Professor Horner’s Reading Plan

¹“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. Otherwise, you have no reward with your Father in heaven.

²So whenever you give to the poor, don’t sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be applauded by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward.

³But when you give to the poor, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,

⁴so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁵“Whenever you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward.

⁶But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

⁷When you pray, don’t babble like the Gentiles, since they imagine they’ll be heard for their many words.

⁸Don’t be like them, because your Father knows the things you need before you ask him.

⁹“Therefore, you should pray like this: Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy.

¹⁰Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

¹¹Give us today our daily bread.

¹²And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

¹³And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

¹⁴“For if you forgive others their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you as well.

¹⁵But if you don’t forgive others, your Father will not forgive your offenses.

¹⁶“Whenever you fast, don’t be gloomy like the hypocrites. For they make their faces unattractive so that their fasting is obvious to people. Truly I tell you, they have their reward.

¹⁷But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face,

¹⁸so that your fasting isn’t obvious to others but to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

¹⁹“Don’t store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

²⁰But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal.

²¹For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

²²“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.

²³But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness, how deep is that darkness!

²⁴“No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

²⁵“Therefore I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing?

²⁶Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?

²⁷Can any of you add one moment to his life-span by worrying?

²⁸And why do you worry about clothes? Observe how the wildflowers of the field grow: They don’t labor or spin thread.

²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these.

³⁰If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t he do much more for you — you of little faith?

³¹So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat? ’ or ‘What will we drink? ’ or ‘What will we wear?’

³²For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.

³³But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.

³⁴Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

¹When mankind began to multiply on the earth and daughters were born to them,

²the sons of God saw that the daughters of mankind were beautiful, and they took any they chose as wives for themselves.

³And the LORD said, “My Spirit will not remain with mankind forever, because they are corrupt. Their days will be 120 years.”

⁴The Nephilim were on the earth both in those days and afterward, when the sons of God came to the daughters of mankind, who bore children to them. They were the powerful men of old, the famous men.

⁵When the LORD saw that human wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every inclination of the human mind was nothing but evil all the time,

⁶the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and he was deeply grieved.

⁷Then the LORD said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I created, off the face of the earth, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky — for I regret that I made them.”

⁸Noah, however, found favor with the LORD.

⁹These are the family records of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among his contemporaries; Noah walked with God.

¹⁰And Noah fathered three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

¹¹Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with wickedness.

¹²God saw how corrupt the earth was, for every creature had corrupted its way on the earth.

¹³Then God said to Noah, “I have decided to put an end to every creature, for the earth is filled with wickedness because of them; therefore I am going to destroy them along with the earth.

¹⁴“Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, and cover it with pitch inside and outside.

¹⁵This is how you are to make it: The ark will be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.

¹⁶You are to make a roof, finishing the sides of the ark to within eighteen inches of the roof. You are to put a door in the side of the ark. Make it with lower, middle, and upper decks.

¹⁷“Understand that I am bringing a flood — floodwaters on the earth to destroy every creature under heaven with the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish.

¹⁸But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark with your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives.

¹⁹You are also to bring into the ark two of all the living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you.

²⁰Two of everything — from the birds according to their kinds, from the livestock according to their kinds, and from the animals that crawl on the ground according to their kinds — will come to you so that you can keep them alive.

²¹Take with you every kind of food that is eaten; gather it as food for you and for them.”

²²And Noah did this. He did everything that God had commanded him.

¹What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?

²Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

³Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

⁴Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.

⁵For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.

⁶For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin,

⁷since a person who has died is freed from sin.

⁸Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him,

⁹because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him.

¹⁰For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

¹¹So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹²Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.

¹³And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.

¹⁴For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.

¹⁵What then? Should we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Absolutely not!

¹⁶Don’t you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one you obey  — either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness?

¹⁷But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over,

¹⁸and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.

¹⁹I am using a human analogy because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you offered the parts of yourselves as slaves to impurity, and to greater and greater lawlessness, so now offer them as slaves to righteousness, which results in sanctification.

²⁰For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness.

²¹So what fruit was produced then from the things you are now ashamed of? The outcome of those things is death.

