Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.

²He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.

³Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.

⁴Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road.

⁵Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’

⁶And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.

⁷Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.

⁸Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you;

⁹cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’

¹⁰But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say,

¹¹‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’

¹²I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.

¹³“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the deeds of power done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

¹⁴But at the judgment it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you.

¹⁵And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades.

¹⁶“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

¹⁷The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!”

¹⁸He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning.

¹⁹See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you.

²⁰Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

²¹At that same hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.

²²All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

²³Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see!

²⁴For I tell you that many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

²⁵Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

²⁶He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

²⁷He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”

²⁸And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

²⁹But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

³⁰Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

³¹Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.

³²So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

³³But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity.

³⁴He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.

³⁵The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

³⁶Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

³⁷He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

³⁸Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.

³⁹She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying.

⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.”

⁴¹But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things;

⁴²there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

¹Then Moses answered, “But suppose they do not believe me or listen to me, but say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you.’”

²The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.”

³And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw the staff on the ground, and it became a snake; and Moses drew back from it.

⁴Then the LORD said to Moses, “Reach out your hand, and seize it by the tail” — so he reached out his hand and grasped it, and it became a staff in his hand —

⁵“so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”

⁶Again, the LORD said to him, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” He put his hand into his cloak; and when he took it out, his hand was leprous, as white as snow.

⁷Then God said, “Put your hand back into your cloak” — so he put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored like the rest of his body —

⁸“If they will not believe you or heed the first sign, they may believe the second sign.

⁹If they will not believe even these two signs or heed you, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.”

¹⁰But Moses said to the LORD, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

¹¹Then the LORD said to him, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the LORD?

¹²Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.”

¹³But he said, “O my Lord, please send someone else.”

¹⁴Then the anger of the LORD was kindled against Moses and he said, “What of your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he can speak fluently; even now he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you his heart will be glad.

¹⁵You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth, and will teach you what you shall do.

¹⁶He indeed shall speak for you to the people; he shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as God for him.

¹⁷Take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs.”

¹⁸Moses went back to his father-in-law Jethro and said to him, “Please let me go back to my kindred in Egypt and see whether they are still living.” And Jethro said to Moses, “Go in peace.”

¹⁹The LORD said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt; for all those who were seeking your life are dead.”

²⁰So Moses took his wife and his sons, put them on a donkey, and went back to the land of Egypt; and Moses carried the staff of God in his hand.

²¹And the LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.

²²Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD: Israel is my firstborn son.

²³I said to you, “Let my son go that he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; now I will kill your firstborn son.’”

²⁴On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the LORD met him and tried to kill him.

²⁵But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’ feet with it, and said, “Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!”

²⁶So he let him alone. It was then she said, “A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.”

²⁷The LORD said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he went; and he met him at the mountain of God and kissed him.

²⁸Moses told Aaron all the words of the LORD with which he had sent him, and all the signs with which he had charged him.

²⁹Then Moses and Aaron went and assembled all the elders of the Israelites.

³⁰Aaron spoke all the words that the LORD had spoken to Moses, and performed the signs in the sight of the people.

³¹The people believed; and when they heard that the LORD had given heed to the Israelites and that he had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.

¹This is the reason that I Paul am a prisoner for Christ Jesus for the sake of you Gentiles —

²for surely you have already heard of the commission of God’s grace that was given me for you,

³and how the mystery was made known to me by revelation, as I wrote above in a few words,

⁴a reading of which will enable you to perceive my understanding of the mystery of Christ.

⁵In former generations this mystery was not made known to humankind, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit:

⁶that is, the Gentiles have become fellow heirs, members of the same body, and sharers in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

⁷Of this gospel I have become a servant according to the gift of God’s grace that was given me by the working of his power.

⁸Although I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to me to bring to the Gentiles the news of the boundless riches of Christ,

⁹and to make everyone see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things;

¹⁰so that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

¹¹This was in accordance with the eternal purpose that he has carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord,

¹²in whom we have access to God in boldness and confidence through faith in him.

¹³I pray therefore that you may not lose heart over my sufferings for you; they are your glory.

¹⁴For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

¹⁵from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name.

¹⁶I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit,

¹⁷and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love.

¹⁸I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

¹⁹and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

²⁰Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine,

²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

¹Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, “Come and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there,

²but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample over the holy city for forty-two months.

³And I will grant my two witnesses authority to prophesy for one thousand two hundred sixty days, wearing sackcloth.”

⁴These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.

⁵And if anyone wants to harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes; anyone who wants to harm them must be killed in this manner.

⁶They have authority to shut the sky, so that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have authority over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.

⁷When they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them,

⁸and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that is prophetically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.

⁹For three and a half days members of the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb;

¹⁰and the inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and celebrate and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to the inhabitants of the earth.

