they come to you?” Hezekiah said, “They have come to me from a far country, from Babylon.”

⁴He said, “What have they seen in your house?” Hezekiah answered, “They have seen all that is in my house. There is nothing in my storehouses that I did not show them.”

⁵Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of hosts:

⁶Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD.

⁷And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.”

⁸Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.” For he thought, “There will be peace and security in my days.”

¹Now the apostles and the brothers who were throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word of God.

²So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party criticized him, saying,

³“You went to uncircumcised men and ate with them.”

⁴But Peter began and explained it to them in order:

⁵“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision, something like a great sheet descending, being let down from heaven by its four corners, and it came down to me.

⁶Looking at it closely, I observed animals and beasts of prey and reptiles and birds of the air.

⁷And I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’

⁸But I said, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing common or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’

⁹But the voice answered a second time from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, do not call common.’

¹⁰This happened three times, and all was drawn up again into heaven.

¹¹And behold, at that very moment three men arrived at the house in which we were, sent to me from Caesarea.

¹²And the Spirit told me to go with them, making no distinction. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man's house.

¹³And he told us how he had seen the angel stand in his house and say, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon who is called Peter;

¹⁴he will declare to you a message by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’

¹⁵As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning.

¹⁶And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

¹⁷If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?”

¹⁸When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, “Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

¹⁹Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except Jews.

²⁰But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists also, preaching the Lord Jesus.

²¹And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord.

²²The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.

²³When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose,

²⁴for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.

²⁵So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,

²⁶and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.

²⁷Now in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

²⁸And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius).

²⁹So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea.

³⁰And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.