Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹And as they *approached Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, He *sent two of His disciples,

²and *said to them, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied there, on which no one has ever sat; untie it and bring it here.

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

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

⁵And some of the bystanders were saying to them, “What are you doing, untying the colt?”

⁶And they told them just as Jesus had said, and they gave them permission.

⁷They *brought the colt to Jesus and *put their cloaks on it; and He sat on it.

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

⁹And those who went in front 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 Jesus entered Jerusalem and came into the temple area; and after looking around at everything, He left for Bethany with the twelve, since it was already late.

¹²On the next day, when they had left Bethany, He became hungry.

¹³Seeing from a distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if perhaps He would find anything on it; and 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 were listening.

¹⁵Then they *came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple area and began to drive out those who were selling and buying on the temple grounds, and He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves;

¹⁶and He would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple grounds.

¹⁷And He began to teach and say to them, “Is it not written: ‘MY HOUSE WILL 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 this, and they began seeking how to put Him to death; for they were afraid of Him, because all the crowd was astonished at His teaching.

¹⁹And whenever evening came, they would leave the city.

²⁰As they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up.

²¹And being reminded, Peter *said to Him, “Rabbi, look, the fig tree that You cursed has withered.”

²²And Jesus answered and *said to them, “Have faith in God.

²³Truly 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 is going to happen, it will be granted to him.

²⁴Therefore, I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted to you.

²⁵And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father who is in heaven will also forgive you for youroffenses.

²⁶[But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive youroffenses.”]

²⁷And they *came again to Jerusalem. And as He was walking in the temple area, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders *came to Him,

²⁸and began saying to Him, “By what authority are You doing these things, or who gave You this authority to do these things?”

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

³⁰Was the baptism of John from heaven, or from men? Answer Me.”

³¹And they began considering the implications among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’

³²But should we say, ‘From men’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all considered John to have been a real prophet.

³³Answering Jesus, they *said, “We do not know.” And Jesus *said to them, “Neither am I telling you by what authority I do these things.”

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

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

³Now his master saw that the LORD was with him and that the LORD made all that he did prosper in his hand.

⁴So Joseph found favor in his sight and became his personal servant; and he made him overseer over his house, and put him in charge of all that he owned.

⁵It came about that from the time he made him overseer in his house and over all that he owned, the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house on account of Joseph; so the LORD’S blessing was upon all that he owned, in the house and in the field.

⁶So he left Joseph in charge of everything that he owned; and with him there he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.

⁷And it came about after these events that his master’s wife had her eyes on Joseph, and she said, “Sleep with me.”

⁸But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house, and he has put me in charge of all that he owns.

⁹There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil, and sin against God?”

¹⁰Though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he did not listen to her to lie beside her or be with her.

¹¹Now it happened one day that he went into the house to do his work, and none of the people of the household was there inside.

¹²So she grabbed him by his garment, saying, “Sleep with me!” But he left his garment in her hand and fled, and went outside.

¹³When she saw that he had left his garment in her hand and had fled outside,

¹⁴she called to the men of her household and said to them, “See, he has brought in a Hebrew to us to make fun of us; he came in to me to sleep with me, and I screamed.

¹⁵When he heard that I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled and went outside.”

¹⁶So she left his garment beside her until his master came home.

¹⁷Then she spoke to him with these words: “The Hebrew slave, whom you brought to us, came in to me to make fun of me;

¹⁸but when I raised my voice and screamed, he left his garment beside me and fled outside.”

¹⁹Now when his master heard the words of his wife which she spoke to him, saying, “This is what your slave did to me,” his anger burned.

²⁰So 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 the prison.

²¹But the LORD was with Joseph and extended kindness to him, and gave him favor in the sight of the warden of the prison.

²²And the warden of the prison put Joseph in charge of all the prisoners who were in the prison; so that whatever was done there, he was responsible for it.

²³The warden of the prison did not supervise anything under Joseph’s authority, because the LORD was with him; and, the LORD made whatever he did prosper.