²²But now, since you have been set free from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification  — and the outcome is eternal life!

²³For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

¹Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy: To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

²Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

³We ought to thank God always for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, since your faith is flourishing and the love each one of you has for one another is increasing.

⁴Therefore, we ourselves boast about you among God’s churches — about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and afflictions that you are enduring.

⁵It is clear evidence of God’s righteous judgment that you will be counted worthy of God’s kingdom, for which you also are suffering,

⁶since it is just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you

⁷and to give relief to you who are afflicted, along with us. This will take place at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his powerful angels,

⁸when he takes vengeance with flaming fire on those who don’t know God and on those who don’t obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

⁹They will pay the penalty of eternal destruction from the Lord’s presence and from his glorious strength

¹⁰on that day when he comes to be glorified by his saints and to be marveled at by all those who have believed, because our testimony among you was believed.

¹¹In view of this, we always pray for you that our God will make you worthy of his calling, and by his power fulfill your every desire to do good and your work produced by faith,

¹²so that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified by you, and you by him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

¹Then Job answered:

²If only my grief could be weighed and my devastation placed with it on the scales.

³For then it would outweigh the sand of the seas! That is why my words are rash.

⁴Surely the arrows of the Almighty have pierced me; my spirit drinks their poison. God’s terrors are arrayed against me.

⁵Does a wild donkey bray over fresh grass or an ox low over its fodder?

⁶Is bland food eaten without salt? Is there flavor in an egg white?

⁷I refuse to touch them; they are like contaminated food.

⁸If only my request would be granted and God would provide what I hope for:

⁹that he would decide to crush me, to unleash his power and cut me off!

¹⁰It would still bring me comfort, and I would leap for joy in unrelenting pain that I have not denied the words of the Holy One.

¹¹What strength do I have, that I should continue to hope? What is my future, that I should be patient?

¹²Is my strength that of stone, or my flesh made of bronze?

¹³Since I cannot help myself, the hope for success has been banished from me.

¹⁴A despairing man should receive loyalty from his friends, even if he abandons the fear of the Almighty.

¹⁵My brothers are as treacherous as a wadi, as seasonal streams that overflow

¹⁶and become darkened because of ice, and the snow melts into them.

¹⁷The wadis evaporate in warm weather; they disappear from their channels in hot weather.

¹⁸Caravans turn away from their routes, go up into the desert, and perish.

¹⁹The caravans of Tema look for these streams. The traveling merchants of Sheba hope for them.

²⁰They are ashamed because they had been confident of finding water. When they arrive there, they are disappointed.

²¹So this is what you have now become to me. When you see something dreadful, you are afraid.

²²Have I ever said: “Give me something” or “Pay a bribe for me from your wealth”

²³or “Deliver me from the enemy’s hand” or “Redeem me from the hand of the ruthless”?

²⁴Teach me, and I will be silent. Help me understand what I did wrong.

²⁵How painful honest words can be! But what does your rebuke prove?

²⁶Do you think that you can disprove my words or that a despairing man’s words are mere wind?

²⁷No doubt you would cast lots for a fatherless child and negotiate a price to sell your friend.

²⁸But now, please look at me; I will not lie to your face.

²⁹Reconsider; don’t be unjust. Reconsider; my righteousness is still the issue.

³⁰Is there injustice on my tongue or can my palate not taste disaster?

¹For the choir director: with stringed instruments, according to . A psalm of David. [1] LORD, do not rebuke me in your anger; do not discipline me in your wrath.

²Be gracious to me, LORD, for I am weak; heal me, LORD, for my bones are shaking;

³my whole being is shaken with terror. And you, LORD  — how long?

⁴Turn, LORD! Rescue me; save me because of your faithful love.

⁵For there is no remembrance of you in death; who can thank you in Sheol?

⁶I am weary from my groaning; with my tears I dampen my bed and drench my couch every night.

⁷My eyes are swollen from grief; they grow old because of all my enemies.

⁸Depart from me, all evildoers, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.

⁹The LORD has heard my plea for help; the LORD accepts my prayer.

