Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples

²and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it.

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

⁴They went away and found a colt tied near a door, outside in the street. As they were untying it,

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

⁶They told them what Jesus had said; and they allowed them to take it.

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

⁸Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields.

⁹Then those who went ahead and those who followed were shouting, “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!

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

¹¹Then 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.

¹³Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.

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

¹⁵Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves;

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

¹⁷He was teaching and saying, “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 when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him; for they were afraid of him, because the whole crowd was spellbound by his teaching.

¹⁹And when evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.

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

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

²²Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God.

²³Truly I tell you, if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and if you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will come to pass, it will be done for you.

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

²⁵“Whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”

²⁶

²⁷Again they came to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him

²⁸and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? 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.

³⁰Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me.”

³¹They argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’

³²But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?” — they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet.

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

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

²The LORD was with Joseph, and he became a successful man; 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 prosper in his hands.

⁴So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him; 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, with him there, he had no concern for anything but the food that he ate. Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking.

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, “Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand.

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

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

¹¹One day, however, when he went into the house to do his work, and while no one else was in the house,

¹²she caught hold of his garment, saying, “Lie with me!” But he left his garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside.

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

¹⁴she called out to the members of her household and said to them, “See, my husband has brought among us a Hebrew to insult us! He came in to me to lie with me, and I cried out with a loud voice;

¹⁵and when he heard me raise my voice and cry out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside.”

¹⁶Then she kept 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 insult me;

¹⁸but as soon as I raised my voice and cried out, he left his garment beside me, and fled outside.”

¹⁹When his master heard the words that his wife spoke to him, saying, “This is the way your servant treated me,” he became enraged.

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

²¹But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love; he gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer.

²²The chief jailer committed to Joseph’s care all the prisoners who were in the prison, and whatever was done there, he was the one who did it.

²³The chief jailer paid no heed to anything that was in Joseph’s care, because the LORD was with him; and whatever he did, the LORD made it prosper.

¹Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and of spirit, making holiness perfect 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 often boast about you; I have great pride in you; I am filled with consolation; I am overjoyed in all our affliction.

⁵For even when we came into Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted in every way — disputes without and fears within.

⁶But God, who consoles the downcast, consoled us by the arrival of Titus,

⁷and not only by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was consoled about 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 sorry with my letter, I do not regret it (though I did regret it, for I see that I grieved you with that letter, though only briefly).

⁹Now I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance; for you felt a godly grief, so that you were not harmed in any way by us.

¹⁰For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.

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

¹²So although I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did the wrong, nor on account of the one who was wronged, but in order that your zeal for us might be made known to you before God.

¹³In this we find comfort. In addition to our own consolation, we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his mind has been set at rest by all of you.

¹⁴For if I have been somewhat boastful about you to him, I was not disgraced; but just as everything we said to you was true, so our boasting to Titus has proved true as well.

¹⁵And his heart goes out all the more to you, as he remembers the obedience of all of you, and how you welcomed 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. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world.

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

⁵They are from the world; therefore what they say is from the world, and the world listens to them.

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

⁷Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

⁹God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.

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

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

¹²No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives 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 do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world.

¹⁵God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God.

¹⁶So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.

¹⁷Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so 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 reached perfection in love.

¹⁹We love because he first loved us.

²⁰Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.

²¹The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

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

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

³when they crouch to give birth to their offspring, and are delivered of their young?

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

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

⁶to which I have given the steppe for its home, the salt land for its dwelling place?

⁷It scorns the tumult of the city; it does not hear the shouts of the driver.

⁸It ranges the mountains as its pasture, and it searches after every green thing.

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

¹⁰Can you tie it in the furrow with ropes, or will it harrow the valleys after you?

¹¹Will you depend on it because its strength is great, and will you hand over your labor to it?

¹²Do you have faith in it that it will return, and bring your grain to your threshing floor?

¹³“The ostrich’s wings flap wildly, though its pinions lack plumage.

¹⁴For it leaves its eggs to the earth, and lets them be warmed on the ground,

¹⁵forgetting that a foot may crush them, and that a wild animal may trample them.

¹⁶It deals cruelly with its young, as if they were not its own; though its labor should be in vain, yet it has no fear;

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

¹⁸When it spreads its plumes aloft, it laughs at the horse and its rider.

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

²⁰Do you make it leap like the locust? Its majestic snorting is terrible.

