Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹As Jesus and his disciples approached Jerusalem, they came to the towns of Bethphage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent two of them on ahead.

²“Go into that village over there,” he told them. “As soon as you enter it, you will see a young donkey tied there that no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.

³If anyone asks, ‘What are you doing?’ just say, ‘The Lord needs it and will return it soon.’”

⁴The two disciples left and found the colt standing in the street, tied outside the front door.

⁵As they were untying it, some bystanders demanded, “What are you doing, untying that colt?”

⁶They said what Jesus had told them to say, and they were permitted to take it.

⁷Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments over it, and he sat on it.

⁸Many in the crowd spread their garments on the road ahead of him, and others spread leafy branches they had cut in the fields.

⁹Jesus was in the center of the procession, and the people all around him were shouting, “Praise God! Blessings on the one who comes in the name of the LORD!

¹⁰Blessings on the coming Kingdom of our ancestor David! Praise God in highest heaven!”

¹¹So Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into the Temple. After looking around carefully at everything, he left because it was late in the afternoon. Then he returned to Bethany with the twelve disciples.

¹²The next morning as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry.

¹³He noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way off, so he went over to see if he could find any figs. But there were only leaves because it was too early in the season for fruit.

¹⁴Then Jesus said to the tree, “May no one ever eat your fruit again!” And the disciples heard him say it.

¹⁵When they arrived back in Jerusalem, Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people buying and selling animals for sacrifices. He knocked over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves,

¹⁶and he stopped everyone from using the Temple as a marketplace.

¹⁷He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”

¹⁸When the leading priests and teachers of religious law heard what Jesus had done, they began planning how to kill him. But they were afraid of him because the people were so amazed at his teaching.

¹⁹That evening Jesus and the disciples left the city.

²⁰The next morning as they passed by the fig tree he had cursed, the disciples noticed it had withered from the roots up.

²¹Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day and exclaimed, “Look, Rabbi! The fig tree you cursed has withered and died!”

²²Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God.

²³I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart.

²⁴I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.

²⁵But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too. ”

²⁶

²⁷Again they entered Jerusalem. As Jesus was walking through the Temple area, the leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders came up to him.

²⁸They demanded, “By what authority are you doing all these things? Who gave you the right to do them?”

²⁹“I’ll tell you by what authority I do these things if you answer one question,” Jesus replied.

³⁰“Did John’s authority to baptize come from heaven, or was it merely human? Answer me!”

³¹They talked it over among themselves. “If we say it was from heaven, he will ask why we didn’t believe John.

³²But do we dare say it was merely human?” For they were afraid of what the people would do, because everyone believed that John was a prophet.

³³So they finally replied, “We don’t know.” And Jesus responded, “Then I won’t tell you by what authority I do these things.”

¹When Joseph was taken to Egypt by the Ishmaelite traders, he was purchased by Potiphar, an Egyptian officer. Potiphar was captain of the guard for Pharaoh, the king of Egypt.

²The LORD was with Joseph, so he succeeded in everything he did as he served in the home of his Egyptian master.

³Potiphar noticed this and realized that the LORD was with Joseph, giving him success in everything he did.

⁴This pleased Potiphar, so he soon made Joseph his personal attendant. He put him in charge of his entire household and everything he owned.

⁵From the day Joseph was put in charge of his master’s household and property, the LORD began to bless Potiphar’s household for Joseph’s sake. All his household affairs ran smoothly, and his crops and livestock flourished.

⁶So Potiphar gave Joseph complete administrative responsibility over everything he owned. With Joseph there, he didn’t worry about a thing — except what kind of food to eat! Joseph was a very handsome and well-built young man,

⁷and Potiphar’s wife soon began to look at him lustfully. “Come and sleep with me,” she demanded.

⁸But Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in his entire household.

⁹No one here has more authority than I do. He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.”

¹⁰She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible.

¹¹One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work.

¹²She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, “Come on, sleep with me!” Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house.

¹³When she saw that she was holding his cloak and he had fled,

¹⁴she called out to her servants. Soon all the men came running. “Look!” she said. “My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us! He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed.