¹⁰All my enemies will be ashamed and shake with terror; they will turn back and suddenly be disgraced.

¹My son, if you have put up security for your neighbor or entered into an agreement with a stranger,

²you have been snared by the words of your mouth trapped by the words from your mouth.

³Do this, then, my son, and free yourself, for you have put yourself in your neighbor’s power: Go, humble yourself, and plead with your neighbor.

⁴Don’t give sleep to your eyes or slumber to your eyelids.

⁵Escape like a gazelle from a hunter, like a bird from a hunter’s trap.

⁶Go to the ant, you slacker! Observe its ways and become wise.

⁷Without leader, administrator, or ruler,

⁸it prepares its provisions in summer; it gathers its food during harvest.

⁹How long will you stay in bed, you slacker? When will you get up from your sleep?

¹⁰A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the arms to rest,

¹¹and your poverty will come like a robber, your need, like a bandit.

¹²A worthless person, a wicked man goes around speaking dishonestly,

¹³winking his eyes, signaling with his feet, and gesturing with his fingers.

¹⁴He always plots evil with perversity in his heart; he stirs up trouble.

¹⁵Therefore calamity will strike him suddenly; he will be shattered instantly, beyond recovery.

¹⁶The LORD hates six things; in fact, seven are detestable to him:

¹⁷arrogant eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood,

¹⁸a heart that plots wicked schemes, feet eager to run to evil,

¹⁹a lying witness who gives false testimony, and one who stirs up trouble among brothers.

²⁰My son, keep your father’s command, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching.

²¹Always bind them to your heart; tie them around your neck.

²²When you walk here and there, they will guide you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; when you wake up, they will talk to you.

²³For a command is a lamp, teaching is a light, and corrective discipline is the way to life.

²⁴They will protect you from an evil woman, from the flattering tongue of a wayward woman.

²⁵Don’t lust in your heart for her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyelashes.

²⁶For a prostitute’s fee is only a loaf of bread, but the wife of another man goes after a precious life.

²⁷Can a man embrace fire and his clothes not be burned?

²⁸Can a man walk on burning coals without scorching his feet?

²⁹So it is with the one who sleeps with another man’s wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.

³⁰People don’t despise the thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry.

³¹Still, if caught, he must pay seven times as much; he must give up all the wealth in his house.

³²The one who commits adultery lacks sense; whoever does so destroys himself.

³³He will get a beating and dishonor, and his disgrace will never be removed.

³⁴For jealousy enrages a husband, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge.

³⁵He will not be appeased by anything or be persuaded by lavish bribes.

¹Now Jericho was strongly fortified because of the Israelites — no one leaving or entering.

²The LORD said to Joshua, “Look, I have handed Jericho, its king, and its best soldiers over to you.

³March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days.

⁴Have seven priests carry seven ram’s-horn trumpets in front of the ark. But on the seventh day, march around the city seven times, while the priests blow the trumpets.

⁵When there is a prolonged blast of the horn and you hear its sound, have all the troops give a mighty shout. Then the city wall will collapse, and the troops will advance, each man straight ahead.”

⁶So Joshua son of Nun summoned the priests and said to them, “Take up the ark of the covenant and have seven priests carry seven trumpets in front of the ark of the LORD.”

⁷He said to the troops, “Move forward, march around the city, and have the armed men go ahead of the ark of the LORD.”

⁸After Joshua had spoken to the troops, seven priests carrying seven trumpets before the LORD moved forward and blew the trumpets; the ark of the LORD’s covenant followed them.

⁹While the trumpets were blowing, the armed men went in front of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard went behind the ark.

¹⁰But Joshua had commanded the troops: “Do not shout or let your voice be heard. Don’t let one word come out of your mouth until the time I say, ‘Shout! ’ Then you are to shout.”

¹¹So the ark of the LORD was carried around the city, circling it once. They returned to the camp and spent the night there.

¹²Joshua got up early the next morning. The priests took the ark of the LORD,

¹³and the seven priests carrying seven trumpets marched in front of the ark of the LORD. While the trumpets were blowing, the armed men went in front of them, and the rear guard went behind the ark of the LORD.