²¹It paws violently, exults mightily; it goes out to meet the weapons.

²²It laughs at fear, and is not dismayed; it does not turn back from the sword.

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

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

²⁵When the trumpet sounds, it says ‘Aha!’ From a distance it smells the battle, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting.

²⁶“Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars, and spreads its wings toward the south?

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

²⁸It lives on the rock and makes its home in the fastness of the rocky crag.

²⁹From there it spies the prey; its eyes see it from far away.

³⁰Its young ones suck up blood; and where the slain are, there it is.”

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

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

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

⁴“LORD, let me know my end, and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is.

⁵You have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing in your sight. Surely everyone stands as a mere breath. Selah

⁶Surely everyone goes about like a shadow. Surely for nothing they are in turmoil; they heap up, and do not know who will gather.

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

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

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

¹⁰Remove your stroke from me; I am worn down by the blows of your hand.

¹¹“You chastise mortals in punishment for sin, consuming like a moth what is dear to them; surely everyone is a mere breath. Selah

¹²“Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. For I am your passing guest, an alien, like all my forebears.

¹³Turn your gaze away from me, that I may smile again, before I depart and am no more.”

¹Does not wisdom call, and 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 out:

⁴“To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live.

⁵O simple ones, learn prudence; acquire intelligence, you who lack it.

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 one 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.

¹²I, wisdom, live with prudence, and I attain 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 good advice and sound wisdom; I have insight, I have strength.

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

¹⁶by me rulers rule, and nobles, all who govern rightly.

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

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

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

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

²¹endowing with wealth those who love me, and filling their treasuries.

²²The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago.

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 —

²⁶when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world’s first bits of soil.

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 worker; and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,

³¹rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human race.

³²“And now, my children, listen to me: happy are those who keep my ways.

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

³⁴Happy 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 those who miss me injure themselves; all who hate me love death.”

¹After a while, at the time of the wheat harvest, Samson went to visit his wife, bringing along a kid. He said, “I want to go into my wife’s room.” But her father would not allow him to go in.

²Her father said, “I was sure that you had rejected her; so I gave her to your companion. Is not her younger sister prettier than she? Why not take her instead?”

³Samson said to them, “This time, when I do mischief to the Philistines, I will be without blame.”

⁴So Samson went and caught three hundred foxes, and took some torches; and he turned the foxes tail to tail, and put a torch between each pair of tails.

⁵When he had set fire to the torches, he let the foxes go into the standing grain of the Philistines, and burned up the shocks and the standing grain, as well as the vineyards and olive groves.

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

⁷Samson said to them, “If this is what you do, I swear I will not stop until I have taken revenge on you.”

⁸He struck them down hip and thigh with great slaughter; 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.

¹⁰The 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 three thousand men of Judah went down to the cleft of the rock of Etam, and they said to Samson, “Do you not know that the Philistines are rulers over us? What then have you done to us?” He replied, “As they did to me, so I have done to them.”

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

¹³They said to him, “No, we will only bind you and give you into their hands; we will 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; and the spirit of the LORD rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands.

¹⁵Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men.

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

¹⁷When he had finished speaking, he threw away the jawbone; and that place was called Ramath-lehi.

¹⁸By then he was very thirsty, and he called on the LORD, saying, “You have granted this great victory by the hand of your servant. Am I now to die of thirst, and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

¹⁹So God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came from it. When he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore it was named En-hakkore, which is at Lehi to this day.

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

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

²Hezekiah welcomed them; 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 the prophet Isaiah came to King Hezekiah and said to him, “What did these men say? From where did they come to you?” Hezekiah answered, “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:

⁶Days are coming when all that is in your house, and that which your ancestors have stored up until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, says the LORD.

⁷Some of your own sons who are born to you shall be taken away; 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 believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God.

²So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him,

³saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?”

⁴Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying,

⁵“I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me.

⁶As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.

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

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

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

¹⁰This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven.

¹¹At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were.

¹²The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house.

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

¹⁴he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’

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

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

¹⁷If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

¹⁸When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.”

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

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

²¹The hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number became believers and turned to the Lord.

²²News 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 rejoiced, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion;

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

²⁵Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul,

²⁶and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they met with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians.”

²⁷At that time prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

²⁸One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine over all the world; and this took place during the reign of Claudius.

²⁹The disciples determined that according to their ability, each would send relief to the believers living in Judea;

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