The Bible Reading Plan

Deuteronomy Chapter 12

¹These are the statutes and the ordinances which you shall observe to do in the land which ForeverOne, the God of your fathers, has given you to possess it, all the days that you live on the earth.

²You shall surely destroy all the places in which the nations that you shall dispossess served their gods, on the high mountains, and on the hills, and under every green tree: ³and you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and burn their Asherim with fire; and you shall cut down the engraved images of their gods; and you shall destroy their name out of that place.

⁴You shall not do so to ForeverOne your God.

⁵But to the place which ForeverOne your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, even to his habitation you shall seek, and there you shall come; ⁶and there you shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and the wave offering of your hand, and your vows, and your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herd and of your flock: ⁷and there you shall eat before ForeverOne your God, and you shall rejoice in all that you put your hand to, you and your households, in which ForeverOne your God has blessed you.

⁸You shall not do after all the things that we do here today, every man whatever is right in his own eyes; ⁹for you haven't yet come to the rest and to the inheritance, which ForeverOne your God gives you.

¹⁰But when you go over the Jordan, and dwell in the land which ForeverOne your God causes you to inherit, and he gives you rest from all your enemies around you, so that you dwell in safety; ¹¹then to the place which ForeverOne your God shall choose, to cause his name to dwell there, there you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the wave offering of your hand, and all your choice vows which you vow to ForeverOne.

¹²You shall rejoice before ForeverOne your God, you, and your sons, and your daughters, and your male servants, and your female servants, and the Levite who is within your gates, because he has no portion nor inheritance with you.

¹³Take heed to yourself that you don't offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see; ¹⁴but in the place which ForeverOne shall choose in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.

¹⁵Notwithstanding, you may kill and eat flesh within all your gates, after all the desire of your soul, according to the blessing of ForeverOne your God which he has given you: the unclean and the clean may eat of it, as of the gazelle, and as of the hart.

¹⁶Only you shall not eat the blood; you shall pour it out on the earth as water.

Hosea Chapter 1

¹The word of ForeverOne that came to Hosea the son of Beeri, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and in the days of Jeroboam the son of Joash, king of Israel.

²When ForeverOne spoke at first by Hosea, ForeverOne said to Hosea, "Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and children of unfaithfulness; for the land commits great adultery, forsaking ForeverOne." ³So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; and she conceived, and bore him a son.

⁴ForeverOne said to him, "Call his name Jezreel; for yet a little while, and I will avenge the blood of Jezreel on the house of Jehu, and will cause the kingdom of the house of Israel to cease.

⁵In that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel." ⁶She conceived again, and bore a daughter. Then he said to him, "Call her name Lo-Ruhamah; for I will no longer have mercy on the house of Israel, that I should in any way pardon them.

⁷But I will have mercy on the house of Judah, and will save them by ForeverOne their God, and will not save them by bow, sword, battle, horses, or horsemen." ⁸Now when she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, she conceived, and bore a son.

⁹He said, "Call his name Lo-Ammi; for you are not my people, and I will not be yours.

¹⁰Yet the number of the children of Israel will be as the sand of the sea, which can't be measured nor counted. Where it was said, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.' ¹¹The children of Judah and the children of Israel will be gathered together, and they will appoint themselves one head, and will go up from the land; for great will be the day of Jezreel.

Hosea Chapter 2

¹"Say to your brothers, 'My people!' and to your sisters, 'My loved one!' ²Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts; ³Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.

⁴Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy; for they are children of unfaithfulness; ⁵For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.' ⁶Therefore, behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can't find her way.

⁷She will follow after her lovers, but she won't overtake them; and she will seek them, but won't find them. Then she will say, 'I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.' ⁸For she did not know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.

⁹Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.

¹⁰Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand.

¹¹I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.

¹²I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, 'These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest,' and the animals of the field shall eat them.

¹³I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me," says ForeverOne.

Ecclesiastes Chapter 6

¹There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is heavy on men: ²a man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him no power to eat of it, but an alien eats it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.

³If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial; I say, that a stillborn child is better than he: ⁴for it comes in vanity, and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness.

⁵Moreover it has not seen the sun nor known it. This has rest rather than the other.

⁶Yes, though he live a thousand years twice told, and yet fails to enjoy good, don't all go to one place?

⁷All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.

⁸For what advantage has the wise more than the fool? What has the poor man, that knows how to walk before the living?

⁹Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.

¹⁰Whatever has been, its name was given long ago; and it is known what man is; neither can he contend with him who is mightier than he.

¹¹For there are many words that create vanity. What does that profit man?

¹²For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he spends like a shadow? For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?

Ecclesiastes Chapter 7

¹A good name is better than fine perfume; and the day of death better than the day of one's birth.

²It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men, and the living should take this to heart.

³Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the face the heart is made good.

⁴The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

⁵It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools.

⁶For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This also is vanity.

⁷Surely extortion makes the wise man foolish; and a bribe destroys the understanding.

James Chapter 4

¹Where do wars and fightings among you come from? Don't they come from your pleasures that war in your members?

²You lust, and don't have. You murder and covet, and can't obtain. You fight and make war. You don't have, because you don't ask.

³You ask, and don't receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.

⁴You adulterers and adulteresses, don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

⁵Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, "The Spirit who lives in us yearns jealously"?

⁶But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." ⁷So be subject to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

⁹Lament, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to gloom.

¹⁰Humble yourselves in the sight of ForeverOne, and he will exalt you.

¹¹Don't speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother and judges his brother, speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.

¹²Only one is the lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge another?

¹³Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow let's go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit." ¹⁴Whereas you don't know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.

¹⁵For you ought to say, "If ForeverOne wills it, we will both live, and do this or that." ¹⁶But now you glory in your boasting. All such boasting is evil.

¹⁷So to him who knows to do good and doesn't do it, to him it is sin.