¹⁴On the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.

¹⁵Early on the seventh day, they started at dawn and marched around the city seven times in the same way. That was the only day they marched around the city seven times.

¹⁶After the seventh time, the priests blew the trumpets, and Joshua said to the troops, “Shout! For the LORD has given you the city.

¹⁷But the city and everything in it are set apart to the LORD for destruction. Only Rahab the prostitute and everyone with her in the house will live, because she hid the messengers we sent.

¹⁸But keep yourselves from the things set apart, or you will be set apart for destruction. If you take any of those things, you will set apart the camp of Israel for destruction and make trouble for it.

¹⁹For all the silver and gold, and the articles of bronze and iron, are dedicated to the LORD and must go into the LORD’s treasury.”

²⁰So the troops shouted, and the trumpets sounded. When they heard the blast of the trumpet, the troops gave a great shout, and the wall collapsed. The troops advanced into the city, each man straight ahead, and they captured the city.

²¹They completely destroyed everything in the city with the sword — every man and woman, both young and old, and every ox, sheep, and donkey.

²²Joshua said to the two men who had scouted the land, “Go to the prostitute’s house and bring the woman out of there, and all who are with her, just as you swore to her.”

²³So the young men who had scouted went in and brought out Rahab and her father, mother, brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel.

²⁴They burned the city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the LORD’s house.

²⁵However, Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, her father’s family, and all who belonged to her, because she hid the messengers Joshua had sent to spy on Jericho, and she still lives in Israel today.

²⁶At that time Joshua imposed this curse: The man who undertakes the rebuilding of this city, Jericho, is cursed before the LORD. He will lay its foundation at the cost of his firstborn; he will finish its gates at the cost of his youngest.

²⁷And the LORD was with Joshua, and his fame spread throughout the land.

¹In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne, and the hem of his robe filled the temple.

²Seraphim were standing above him; they each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew.

³And one called to another: Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of Armies; his glory fills the whole earth.

⁴The foundations of the doorways shook at the sound of their voices, and the temple was filled with smoke.

⁵Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of Armies.

⁶Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs.

⁷He touched my mouth with it and said: Now that this has touched your lips, your iniquity is removed and your sin is atoned for.

⁸Then I heard the voice of the Lord asking: Who should I send? Who will go for us? I said: Here I am. Send me.

⁹And he replied: Go! Say to these people: Keep listening, but do not understand; keep looking, but do not perceive.

¹⁰Make the minds of these people dull; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.

¹¹Then I said, “Until when, Lord?” And he replied: Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants, houses are without people, the land is ruined and desolate,

¹²and the LORD drives the people far away, leaving great emptiness in the land.

¹³Though a tenth will remain in the land, it will be burned again. Like the terebinth or the oak that leaves a stump when felled, the holy seed is the stump.

¹In those days, as the disciples were increasing in number, there arose a complaint by the Hellenistic Jews against the Hebraic Jews that their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution.

²The Twelve summoned the whole company of the disciples and said, “It would not be right for us to give up preaching the word of God to wait on tables.

³Brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and wisdom, whom we can appoint to this duty.

⁴But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.”

⁵This proposal pleased the whole company. So they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolaus, a convert from Antioch.

⁶They had them stand before the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.

⁷So the word of God spread, the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly in number, and a large group of priests became obedient to the faith.

⁸Now Stephen, full of grace and power, was performing great wonders and signs among the people.

⁹Opposition arose, however, from some members of the Freedmen’s Synagogue, composed of both Cyrenians and Alexandrians, and some from Cilicia and Asia, and they began to argue with Stephen.

¹⁰But they were unable to stand up against his wisdom and the Spirit by whom he was speaking.

¹¹Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, “We heard him speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God.”

¹²They stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; so they came, seized him, and took him to the Sanhedrin.

¹³They also presented false witnesses who said, “This man never stops speaking against this holy place and the law.

¹⁴For we heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses handed down to us.”

¹⁵And all who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at him and saw that his face was like the face of an angel.