¹⁵When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me.”

¹⁶She kept the cloak with her until her husband came home.

¹⁷Then she told him her story. “That Hebrew slave you’ve brought into our house tried to come in and fool around with me,” she said.

¹⁸“But when I screamed, he ran outside, leaving his cloak with me!”

¹⁹Potiphar was furious when he heard his wife’s story about how Joseph had treated her.

²⁰So he took Joseph and threw him into the prison where the king’s prisoners were held, and there he remained.

²¹But the LORD was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love. And the LORD made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden.

²²Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison.

²³The warden had no more worries, because Joseph took care of everything. The LORD was with him and caused everything he did to succeed.

¹Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God.

²Please open your hearts to us. We have not done wrong to anyone, nor led anyone astray, nor taken advantage of anyone.

³I’m not saying this to condemn you. I said before that you are in our hearts, and we live or die together with you.

⁴I have the highest confidence in you, and I take great pride in you. You have greatly encouraged me and made me happy despite all our troubles.

⁵When we arrived in Macedonia, there was no rest for us. We faced conflict from every direction, with battles on the outside and fear on the inside.

⁶But God, who encourages those who are discouraged, encouraged us by the arrival of Titus.

⁷His presence was a joy, but so was the news he brought of the encouragement he received from you. When he told us how much you long to see me, and how sorry you are for what happened, and how loyal you are to me, I was filled with joy!

⁸I am not sorry that I sent that severe letter to you, though I was sorry at first, for I know it was painful to you for a little while.

⁹Now I am glad I sent it, not because it hurt you, but because the pain caused you to repent and change your ways. It was the kind of sorrow God wants his people to have, so you were not harmed by us in any way.

¹⁰For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.

¹¹Just see what this godly sorrow produced in you! Such earnestness, such concern to clear yourselves, such indignation, such alarm, such longing to see me, such zeal, and such a readiness to punish wrong. You showed that you have done everything necessary to make things right.

¹²My purpose, then, was not to write about who did the wrong or who was wronged. I wrote to you so that in the sight of God you could see for yourselves how loyal you are to us.

¹³We have been greatly encouraged by this. In addition to our own encouragement, we were especially delighted to see how happy Titus was about the way all of you welcomed him and set his mind at ease.

¹⁴I had told him how proud I was of you — and you didn’t disappoint me. I have always told you the truth, and now my boasting to Titus has also proved true!

¹⁵Now he cares for you more than ever when he remembers the way all of you obeyed him and welcomed him with such fear and deep respect.

¹⁶I am very happy now because I have complete confidence in you.

¹Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.

²This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God.

³But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here.

⁴But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world.

⁵Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them.

⁶But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.

⁷Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.

⁸But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

⁹God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him.

¹⁰This is real love — not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

¹¹Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other.

¹²No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

¹³And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.

¹⁴Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

¹⁵All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.

¹⁶We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

¹⁷And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

¹⁸Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.

¹⁹We love each other because he loved us first.

²⁰If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see?

²¹And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their fellow believers.

¹“Do you know when the wild goats give birth? Have you watched as deer are born in the wild?

²Do you know how many months they carry their young? Are you aware of the time of their delivery?

³They crouch down to give birth to their young and deliver their offspring.

⁴Their young grow up in the open fields, then leave home and never return.

⁵“Who gives the wild donkey its freedom? Who untied its ropes?

⁶I have placed it in the wilderness; its home is the wasteland.

⁷It hates the noise of the city and has no driver to shout at it.

⁸The mountains are its pastureland, where it searches for every blade of grass.

⁹“Will the wild ox consent to being tamed? Will it spend the night in your stall?

¹⁰Can you hitch a wild ox to a plow? Will it plow a field for you?

¹¹Given its strength, can you trust it? Can you leave and trust the ox to do your work?

¹²Can you rely on it to bring home your grain and deliver it to your threshing floor?

¹³“The ostrich flaps her wings grandly, but they are no match for the feathers of the stork.

¹⁴She lays her eggs on top of the earth, letting them be warmed in the dust.

