The Bible Reading Plan

20 verses

Genesis Chapter 31

³⁶Jacob was angry, and argued with Laban. Jacob answered Laban, "What is my trespass? What is my sin, that you have hotly-pursued me? ³⁷Now that you have felt around in all my stuff, what have you found of all your household stuff? Set it here before my relatives and your relatives, so they can judge between the two of us.

³⁸I have been with you for twenty years. Your ewes and your female goats have not miscarried, and I haven't eaten the rams of your flocks. ³⁹What was torn by animals, I didn't bring to you. I bore its loss. Of my hand you required it, whether stolen by day or stolen by night. ⁴⁰This was my situation: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes. ⁴¹These twenty years I have been in your house. I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flock, and you have changed my wages ten times. ⁴²Unless the God of my father, the God of Abraham, and the fear of Isaac, had been with me, surely now you would have sent me away empty-handed. God has seen my affliction and the work of my hands, and rebuked you last night."

⁴³Laban answered Jacob, "The daughters are my daughters, the children are my children, the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine! What can I do today to these my daughters, or to their children whom they have borne? ⁴⁴Now come, let's make a covenant, you and I. Let it be for a witness between me and you."

⁴⁵Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a pillar. ⁴⁶Jacob said to his relatives, "Gather stones." They took stones, and made a heap. They ate there by the heap. ⁴⁷Laban called it Jegar Sahadutha, but Jacob called it Galeed. ⁴⁸Laban said, "This heap is witness between me and you today." Therefore it was named Galeed ⁴⁹and Mizpah, for he said, "Yahweh watch between me and you, when we are absent one from another. ⁵⁰If you afflict my daughters, or if you take wives in addition to my daughters, no man is with us; behold, God is witness between me and you." ⁵¹Laban said to Jacob, "See this heap, and see the pillar, which I have set between me and you. ⁵²May this heap be a witness, and the pillar be a witness, that I will not pass over this heap to you, and that you will not pass over this heap and this pillar to me, for harm. ⁵³The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, the God of their father, judge between us." Then Jacob swore by the fear of his father, Isaac. ⁵⁴Jacob offered a sacrifice in the mountain, and called his relatives to eat bread. They ate bread, and stayed all night in the mountain. ⁵⁵Early in the morning, Laban rose up, and kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them. Laban departed and returned to his place.

28 verses

1 Samuel Chapter 2

²⁷A man of God came to Eli, and said to him, "Yahweh says, 'Did I reveal myself to the house of your father, when they were in Egypt [in slavery] to Pharaoh's house? ²⁸Did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be my priest, to go up to my altar, to burn incense, to wear an ephod before me? Did I give to the house of your father all the offerings of the children of Israel made by fire? ²⁹Why do you kick at my sacrifice and at my offering, which I have commanded in [my] habitation, and honor your sons above me, to make yourselves fat with the best of all the offerings of Israel my people?' ³⁰"Therefore Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, 'I said indeed that your house, and the house of your father, should walk before me forever.' But now Yahweh says, 'Be it far from me; for those who honor me I will honor, and those who despise me shall be lightly esteemed. ³¹Behold, the days come, that I will cut off your arm, and the arm of your father's house, that there shall not be an old man in your house. ³²You shall see the affliction of [my] habitation, in all the wealth which shall be given Israel; and there shall not be an old man in your house forever. ³³The man of yours, [whom] I shall not cut off from my altar, [shall be] to consume your eyes, and to grieve your heart; and all the increase of your house shall die in the flower of their age. ³⁴"'This shall be the sign to you, that shall come on your two sons, on Hophni and Phinehas: in one day they shall both die. ³⁵I will raise up a faithful priest, that shall do according to what is in my heart and in my mind. I will build him a sure house; and he shall walk before my anointed forever. ³⁶Everyone who is left in your house shall come and bow down to him for a piece of silver and a loaf of bread, and shall say, "Please put me into one of the priests' offices, so I may eat a morsel of bread."'"

1 Samuel Chapter 3

¹The child Samuel ministered to Yahweh before Eli. The word of Yahweh was precious in those days; there was no frequent vision. ²At that time, when Eli was laid down in his place (now his eyes had begun to grow dim, so that he could not see), ³and the lamp of God hadn't yet gone out, and Samuel had laid down [to sleep], in the temple of Yahweh, where the ark of God was; ⁴Yahweh called Samuel; and he said, "Here I am."

⁵He ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am; for you called me." He said, "I didn't call; lie down again." He went and lay down.

⁶Yahweh called yet again, "Samuel!" Samuel arose and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am; for you called me." He answered, "I didn't call, my son; lie down again." ⁷Now Samuel didn't yet know Yahweh, neither was the word of Yahweh yet revealed to him. ⁸Yahweh called Samuel again the third time. He arose and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am; for you called me." Eli perceived that Yahweh had called the child. ⁹Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down: and it shall be, if he calls you, that you shall say, 'Speak, Yahweh; for your servant hears.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place. ¹⁰Yahweh came, and stood, and called as at other times, "Samuel! Samuel!" Then Samuel said, "Speak; for your servant hears."