¹¹But after the three and a half days, the breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and those who saw them were terrified.

¹²Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here!” And they went up to heaven in a cloud while their enemies watched them.

¹³At that moment there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

¹⁴The second woe has passed. The third woe is coming very soon.

¹⁵Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.”

¹⁶Then the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God,

¹⁷singing, “We give you thanks, Lord God Almighty, who are and who were, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign.

¹⁸The nations raged, but your wrath has come, and the time for judging the dead, for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints and all who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”

¹⁹Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple; and there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.

¹Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;

²before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain;

³in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly;

⁴when the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low;

⁵when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets;

⁶before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern,

⁷and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.

⁸Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher; all is vanity.

⁹Besides being wise, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs.

¹⁰The Teacher sought to find pleasing words, and he wrote words of truth plainly.

¹¹The sayings of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings that are given by one shepherd.

¹²Of anything beyond these, my child, beware. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

¹³The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for that is the whole duty of everyone.

¹⁴For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

¹Save me, O God, by your name, and vindicate me by your might.

²Hear my prayer, O God; give ear to the words of my mouth.

³For the insolent have risen against me, the ruthless seek my life; they do not set God before them. Selah

⁴But surely, God is my helper; the Lord is the upholder of my life.

⁵He will repay my enemies for their evil. In your faithfulness, put an end to them.

⁶With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you; I will give thanks to your name, O LORD, for it is good.

⁷For he has delivered me from every trouble, and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.

¹When you sit down to eat with a ruler, observe carefully what is before you,

²and put a knife to your throat if you have a big appetite.

³Do not desire the ruler’s delicacies, for they are deceptive food.

⁴Do not wear yourself out to get rich; be wise enough to desist.

⁵When your eyes light upon it, it is gone; for suddenly it takes wings to itself, flying like an eagle toward heaven.

⁶Do not eat the bread of the stingy; do not desire their delicacies;

⁷for like a hair in the throat, so are they. “Eat and drink!” they say to you; but they do not mean it.

⁸You will vomit up the little you have eaten, and you will waste your pleasant words.

⁹Do not speak in the hearing of a fool, who will only despise the wisdom of your words.

¹⁰Do not remove an ancient landmark or encroach on the fields of orphans,

¹¹for their redeemer is strong; he will plead their cause against you.

¹²Apply your mind to instruction and your ear to words of knowledge.

¹³Do not withhold discipline from your children; if you beat them with a rod, they will not die.

¹⁴If you beat them with the rod, you will save their lives from Sheol.

¹⁵My child, if your heart is wise, my heart too will be glad.

¹⁶My soul will rejoice when your lips speak what is right.

¹⁷Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always continue in the fear of the LORD.

¹⁸Surely there is a future, and your hope will not be cut off.

¹⁹Hear, my child, and be wise, and direct your mind in the way.

²⁰Do not be among winebibbers, or among gluttonous eaters of meat;

²¹for the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, and drowsiness will clothe them with rags.

²²Listen to your father who begot you, and do not despise your mother when she is old.

²³Buy truth, and do not sell it; buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding.

²⁴The father of the righteous will greatly rejoice; he who begets a wise son will be glad in him.

²⁵Let your father and mother be glad; let her who bore you rejoice.

²⁶My child, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.

²⁷For a prostitute is a deep pit; an adulteress is a narrow well.

²⁸She lies in wait like a robber and increases the number of the faithless.

²⁹Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaining? Who has wounds without cause? Who has redness of eyes?

³⁰Those who linger late over wine, those who keep trying mixed wines.

³¹Do not look at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup and goes down smoothly.

³²At the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like an adder.

³³Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind utter perverse things.

³⁴You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea, like one who lies on the top of a mast.

³⁵“They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt; they beat me, but I did not feel it. When shall I awake? I will seek another drink.”

¹When the Philistines captured the ark of God, they brought it from Ebenezer to Ashdod;

²then the Philistines took the ark of God and brought it into the house of Dagon and placed it beside Dagon.

³When the people of Ashdod rose early the next day, there was Dagon, fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD. So they took Dagon and put him back in his place.

⁴But when they rose early on the next morning, Dagon had fallen on his face to the ground before the ark of the LORD, and the head of Dagon and both his hands were lying cut off upon the threshold; only the trunk of Dagon was left to him.

⁵This is why the priests of Dagon and all who enter the house of Dagon do not step on the threshold of Dagon in Ashdod to this day.

⁶The hand of the LORD was heavy upon the people of Ashdod, and he terrified and struck them with tumors, both in Ashdod and in its territory.

⁷And when the inhabitants of Ashdod saw how things were, they said, “The ark of the God of Israel must not remain with us; for his hand is heavy on us and on our god Dagon.”