¹⁵She doesn’t worry that a foot might crush them or a wild animal might destroy them.

¹⁶She is harsh toward her young, as if they were not her own. She doesn’t care if they die.

¹⁷For God has deprived her of wisdom. He has given her no understanding.

¹⁸But whenever she jumps up to run, she passes the swiftest horse with its rider.

¹⁹“Have you given the horse its strength or clothed its neck with a flowing mane?

²⁰Did you give it the ability to leap like a locust? Its majestic snorting is terrifying!

²¹It paws the earth and rejoices in its strength when it charges out to battle.

²²It laughs at fear and is unafraid. It does not run from the sword.

²³The arrows rattle against it, and the spear and javelin flash.

²⁴It paws the ground fiercely and rushes forward into battle when the ram’s horn blows.

²⁵It snorts at the sound of the horn. It senses the battle in the distance. It quivers at the captain’s commands and the noise of battle.

²⁶“Is it your wisdom that makes the hawk soar and spread its wings toward the south?

²⁷Is it at your command that the eagle rises to the heights to make its nest?

²⁸It lives on the cliffs, making its home on a distant, rocky crag.

²⁹From there it hunts its prey, keeping watch with piercing eyes.

³⁰Its young gulp down blood. Where there’s a carcass, there you’ll find it.”

¹I said to myself, “I will watch what I do and not sin in what I say. I will hold my tongue when the ungodly are around me.”

²But as I stood there in silence — not even speaking of good things — the turmoil within me grew worse.

³The more I thought about it, the hotter I got, igniting a fire of words:

⁴“LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered — how fleeting my life is.

⁵You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath.” Interlude

⁶We are merely moving shadows, and all our busy rushing ends in nothing. We heap up wealth, not knowing who will spend it.

⁷And so, Lord, where do I put my hope? My only hope is in you.

⁸Rescue me from my rebellion. Do not let fools mock me.

⁹I am silent before you; I won’t say a word, for my punishment is from you.

¹⁰But please stop striking me! I am exhausted by the blows from your hand.

¹¹When you discipline us for our sins, you consume like a moth what is precious to us. Each of us is but a breath. Interlude

¹²Hear my prayer, O LORD! Listen to my cries for help! Don’t ignore my tears. For I am your guest — a traveler passing through, as my ancestors were before me.

¹³Leave me alone so I can smile again before I am gone and exist no more.

¹Listen as Wisdom calls out! Hear as understanding raises her voice!

²On the hilltop along the road, she takes her stand at the crossroads.

³By the gates at the entrance to the town, on the road leading in, she cries aloud,

⁴“I call to you, to all of you! I raise my voice to all people.

⁵You simple people, use good judgment. You foolish people, show some understanding.

⁶Listen to me! For I have important things to tell you. Everything I say is right,

⁷for I speak the truth and detest every kind of deception.

⁸My advice is wholesome. There is nothing devious or crooked in it.

⁹My words are plain to anyone with understanding, clear to those with knowledge.

¹⁰Choose my instruction rather than silver, and knowledge rather than pure gold.

¹¹For wisdom is far more valuable than rubies. Nothing you desire can compare with it.

¹²“I, Wisdom, live together with good judgment. I know where to discover knowledge and discernment.

¹³All who fear the LORD will hate evil. Therefore, I hate pride and arrogance, corruption and perverse speech.

¹⁴Common sense and success belong to me. Insight and strength are mine.

¹⁵Because of me, kings reign, and rulers make just decrees.

¹⁶Rulers lead with my help, and nobles make righteous judgments.

¹⁷“I love all who love me. Those who search will surely find me.

¹⁸I have riches and honor, as well as enduring wealth and justice.

¹⁹My gifts are better than gold, even the purest gold, my wages better than sterling silver!

²⁰I walk in righteousness, in paths of justice.

²¹Those who love me inherit wealth. I will fill their treasuries.

²²“The LORD formed me from the beginning, before he created anything else.

²³I was appointed in ages past, at the very first, before the earth began.