¹¹Yahweh said to Samuel, "Behold, I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of everyone who hears it shall tingle. ¹²In that day I will perform against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from the beginning even to the end. ¹³For I have told him that I will judge his house forever, for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves, and he didn't restrain them. ¹⁴Therefore I have sworn to the house of Eli, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not be removed with sacrifice nor offering forever."

¹⁵Samuel lay until the morning, and opened the doors of the house of Yahweh. Samuel was afraid to tell Eli the vision. ¹⁶Then Eli called Samuel, and said, "Samuel, my son!" He said, "Here I am."

¹⁷He said, "What did he say to you? Please don't hide it from me. May God do so to you, and more also, if you hide anything from me of all the things that he spoke to you."

¹⁸Samuel told him every bit, and hid nothing from him. He said, "It is Yahweh. Let him do what seems good to him."

17 verses

2 Chronicles Chapter 2

¹²Huram continued, "Blessed be Yahweh, the God of Israel, that made heaven and earth, who has given to David the king a wise son, endowed with discretion and understanding, that should build a house for Yahweh, and a house for his kingdom.

¹³Now I have sent a skillful man, endowed with understanding, of Huram my father's, ¹⁴the son of a woman of the daughters of Dan; and his father was a man of Tyre, skillful to work in gold, and in silver, in bronze, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen, and in crimson, also to engrave any kind of engraving, and to devise any device; that there may be a place appointed to him with your skillful men, and with the skillful men of my lord David your father.

¹⁵"Now therefore the wheat and the barley, the oil and the wine, which my lord has spoken of, let him send to his servants: ¹⁶and we will cut wood out of Lebanon, as much as you shall need; and we will bring it to you in floats by sea to Joppa; and you shall carry it up to Jerusalem."

¹⁷Solomon counted all the foreigners who were in the land of Israel, after the numbering with which David his father had counted them; and they were found one hundred fifty-three thousand six hundred. ¹⁸He set seventy thousand of them to bear burdens, and eighty thousand who were stone cutters in the mountains, and three thousand six hundred overseers to set the people to work.

2 Chronicles Chapter 3

¹Then Solomon began to build the house of Yahweh at Jerusalem on Mount Moriah, where [Yahweh] appeared to David his father, which he prepared in the place that David had appointed, in the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite. ²He began to build in the second [day] of the second month, in the fourth year of his reign. ³Now these are the foundations which Solomon laid for the building of God's house. The length by cubits after the first measure was sixty cubits, and the width twenty cubits. ⁴The porch that was before [the house], its length, according to the width of the house, was twenty cubits, and the height one hundred twenty; and he overlaid it within with pure gold. ⁵The greater house he made a ceiling with fir wood, which he overlaid with fine gold, and ornamented it with palm trees and chains. ⁶He garnished the house with precious stones for beauty: and the gold was gold of Parvaim. ⁷He overlaid also the house, the beams, the thresholds, its walls, and its doors with gold, and engraved throne-angels on the walls.

⁸He made the most holy house: its length, according to the width of the house, was twenty cubits, and its width twenty cubits; and he overlaid it with fine gold, amounting to six hundred talents. ⁹The weight of the nails was fifty shekels of gold. He overlaid the upper rooms with gold.

¹⁰In the most holy house he made two throne-angels of image work; and they overlaid them with gold.

23 verses

Mark Chapter 3

¹³He went up into the mountain and called to himself those whom he wanted, and they went to him. ¹⁴He appointed twelve, that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach ¹⁵and to have authority to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons: ¹⁶Simon (to whom he gave the name Peter); ¹⁷James the son of Zebedee; and John, the brother of James, (whom he called Boanerges, which means, Sons of Thunder); ¹⁸Andrew; Philip; Bartholomew; Matthew; Thomas; James, the son of Alphaeus; Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot; ¹⁹and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.

Then he came into a house. ²⁰The multitude came together again, so that they couldn't even eat. ²¹When his friends heard it, they went out to seize him; for they said, "He is insane." ²²The scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebul," and, "By the prince of the demons he casts out the demons."

²³He summoned them and said to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. ²⁶If Satan has risen up against himself, and is divided, he can't stand, but has an end. ²⁷But no one can enter into the house of the strong man to plunder unless he first binds the strong man; then he will plunder his house.

²⁸"Absolutely I tell you, all shortcomings of the descendants of man will be forgiven, including their blasphemies with which they may blaspheme; ²⁹but whoever may blaspheme against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is liable to an eternal shortcoming." ³⁰because they said, "He has an unclean spirit."

³¹His mother and his brothers came, and standing outside, they sent to him, calling him. ³²A multitude was sitting around him, and they told him, "Behold, your mother, your brothers, and your sisters are outside looking for you."

³³He answered them, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" ³⁴Looking around at those who sat around him, he said, "Behold, my mother and my brothers! ³⁵For whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, and mother."