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Reading Plan
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Nehemiah chapter 13

1
When the Law of Moses was being read aloud to the people, they came to the passage that said that no Ammonite or Moabite was ever to be permitted to join God's people.
2
This was because the people of Ammon and Moab did not give food and water to the Israelites on their way out of Egypt. Instead, they paid money to Balaam to curse Israel, but our God turned the curse into a blessing.
3
When the people of Israel heard this law read, they excluded all foreigners from the community.
4
The priest Eliashib, who was in charge of the Temple storerooms, had for a long time been on good terms with Tobiah.
5
He allowed Tobiah to use a large room that was intended only for storing offerings of grain and incense, the equipment used in the Temple, the offerings for the priests, and the tithes of grain, wine, and olive oil given to the Levites, to the Temple musicians, and to the Temple guards.
6
While this was going on, I was not in Jerusalem, because in the thirty-second year that Artaxerxes was king of Babylon I had gone back to report to him. After some time I received his permission
7
and returned to Jerusalem. There I was shocked to find that Eliashib had allowed Tobiah to use a room in the Temple.
8
I was furious and threw out all of Tobiah's belongings.
9
I gave orders for the rooms to be ritually purified and for the Temple equipment, grain offerings, and incense to be put back.
10
I also learned that the Temple musicians and other Levites had left Jerusalem and gone back to their farms, because the people had not been giving them enough to live on.
11
I reprimanded the officials for letting the Temple be neglected. And I brought the Levites and musicians back to the Temple and put them to work again.
12
Then all the people of Israel again started bringing to the Temple storerooms their tithes of grain, wine, and olive oil.
13
I put the following men in charge of the storerooms: Shelemiah, a priest; Zadok, a scholar of the Law; and Pedaiah, a Levite. Hanan, the son of Zaccur and grandson of Mattaniah, was to be their assistant. I knew I could trust these men to be honest in distributing the supplies to the other workers.
14
Remember, my God, all these things that I have done for your Temple and its worship.
15
At that time I saw people in Judah pressing juice from grapes on the Sabbath. Others were loading grain, wine, grapes, figs, and other things on their donkeys and taking them into Jerusalem; I warned them not to sell anything on the Sabbath.
16
Some people from the city of Tyre were living in Jerusalem, and they brought fish and all kinds of goods into the city to sell to our people on the Sabbath.
17
I reprimanded the Jewish leaders and told them, "Look at the evil you're doing! You're making the Sabbath unholy.
18
This is exactly why God punished your ancestors when he brought destruction on this city. And yet you insist on bringing more of God's anger down on Israel by profaning the Sabbath."
19
So I gave orders for the city gates to be shut at the beginning of every Sabbath, as soon as evening began to fall, and not to be opened again until the Sabbath was over. I stationed some of my men at the gates to make sure that nothing was brought into the city on the Sabbath.
20
Once or twice merchants who sold all kinds of goods spent Friday night outside the city walls.
21
I warned them, "It's no use waiting out there for morning to come. If you try this again, I'll use force on you." From then on they did not come back on the Sabbath.
22
I ordered the Levites to purify themselves and to go and guard the gates to make sure that the Sabbath was kept holy. Remember me, O God, for this also, and spare me because of your great love.
23
At that time I also discovered that many of the Jewish men had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab.
24
Half of their children spoke the language of Ashdod or some other language and didn't know how to speak our language.
25
I reprimanded the men, called down curses on them, beat them, and pulled out their hair. Then I made them take an oath in God's name that never again would they or their children intermarry with foreigners.
26
I told them, "It was foreign women that made King Solomon sin. Here was a man who was greater than any of the kings of other nations. God loved him and made him king over all of Israel, and yet he fell into this sin.
27
Are we then to follow your example and disobey our God by marrying foreign women?"
28
Joiada was the son of Eliashib the High Priest, but one of Joiada's sons married the daughter of Sanballat, from the town of Beth Horon, so I made Joiada leave Jerusalem.
29
Remember, God, how those people defiled both the office of priest and the covenant you made with the priests and the Levites.
30
I purified the people from everything foreign; I prepared regulations for the priests and the Levites so that all of them would know their duties;
31
I arranged for the wood used for burning the offerings to be brought at the proper times, and for the people to bring their offerings of the first grain and the first fruits that ripened. Remember all this, O God, and give me credit for it.