²⁴I was born before the oceans were created, before the springs bubbled forth their waters.

²⁵Before the mountains were formed, before the hills, I was born —

²⁶before he had made the earth and fields and the first handfuls of soil.

²⁷I was there when he established the heavens, when he drew the horizon on the oceans.

²⁸I was there when he set the clouds above, when he established springs deep in the earth.

²⁹I was there when he set the limits of the seas, so they would not spread beyond their boundaries. And when he marked off the earth’s foundations,

³⁰I was the architect at his side. I was his constant delight, rejoicing always in his presence.

³¹And how happy I was with the world he created; how I rejoiced with the human family!

³²“And so, my children, listen to me, for all who follow my ways are joyful.

³³Listen to my instruction and be wise. Don’t ignore it.

³⁴Joyful are those who listen to me, watching for me daily at my gates, waiting for me outside my home!

³⁵For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD.

³⁶But those who miss me injure themselves. All who hate me love death.”

¹Later on, during the wheat harvest, Samson took a young goat as a present to his wife. He said, “I’m going into my wife’s room to sleep with her,” but her father wouldn’t let him in.

²“I truly thought you must hate her,” her father explained, “so I gave her in marriage to your best man. But look, her younger sister is even more beautiful than she is. Marry her instead.”

³Samson said, “This time I cannot be blamed for everything I am going to do to you Philistines.”

⁴Then he went out and caught 300 foxes. He tied their tails together in pairs, and he fastened a torch to each pair of tails.

⁵Then he lit the torches and let the foxes run through the grain fields of the Philistines. He burned all their grain to the ground, including the sheaves and the uncut grain. He also destroyed their vineyards and olive groves.

⁶“Who did this?” the Philistines demanded. “Samson,” was the reply, “because his father-in-law from Timnah gave Samson’s wife to be married to his best man.” So the Philistines went and got the woman and her father and burned them to death.

⁷“Because you did this,” Samson vowed, “I won’t rest until I take my revenge on you!”

⁸So he attacked the Philistines with great fury and killed many of them. Then he went to live in a cave in the rock of Etam.

⁹The Philistines retaliated by setting up camp in Judah and spreading out near the town of Lehi.

¹⁰The men of Judah asked the Philistines, “Why are you attacking us?” The Philistines replied, “We’ve come to capture Samson. We’ve come to pay him back for what he did to us.”

¹¹So 3,000 men of Judah went down to get Samson at the cave in the rock of Etam. They said to Samson, “Don’t you realize the Philistines rule over us? What are you doing to us?” But Samson replied, “I only did to them what they did to me.”

¹²But the men of Judah told him, “We have come to tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines.” “All right,” Samson said. “But promise that you won’t kill me yourselves.”

¹³“We will only tie you up and hand you over to the Philistines,” they replied. “We won’t kill you.” So they tied him up with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock.

¹⁴As Samson arrived at Lehi, the Philistines came shouting in triumph. But the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon Samson, and he snapped the ropes on his arms as if they were burnt strands of flax, and they fell from his wrists.

¹⁵Then he found the jawbone of a recently killed donkey. He picked it up and killed 1,000 Philistines with it.

¹⁶Then Samson said, “With the jawbone of a donkey, I’ve piled them in heaps! With the jawbone of a donkey, I’ve killed a thousand men!”

¹⁷When he finished his boasting, he threw away the jawbone; and the place was named Jawbone Hill.

¹⁸Samson was now very thirsty, and he cried out to the LORD, “You have accomplished this great victory by the strength of your servant. Must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of these pagans?”

¹⁹So God caused water to gush out of a hollow in the ground at Lehi, and Samson was revived as he drank. Then he named that place “The Spring of the One Who Cried Out,” and it is still in Lehi to this day.

²⁰Samson judged Israel for twenty years during the period when the Philistines dominated the land.

¹Soon after this, Merodach-baladan son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent Hezekiah his best wishes and a gift. He had heard that Hezekiah had been very sick and that he had recovered.