¹Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let’s cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

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

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

⁴My confidence in you is great; my boasting in your behalf is great. I am filled with comfort; I am overflowing with joy in all our affliction.

⁵For even when we came into Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were afflicted on every side: conflicts on the outside, fears inside.

⁶But God, who comforts the discouraged, comforted us by the arrival of Titus;

⁷and not only by his arrival, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted among you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more.

⁸For though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it; though I did regret it—for I see that that letter caused you sorrow, though only for a while—

⁹I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us.

¹⁰For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death.

¹¹For behold what earnestness this very thing, this godly sorrow, has produced in you: what vindication of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment of wrong! In everything you demonstrated yourselves to be innocent in the matter.

¹²So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the offender nor for the sake of the one offended, but that your earnestness in our behalf might be made known to you in the sight of God.

¹³Because of this, we have been comforted. And besides our comfort, we rejoiced even much more for the joy of Titus, because his spirit has been refreshed by you all.

¹⁴For if I have boasted to him about you regarding anything, I was not put to shame. But as we spoke all things to you in truth, so also our boasting before Titus proved to be the truth.

¹⁵His affection abounds all the more toward you, as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling.

¹⁶I rejoice that in everything I have confidence in you.

¹Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because 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 have heard is coming, and now it is already in the world.

⁴You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

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

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

⁷Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

⁸The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

⁹By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him.

¹⁰In this is love, not that we 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 remains in us, and His love is perfected in us.

¹³By this we know that we remain in Him and He in us, because He has given to us of His Spirit.

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

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

¹⁶We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.

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

¹⁸There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

¹⁹We love, because He first loved us.

²⁰If someone says, “I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.

²¹And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

¹“Do you know the time the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the calving of the deer?

²Can you count the months they fulfill, Or do you know the time they give birth?

³They kneel down, they deliver their young, They get rid of their labor pains.

⁴Their offspring become strong, they grow up in the open field; They leave and do not return to them.

⁵“Who sent the wild donkey out free? And who opened the bonds of the swift donkey,

⁶To whom I gave the wilderness as his home, And the salt land as his dwelling place?

⁷He laughs at the turmoil of the city, He does not hear the shouting of the taskmaster.

⁸He explores the mountains of his pasture, And searches after every green thing.

⁹Will the wild bull be willing to serve you, Or will he spend the night at your feeding trough?

¹⁰Can you tie down the wild bull in a furrow with ropes, Or will he plow the valleys after you?

¹¹Will you trust him because his strength is great, And leave your labor to him?

¹²Will you have faith in him that he will return your grain And gather it from your threshing floor?

¹³“The wings of the ostrich flap joyously, With the pinion and feathers of love,

¹⁴For she abandons her eggs to the earth And warms them in the dust,

¹⁵And she forgets that a foot may crush them, Or that a wild animal may trample them.

¹⁶She treats her young cruelly, as if they were not hers; Though her labor is for nothing, she is unconcerned,

¹⁷Because God has made her forget wisdom, And has not given her a share of understanding.

¹⁸When she rushes away on high, 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 locusts? His majestic snorting is frightening.

²¹He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength; He goes out to meet the battle.

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

²³The quiver rattles against him, The flashing spear and javelin.

²⁴He races over the ground with a roar and fury, And he does not stand still when he hears the sound of the trumpet.

²⁵As often as the trumpet sounds he says, ‘Aha!’ And he senses the battle from afar, And the thunder of the captains and the war cry.

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

²⁷Is it at your command that the eagle flies high, And makes his nest on high?

²⁸He dwells and spends his nights on the cliff, On the rocky cliff, an inaccessible place.

²⁹From there he tracks food; His eyes look at it from afar.

³⁰His young ones also lick up blood greedily; And where the slain are, there he is.”

¹I said, “I will keep watch over my ways So that I do not sin with my tongue; I will keep watch over my mouth as with a muzzle While the wicked are in my presence.”

²I was mute and silent, I refused to say even something good, And my pain was stirred up.

