M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
26 “You are not to make idols for yourselves, nor raise up an engraved image or a standing-stone, or place any carved stone in your land to bow down to it. For I am Adonai your God.
2 “You are to keep My Shabbatot and have reverence for My Sanctuary. I am Adonai.
Parashat Bechukotai
Faithfulness Ensures Blessings
3 “If you walk in My statutes, keep My mitzvot and carry them out, 4 then I will give you rains in their season, the land will yield its crops, and the trees of the field will yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing will last until grape gathering, the grape gathering will last until the sowing time, you will eat your bread to the full, and live securely in your land.
6 “I will bring shalom in the land, and you will lie down, with no one making you afraid. I will remove dangerous beasts from the land and no sword will pass through your land. 7 You will chase your enemies and they will fall before you by the sword. 8 Five of you will chase 100 and 100 of you will chase 10,000, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you.
9 “I will turn toward you, make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will confirm My covenant with you. 10 You will eat the old harvest and clear out the old because of the new. 11 I will set My Tabernacle among you, and My soul will not abhor you. 12 I will walk among you and will be your God, and you will be My people. [a] 13 I am Adonai your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, so that you would not be their slaves, and I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk upright.
Faithlessness Ensures Misery
14 “But if you will not listen to Me, nor carry out all these mitzvot, 15 and if you reject My statutes and if your soul abhors My ordinances, so that you do not keep all My mitzvot, but instead break My covenant, 16 then I will do the following to you in return. I will appoint terror over you, wasting disease and fever that will dim the eyes and cause the soul to pine away. You will sow your seed in vain, because your enemies will eat it. 17 I will set My face against you and you will be routed before your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you, and you will flee when no one pursues you.
18 “If you, in spite of these things, will not listen to Me, then I will chastise you seven times more for your sins. 19 I will break your pride of power. I will make your sky like iron and your earth like bronze. 20 Also your strength will be spent in vain, for your land will not yield its increase, nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit.
21 “if you keep walking contrary to Me and will not listen to Me, then I will multiply the plagues on you seven times like your sins. 22 I will send the wild animals among you, which will rob you of your children, destroy your livestock, and make you so few in number that your roads will become deserted.
23 “Now if in spite of these things you will not be chastened by Me, but walk contrary to Me instead, 24 then I will also walk contrary to you. Then I will strike you, I Myself, seven times for your sins. 25 I will bring a sword upon you that will execute the vengeance of the covenant, and you will be gathered together inside your cities. I will send the pestilence among you and you will be given into the hand of the enemy. 26 When I break your staff of bread, ten women will bake your bread in one oven, and they will bring back your bread by weight, so that you will eat but not be satisfied.
27 “Yet if in spite of this you will not listen to Me but walk contrary to Me, 28 then I will walk contrary to you in wrath. So I will chastise you seven times for your sins. 29 You will eat the flesh of your sons and you will eat the flesh of your daughters. 30 I will destroy your high places and cut down your altars of incense, cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols, and My soul will abhor you. 31 I will lay waste your cities and devastate your sanctuaries. I will not smell your soothing aromas. 32 I will make the land desolate and your enemies settling there will be astonished at it. 33 I will scatter you among the nations and I will draw out the sword after you. So your land will become a desolation and your cities will become a waste. 34 Then the land will enjoy its Shabbatot all the days of its desolation, while you are in the land of your enemies. Then the land will rest and enjoy its Shabbatot. 35 As long as it lies desolate it will have rest, that rest which it did not have from your Shabbatot, when you lived on it.
36 “As for those who remain, I will bring weakness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies, so that the sound of a driven leaf will put them to flight, and they will flee as one flees from the sword and fall, even when no one is pursuing. 37 They will stumble over one another, as if before the sword, when no one pursues, and you will have no strength to stand before your enemies. 38 You will perish among the nations and the land of your enemies will devour you. 39 Those of you who are left in the land of your enemies will rot away because of their iniquity, and because of the iniquities of their fathers they will rot away with them.
Adonai Remembers His Own
40 “But if they confess their iniquity and that of their fathers, in the treachery they committed against Me, and how they walked contrary to Me 41 —in return I walked contrary to them and brought them into the land of their enemies—and if at that time their uncircumcised heart becomes humbled, so that they accept the punishment for their iniquity, 42 then I will remember My covenant with Jacob and also My covenant with Isaac and My covenant with Abraham, and I will remember the land. 43 But the land will be deserted by them and will enjoy its Shabbatot while it lies desolate without them, and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity, because they rejected My ordinances and their soul abhorred My statutes.
44 “Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I hate them into utter destruction, and break My covenant with them, for I am Adonai their God. 45 But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am Adonai.”
46 These are the statutes, ordinances and laws, which Adonai made between Himself and Bnei-Yisrael at Mount Sinai by Moses.
All Creation Praise the Creator
Psalm 33
1 Sing for joy to Adonai, you righteous.
Praise is fitting for the upright.
2 Praise Adonai with the harp.
Sing praises to Him with a ten string lyre.