²Hezekiah was delighted with the Babylonian envoys and showed them everything in his treasure-houses — the silver, the gold, the spices, and the aromatic oils. He also took them to see his armory and showed them everything in his royal treasuries! There was nothing in his palace or kingdom that Hezekiah did not show them.

³Then Isaiah the prophet went to King Hezekiah and asked him, “What did those men want? Where were they from?” Hezekiah replied, “They came from the distant land of Babylon.”

⁴“What did they see in your palace?” asked Isaiah. “They saw everything,” Hezekiah replied. “I showed them everything I own — all my royal treasuries.”

⁵Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Listen to this message from the LORD of Heaven’s Armies:

⁶‘The time is coming when everything in your palace — all the treasures stored up by your ancestors until now — will be carried off to Babylon. Nothing will be left,’ says the LORD.

⁷‘Some of your very own sons will be taken away into exile. They will become eunuchs who will serve in the palace of Babylon’s king.’”

⁸Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, “This message you have given me from the LORD is good.” For the king was thinking, “At least there will be peace and security during my lifetime.”

¹Soon the news reached the apostles and other believers in Judea that the Gentiles had received the word of God.

²But when Peter arrived back in Jerusalem, the Jewish believers criticized him.

³“You entered the home of Gentiles and even ate with them!” they said.

⁴Then Peter told them exactly what had happened.

⁵“I was in the town of Joppa,” he said, “and while I was praying, I went into a trance and saw a vision. Something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners from the sky. And it came right down to me.

⁶When I looked inside the sheet, I saw all sorts of tame and wild animals, reptiles, and birds.

⁷And I heard a voice say, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.’

⁸“‘No, Lord,’ I replied. ‘I have never eaten anything that our Jewish laws have declared impure or unclean. ’

⁹“But the voice from heaven spoke again: ‘Do not call something unclean if God has made it clean.’

¹⁰This happened three times before the sheet and all it contained was pulled back up to heaven.

¹¹“Just then three men who had been sent from Caesarea arrived at the house where we were staying.

¹²The Holy Spirit told me to go with them and not to worry that they were Gentiles. These six brothers here accompanied me, and we soon entered the home of the man who had sent for us.

¹³He told us how an angel had appeared to him in his home and had told him, ‘Send messengers to Joppa, and summon a man named Simon Peter.

¹⁴He will tell you how you and everyone in your household can be saved!’

¹⁵“As I began to speak,” Peter continued, “the Holy Spirit fell on them, just as he fell on us at the beginning.

¹⁶Then I thought of the Lord’s words when he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’

¹⁷And since God gave these Gentiles the same gift he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to stand in God’s way?”

¹⁸When the others heard this, they stopped objecting and began praising God. They said, “We can see that God has also given the Gentiles the privilege of repenting of their sins and receiving eternal life.”

¹⁹Meanwhile, the believers who had been scattered during the persecution after Stephen’s death traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch of Syria. They preached the word of God, but only to Jews.

²⁰However, some of the believers who went to Antioch from Cyprus and Cyrene began preaching to the Gentiles about the Lord Jesus.

²¹The power of the Lord was with them, and a large number of these Gentiles believed and turned to the Lord.

²²When the church at Jerusalem heard what had happened, they sent Barnabas to Antioch.

²³When he arrived and saw this evidence of God’s blessing, he was filled with joy, and he encouraged the believers to stay true to the Lord.

²⁴Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and strong in faith. And many people were brought to the Lord.

²⁵Then Barnabas went on to Tarsus to look for Saul.

²⁶When he found him, he brought him back to Antioch. Both of them stayed there with the church for a full year, teaching large crowds of people. (It was at Antioch that the believers were first called Christians.)

²⁷During this time some prophets traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch.

²⁸One of them named Agabus stood up in one of the meetings and predicted by the Spirit that a great famine was coming upon the entire Roman world. (This was fulfilled during the reign of Claudius.)

²⁹So the believers in Antioch decided to send relief to the brothers and sisters in Judea, everyone giving as much as they could.

³⁰This they did, entrusting their gifts to Barnabas and Saul to take to the elders of the church in Jerusalem.