⁸So they sent and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, “What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel?” The inhabitants of Gath replied, “Let the ark of God be moved on to us.” So they moved the ark of the God of Israel to Gath.

⁹But after they had brought it to Gath, the hand of the LORD was against the city, causing a very great panic; he struck the inhabitants of the city, both young and old, so that tumors broke out on them.

¹⁰So they sent the ark of the God of Israel to Ekron. But when the ark of God came to Ekron, the people of Ekron cried out, “Why have they brought around to us the ark of the God of Israel to kill us and our people?”

¹¹They sent therefore and gathered together all the lords of the Philistines, and said, “Send away the ark of the God of Israel, and let it return to its own place, that it may not kill us and our people.” For there was a deathly panic throughout the whole city. The hand of God was very heavy there;

¹²those who did not die were stricken with tumors, and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

¹Sing, O barren one who did not bear; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor! For the children of the desolate woman will be more than the children of her that is married, says the LORD.

²Enlarge the site of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes.

³For you will spread out to the right and to the left, and your descendants will possess the nations and will settle the desolate towns.

⁴Do not fear, for you will not be ashamed; do not be discouraged, for you will not suffer disgrace; for you will forget the shame of your youth, and the disgrace of your widowhood you will remember no more.

⁵For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name; the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.

⁶For the LORD has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like the wife of a man’s youth when she is cast off, says your God.

⁷For a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I will gather you.

⁸In overflowing wrath for a moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the LORD, your Redeemer.

⁹This is like the days of Noah to me: Just as I swore that the waters of Noah would never again go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you.

¹⁰For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the LORD, who has compassion on you.

¹¹O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, I am about to set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires.

¹²I will make your pinnacles of rubies, your gates of jewels, and all your wall of precious stones.

¹³All your children shall be taught by the LORD, and great shall be the prosperity of your children.

¹⁴In righteousness you shall be established; you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear; and from terror, for it shall not come near you.

¹⁵If anyone stirs up strife, it is not from me; whoever stirs up strife with you shall fall because of you.

¹⁶See it is I who have created the smith who blows the fire of coals, and produces a weapon fit for its purpose; I have also created the ravager to destroy.

¹⁷No weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication from me, says the LORD.

¹Agrippa said to Paul, “You have permission to speak for yourself.” Then Paul stretched out his hand and began to defend himself:

²“I consider myself fortunate that it is before you, King Agrippa, I am to make my defense today against all the accusations of the Jews,

³because you are especially familiar with all the customs and controversies of the Jews; therefore I beg of you to listen to me patiently.

⁴“All the Jews know my way of life from my youth, a life spent from the beginning among my own people and in Jerusalem.

⁵They have known for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I have belonged to the strictest sect of our religion and lived as a Pharisee.

⁶And now I stand here on trial on account of my hope in the promise made by God to our ancestors,

⁷a promise that our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly worship day and night. It is for this hope, your Excellency, that I am accused by Jews!

⁸Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead?

⁹“Indeed, I myself was convinced that I ought to do many things against the name of Jesus of Nazareth.

¹⁰And that is what I did in Jerusalem; with authority received from the chief priests, I not only locked up many of the saints in prison, but I also cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death.

¹¹By punishing them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to blaspheme; and since I was so furiously enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities.

¹²“With this in mind, I was traveling to Damascus with the authority and commission of the chief priests,

¹³when at midday along the road, your Excellency, I saw a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and my companions.

¹⁴When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the Hebrew language, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It hurts you to kick against the goads.’

¹⁵I asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The Lord answered, ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.

¹⁶But get up and stand on your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and testify to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you.

¹⁷I will rescue you from your people and from the Gentiles — to whom I am sending you

¹⁸to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

¹⁹“After that, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision,

²⁰but declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout the countryside of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance.

²¹For this reason the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me.

²²To this day I have had help from God, and so I stand here, testifying to both small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would take place:

²³that the Messiah must suffer, and that, by being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the Gentiles.”

²⁴While he was making this defense, Festus exclaimed, “You are out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning is driving you insane!”

²⁵But Paul said, “I am not out of my mind, most excellent Festus, but I am speaking the sober truth.

²⁶Indeed the king knows about these things, and to him I speak freely; for I am certain that none of these things has escaped his notice, for this was not done in a corner.

²⁷King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you believe.”

²⁸Agrippa said to Paul, “Are you so quickly persuading me to become a Christian?”

²⁹Paul replied, “Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you but also all who are listening to me today might become such as I am — except for these chains.”

³⁰Then the king got up, and with him the governor and Bernice and those who had been seated with them;

³¹and as they were leaving, they said to one another, “This man is doing nothing to deserve death or imprisonment.”

³²Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to the emperor.”