³My heart was hot within me, While I was musing the fire burned; Then I spoke with my tongue:

⁴“LORD, let me know my end, And what is the extent of my days; Let me know how transient I am.

⁵Behold, You have made my days like hand widths, And my lifetime as nothing in Your sight; Certainly all mankind standing is a mere breath. Selah

⁶Certainly every person walks around as a fleeting shadow; They certainly make an uproar for nothing; He amasses riches and does not know who will gather them.

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

⁸Save me from all my wrongdoings; Do not make me an object of reproach for the foolish.

⁹I have become mute, I do not open my mouth, Because it is You who have done it.

¹⁰Remove Your plague from me; Because of the opposition of Your hand I am perishing.

¹¹With rebukes You punish a person for wrongdoing; You consume like a moth what is precious to him; Certainly all mankind is mere breath! Selah

¹²“Hear my prayer, LORD, and listen to my cry for help; Do not be silent to my tears; For I am a stranger with You, One who lives abroad, like all my fathers.

¹³Turn Your eyes away from me, that I may become cheerful again Before I depart and am no more.”

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

²On top of the heights beside the way, Where the paths meet, she takes her stand;

³Beside the gates, at the opening to the city, At the entrance of the doors, she cries out:

⁴“To you, people, I call, And my voice is to mankind.

⁵You naive ones, understand prudence; And, you fools, understand wisdom!

⁶Listen, for I will speak noble things; And the opening of my lips will reveal right things.

⁷For my mouth will proclaim truth; And wickedness is an abomination to my lips.

⁸All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; There is nothing crooked or perverted in them.

⁹They are all straightforward to him who understands, And right to those who find knowledge.

¹⁰Accept my instruction and not silver, And knowledge rather than choice gold.

¹¹For wisdom is better than jewels; And all desirable things cannot compare with her.

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

¹³The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride, arrogance, the evil way, And the perverted mouth, I hate.

¹⁴Advice is mine and sound wisdom; I am understanding, power is mine.

¹⁵By me kings reign, And rulers decree justice.

¹⁶By me princes rule, and nobles, All who judge rightly.

¹⁷I love those who love me; And those who diligently seek me will find me.

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

¹⁹My fruit is better than gold, even pure gold; And my yield better than choice silver.

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

²¹To endow those who love me with wealth, That I may fill their treasuries.

²²“The LORD created me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old.

²³From eternity I was established, From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth.

²⁴When there were no ocean depths, I was born, When there were no springs abounding with water.

²⁵Before the mountains were settled, Before the hills, I was born;

²⁶While He had not yet made the earth and the fields, Nor the first dust of the world.

²⁷When He established the heavens, I was there; When He inscribed a circle on the face of the deep,

²⁸When He made firm the skies above, When the springs of the deep became fixed,

²⁹When He set a boundary for the sea So that the water would not violate His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth;

³⁰Then I was beside Him, as a master workman; And I was His delight daily, Rejoicing always before Him,

³¹Rejoicing in the world, His earth, And having my delight in the sons of mankind.

³²“Now then, sons, listen to me, For blessed are those who keep my ways.

³³Listen to instruction and be wise, And do not neglect it.

³⁴Blessed is the person who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at my doorposts.

³⁵For one who finds me finds life, And obtains favor from the LORD.

³⁶But one who sins against me injures himself; All those who hate me love death.”

¹But after a while, in the time of wheat harvest, Samson visited his wife with a young goat, and said, “I will go in to my wife in her room.” But her father did not let him enter.

²Her father said, “I really thought that you hated her intensely; so I gave her to your companion. Is her younger sister not more beautiful than she? Please let her be yours instead.”

³Samson then said to them, “This time I will have been blameless regarding the Philistines when I do them harm.”

⁴And Samson went and caught three hundred jackals, and took torches, and turned the jackals tail to tail and put one torch in the middle between two tails.

⁵When he had set fire to the torches, he released the jackals into the standing grain of the Philistines and set fire to both the bundled heaps and the standing grain, along with the vineyards and olive groves.

