The Bible Reading Plan

Exodus Chapter 12

¹¹This is how you shall eat it: with your belt on your waist, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and you shall eat it in haste: it is TheIAM's Passover. ¹²For I will go through the land of Egypt in that night, and will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and animal. Against all the Gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am TheIAM. ¹³The blood shall be to you for a token on the houses where you are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and there shall no plague be on you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. ¹⁴This day shall be to you for a memorial, and you shall keep it a feast to TheIAM: throughout your generations you shall keep it a feast by an ordinance forever. ¹⁵"'Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread; even the first day you shall put away yeast out of your houses, for whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. ¹⁶In the first day there shall be to you a holy convocation, and in the seventh day a holy convocation; no kind of work shall be done in them, except that which every man must eat, that only may be done by you. ¹⁷You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this same day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations by an ordinance forever. ¹⁸In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread, until the twenty first day of the month at evening. ¹⁹Seven days shall there be no yeast found in your houses, for whoever eats that which is leavened, that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a foreigner, or one who is born in the land. ²⁰You shall eat nothing leavened. In all your habitations you shall eat unleavened bread.'"

2 Samuel Chapter 24

⁵They passed over the Jordan, and encamped in Aroer, on the right side of the city that is in the middle of the valley of Gad, and to Jazer: ⁶then they came to Gilead, and to the land of Tahtim Hodshi; and they came to Dan Jaan, and around to Sidon, ⁷and came to the stronghold of Tyre, and to all the cities of the Hivites, and of the Canaanites; and they went out to the south of Judah, at Beersheba. ⁸So when they had gone back and forth through all the land, they came to Jerusalem at the end of nine months and twenty days. ⁹Joab gave up the sum of the numbering of the people to the king: and there were in Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men who drew the sword; and the men of Judah were five hundred thousand men. ¹⁰David's heart struck him after that he had numbered the people. David said to TheIAM, "I have sinned greatly in that which I have done. But now, TheIAM, put away, I beg you, the iniquity of your servant; for I have done very foolishly." ¹¹When David rose up in the morning, the word of TheIAM came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, ¹²"Go and speak to David, 'Thus says TheIAM, "I offer you three things. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you."'" ¹³So Gad came to David, and told him, and said to him, "Shall seven years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? Now answer, and consider what answer I shall return to him who sent me." ¹⁴David said to Gad, "I am in distress. Let us fall now into the hand of TheIAM; for his mercies are great. Let me not fall into the hand of man." ¹⁵So TheIAM sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning even to the appointed time; and there died of the people from Dan even to Beersheba seventy thousand men. ¹⁶When the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, TheIAM relented of the disaster, and said to the angel who destroyed the people, "It is enough. Now stay your hand." The angel of TheIAM was by the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. ¹⁷David spoke to TheIAM when he saw the angel who struck the people, and said, "Behold, I have sinned, and I have done perversely; but these sheep, what have they done? Please let your hand be against me, and against my father's house." ¹⁸Gad came that day to David, and said to him, "Go up, build an altar to TheIAM on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite." ¹⁹David went up according to the saying of Gad, as TheIAM commanded. ²⁰Araunah looked out, and saw the king and his servants coming on toward him. Then Araunah went out, and bowed himself before the king with his face to the ground. ²¹Araunah said, "Why has my lord the king come to his servant?" David said, "To buy your threshing floor, to build an altar to TheIAM, that the plague may be stopped from afflicting the people." ²²Araunah said to David, "Let my lord the king take and offer up what seems good to him. Behold, the cattle for the burnt offering, and the threshing instruments and the yokes of the oxen for the wood: ²³all this, king, does Araunah give to the king." Araunah said to the king, "May TheIAM your God accept you." ²⁴The king said to Araunah, "No; but I will most certainly buy it from you for a price. I will not offer burnt offerings to TheIAM my God which cost me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. ²⁵David built an altar to TheIAM there, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. So TheIAM was entreated for the land, and the plague was stayed from Israel.

Ezra Chapter 5

¹Now the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem; in the name of the God of Israel [prophesied they] to them. ²Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem; and with them were the prophets of God, helping them. ³At the same time came to them Tattenai, the governor beyond the River, and Shetharbozenai, and their companions, and said thus to them, "Who gave you a decree to build this house, and to finish this wall?" ⁴Then we told them in this way, what the names of the men were who were making this building. ⁵But the eye of their God was on the elders of the Jews, and they did not make them cease, until the matter should come to Darius, and then answer should be returned by letter concerning it. ⁶The copy of the letter that Tattenai, the governor beyond the River, and Shetharbozenai, and his companions the Apharsachites, who were beyond the River, sent to Darius the king; ⁷they sent a letter to him, in which was written thus: To Darius the king, all peace. ⁸Be it known to the king, that we went into the province of Judah, to the house of the great God, which is built with great stones, and timber is laid in the walls; and this work goes on with diligence and prospers in their hands. ⁹Then we asked those elders, and said to them thus, "Who gave you a decree to build this house, and to finish this wall?" ¹⁰We asked them their names also, to inform you that we might write the names of the men who were at the head of them. ¹¹Thus they returned us answer, saying, "We are the servants of the God of heaven and earth, and are building the house that was built these many years ago, which a great king of Israel built and finished. ¹²But after that our fathers had provoked the God of heaven to wrath, he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, the Chaldean, who destroyed this house, and carried the people away into Babylon. ¹³But in the first year of Cyrus king of Babylon, Cyrus the king made a decree to build this house of God.

Luke Chapter 12

⁵⁴He said to the multitudes also, "When you see a cloud rising from the west, immediately you say, 'A shower is coming,' and so it happens. ⁵⁵When a south wind blows, you say, 'There will be a scorching heat,' and it happens. ⁵⁶You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky, but how is it that you don't interpret this time? ⁵⁷Why don't you judge for yourselves what is right? ⁵⁸For when you are going with your adversary before the magistrate, try diligently on the way to be released from him, lest perhaps he drag you to the judge, and the judge deliver you to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. ⁵⁹I tell you, you will by no means get out of there, until you have paid the very last penny."

Luke Chapter 13

¹Now there were some present at the same time who told him about the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. ²Jesus answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered such things? ³I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way. ⁴Or those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell, and killed them; do you think that they were worse offenders than all the men who dwell in Jerusalem? ⁵I tell you, no, but, unless you repent, you will all perish in the same way." ⁶He spoke this parable. "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it, and found none. ⁷He said to the vine dresser, 'Behold, these three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and found none. Cut it down. Why does it waste the soil?' ⁸He answered, 'Master, leave it alone this year also, while I dig around it, and fertilize it. ⁹If it bears fruit, fine; but if not, after that you can cut it down.'" ¹⁰He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath day. ¹¹Behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and she was bent over, and could in no way straighten herself up. ¹²When Jesus saw her, he called her, and said to her, "Woman, you are freed from your infirmity." ¹³He laid his hands on her, and immediately she stood up straight, and glorified God. ¹⁴The ruler of the synagogue, being indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the multitude, "There are six days in which men ought to work. Therefore come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day!" ¹⁵Therefore the Lord answered him, "You hypocrites! Doesn't each one of you free his ox or his donkey from the stall on the Sabbath, and lead him away to water? ¹⁶Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound eighteen long years, be freed from this slavery on the Sabbath day?" ¹⁷As he said these things, all his adversaries were disappointed, and all the multitude rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.