3 Sing to Him a new song![a]
Play skillfully amid shouts of joy.
4 For the word of Adonai is upright
and all His work is done in faithfulness.
5 He loves righteousness and justice.
The earth is full of the love of Adonai.
6 By Adonai’s word were the heavens made,
and all their host by the breath of His mouth.
7 He gathers the waters of the sea together in a heap.
He lays up deep waters in storehouses.
8 Let all the earth fear Adonai.
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
9 For He spoke, and it came to be.
He commanded, and it stood firm.
10 Adonai foils the purpose of the nations.
He thwarts the plans of the peoples.
11 The plan of Adonai stands forever,
the purposes of His heart from generation to generation.
12 Blessed is the nation whose God is Adonai,
the people He chose for His own inheritance.
13 Adonai looks down from heaven.
He observes all humanity.
14 From His dwelling place He gazes
on all the inhabitants of the earth—
15 He who fashions the hearts of all,
who discerns all their deeds.
16 No king is saved by his great army,
no warrior is delivered by great strength.
17 A horse is a false hope for victory,
nor can its great strength save.
18 Behold, the eyes of Adonai are on those who fear Him,
waiting for His love,
19 to deliver their souls from death,
and to keep them alive in famine.
20 Our soul waits for Adonai—
He is our help and our shield.
21 Our heart rejoices in Him,
because we trusted in His holy Name.
22 Let Your lovingkindness, Adonai,
be upon us, as we have waited for You.
One Destiny for All
9 For all this I laid on my heart and to ascertain all this: that the righteous and the wise, as well as their works are in the hand of God. Whether love or hatred, no one knows—everything awaits them.
2 Everyone shares the same destiny: for the righteous and the wicked; for the good, the ritually clean and the defiled; for one who sacrifices and one who does not sacrifice; as the good person so the sinner; as the one who swears like the one who fears an oath.
3 This is a misery in everything done under the sun: that the same destiny awaits everyone. Moreover, the hearts of all humans are full of evil, and folly is in their hearts during their lives—after that they die. 4 Everyone who is among the living has hope—even a living dog is better off than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they will die,
but the dead know nothing.
They have no further reward,
even the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Their love, their hatred, and their zeal
have already perished;
never again will they have a share
in anything that is done under the sun.
7 Go! Eat your bread with gladness and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already accepted your deeds. 8 Let your clothes always be white, and do not spare oil on your head. 9 Live joyously with the wife whom you love all the days of your fleeting life that He has given you under the sun during all your fleeting days—for this is your portion in life and in your toil that you labor under the sun.
10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your all strength, for there is no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, where you are going.
11 I further observed under the sun:
The race is not to the swift
nor the battle to the mighty,
nor does bread come to the wise,
or wealth to the discerning,
or favor to the skillful;
for time and chance befall them all.
12 Moreover, no man knows his time:
like fish caught in a fatal net
or birds caught in a snare,
so people are trapped in a time of calamity,
that falls upon them suddenly.
13 I also observed this as wisdom under the sun, and it greatly impressed me. 14 There was a little city with a few people in it and a mighty king came against it, surrounded it, and built great siege works against it. 15 Now a poor, wise man was found in it, and he delivered the city by his shrewdness. Yet nobody remembered that poor man! 16 So I said: “Wisdom is better than strength.” But the poor man’s wisdom is despised and his words are not heeded.
17 The words of the wise heard in quiet
are better than a ruler’s shout among fools.
18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
but one sinner destroys much good.
Greetings
1 Paul, a slave of God and an emissary of Messiah Yeshua, for the faith of God’s chosen and the knowledge of truth that is in keeping with godliness, 2 based on the hope of eternal life. God—who cannot lie[a]—promised this before the beginning of time. 3 But in His own time He made His message known, through a proclamation with which I was entrusted, by the command of God our Savior.
4 To Titus, a true child of our common faith:
Grace and shalom from God the Father and Messiah Yeshua, our Savior!
Setting the Community in Order
5 The reason I left you in Crete was so that you would set in order the things that remain and appoint elders in every city as I directed you— 6 if anyone is blameless, the husband of one wife, having children of faith with no charge of wild living or rebellion. 7 For the overseer must be blameless as God’s administrator—not arrogant, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not violent, not greedy for dishonest gain. 8 Rather he must be hospitable, loving what is good, self-controlled, upright, devout, disciplined. 9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message in keeping with the teaching, so he can both encourage by instruction that is sound and convict those who speak against it.
10 For there are many who are rebellious, vain talkers and deceivers, especially those from the circumcision. 11 They must be silenced—those who upset entire households by teaching what they should not, for the sake of dishonest gain. 12 One of them, one of their own prophets, said, “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” 13 This testimony is true. For this reason rebuke them sharply, so they might be sound in the faith, 14 not paying attention to Judaic myths and commands of men who turn away from the truth. 15 To the pure all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure. Both their mind and conscience are defiled. 16 They claim to know God but their deeds deny Him. They are despicable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.
Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society.