⁶Then the Philistines said, “Who did this?” And some said, “Samson, the son-in-law of the Timnite, because he took his wife and gave her to his companion.” So the Philistines came up and burned her and her father to death with fire.

⁷Then Samson said to them, “If this is how you act, I will certainly take revenge on you, and only after that will I stop.”

⁸So he struck them ruthlessly with a great slaughter; and afterward he went down and lived in the cleft of the rock of Etam.

⁹Then the Philistines went up and camped in Judah, and spread out in Lehi.

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

¹¹Then three thousand 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, “Just as they did to me, so I have done to them.”

¹²Then they said to him, “We have come down to bind you so that we may hand you over to the Philistines.” And Samson said to them, “Swear to me that you will not kill me.”

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

¹⁴When he came to Lehi, the Philistines shouted as they met him. And the Spirit of the LORD rushed upon him so that the ropes that were on his arms were like flax that has burned with fire, and his restraints dropped from his hands.

¹⁵Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, so he reached out with his hand and took it, and killed a thousand men with it.

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

¹⁷When he had finished speaking, he threw the jawbone from his hand; and he named that place Ramath-lehi.

¹⁸Then he became very thirsty, and he called to the LORD and said, “You have handed this great victory over to Your servant, and now am I to die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

¹⁹But God split the hollow place that is in Lehi so that water came out of it. When he drank, his strength returned and he revived. Therefore he named it En-hakkore, which is in Lehi to this day.

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

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

²Hezekiah was pleased, and let them see all his treasure house, the silver, the gold, the balsam oil, the excellent olive oil, his entire armory, and everything that was found in his treasuries. There was nothing in his house nor in all his realm that Hezekiah did not let them see.

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?” And Hezekiah said, “They came to me from a far country, from Babylon.”

⁴Then he said, “What have they seen in your house?” So Hezekiah answered, “They have seen everything that is in my house; there is nothing among my treasuries that I have not let them see.”

⁵Isaiah then said to Hezekiah, “Hear the word of the LORD of armies,

⁶‘Behold, the days are coming when everything that is in your house, and what your fathers have stored up to this day, will be carried to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the LORD.

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

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

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

²And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, the Jewish believers took issue with him,

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

⁴But Peter began and explained at length to them in an orderly sequence, saying,

⁵“I was in the city of Joppa praying; and in a trance I saw a vision, an object coming down like a great sheet lowered by four corners from the sky; and it came to where I was,

⁶and I stared at it and was thinking about it, and I saw the four-footed animals of the earth, the wild animals, the crawling creatures, and the birds of the sky.

⁷I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’

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

⁹But a voice from heaven answered a second time, ‘What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.’

¹⁰This happened three times, and everything was drawn back up into the sky.

¹¹And behold, at that moment three men who had been sent to me from Caesarea came up to the house where we were staying.

¹²And the Spirit told me to go with them without misgivings. These six brothers also went with me, and we entered the man’s house.

¹³And he reported to us how he had seen the angel standing in his house, and saying, ‘Send some men to Joppa and have Simon, who is also called Peter, brought here;

¹⁴and he will speak words to you by which you will be saved, you and all your household.’

¹⁵And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as He did upon us at the beginning.

¹⁶And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptizedwith the Holy Spirit.’

¹⁷Therefore, if God gave them the same gift as He also gave to us after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

¹⁸When they heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, “Well then, God has also granted to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

¹⁹So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone.

²⁰But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks as well, preaching the good news of the Lord Jesus.

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

²²The news about them reached the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch.

²³Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord;

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

²⁵And he left for Tarsus to look for Saul;

²⁶and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers of people; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.

²⁷Now at this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

²⁸One of them, named Agabus, stood up and indicated by the Spirit that there would definitely be a severe famine all over the world. And this took place in the reign of Claudius.

²⁹And to the extent that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brothers and sisters living in Judea.

³⁰And they did this, sending it with Barnabas and Saul to the elders.