Malachi chapter 1

1
This is the message that the LORD gave Malachi to tell the people of Israel.
2
The LORD says to his people, "I have always loved you." But they reply, "How have you shown your love for us?" The LORD answers, "Esau and Jacob were brothers, but I have loved Jacob and his descendants,
3
and have hated Esau and his descendants. I have devastated Esau's hill country and abandoned the land to jackals."
4
If Esau's descendants, the Edomites, say, "Our towns have been destroyed, but we will rebuild them," then the LORD will reply, "Let them rebuild---I will tear them down again. People will call them 'The evil country' and 'The nation with whom the LORD is angry forever.' "
5
The people of Israel are going to see this with their own eyes, and they will say, "The LORD is mighty even outside the land of Israel!"
6
The LORD Almighty says to the priests, "Children honor their parents, and servants honor their masters. I am your father---why don't you honor me? I am your master---why don't you respect me? You despise me, and yet you ask, 'How have we despised you?'
7
This is how---by offering worthless food on my altar. Then you ask, 'How have we failed to respect you?' I will tell you---by showing contempt for my altar.
8
When you bring a blind or sick or lame animal to sacrifice to me, do you think there's nothing wrong with that? Try giving an animal like that to the governor! Would he be pleased with you or grant you any favors?"
9
Now, you priests, try asking God to be good to us. He will not answer your prayer, and it will be your fault.
10
The LORD Almighty says, "I wish one of you would close the Temple doors so as to prevent you from lighting useless fires on my altar. I am not pleased with you; I will not accept the offerings you bring me.
11
People from one end of the world to the other honor me. Everywhere they burn incense to me and offer acceptable sacrifices. All of them honor me!
12
But you dishonor me when you say that my altar is worthless and when you offer on it food that you despise.
13
You say, 'How tired we are of all this!' and you turn up your nose at me. As your offering to me you bring a stolen animal or one that is lame or sick. Do you think I will accept that from you?
14
A curse on the cheater who sacrifices a worthless animal to me, when he has in his flock a good animal that he promised to give me! For I am a great king, and people of all nations fear me."

Malachi chapter 2

1
The LORD Almighty says to the priests, "This command is for you:
2
You must honor me by what you do. If you will not listen to what I say, then I will bring a curse on you. I will put a curse on the things you receive for your support. In fact, I have already put a curse on them, because you do not take my command seriously.
3
I will punish your children and rub your faces in the dung of the animals you sacrifice---and you will be taken out to the dung heap.
4
Then you will know that I have given you this command, so that my covenant with the priests, the descendants of Levi, will not be broken.
5
"In my covenant I promised them life and well-being, and this is what I gave them, so that they might respect me. In those days they did respect and fear me.
6
They taught what was right, not what was wrong. They lived in harmony with me; they not only did what was right themselves, but they also helped many others to stop doing evil.
7
It is the duty of priests to teach the true knowledge of God. People should go to them to learn my will, because they are the messengers of the LORD Almighty.
8
"But now you priests have turned away from the right path. Your teaching has led many to do wrong. You have broken the covenant I made with you.
9
So I, in turn, will make the people of Israel despise you because you do not obey my will, and when you teach my people, you do not treat everyone alike."
10
Don't we all have the same father? Didn't the same God create us all? Then why do we break our promises to one another, and why do we despise the covenant that God made with our ancestors?
11
The people of Judah have broken their promise to God and done a horrible thing in Jerusalem and all over the country. They have defiled the Temple which the LORD loves. Men have married women who worship foreign gods.
12
May the LORD remove from the community of Israel those who did this, and never again let them participate in the offerings our nation brings to the LORD Almighty.
13
This is another thing you do. You drown the LORD's altar with tears, weeping and wailing because he no longer accepts the offerings you bring him.
14
You ask why he no longer accepts them. It is because he knows you have broken your promise to the wife you married when you were young. She was your partner, and you have broken your promise to her, although you promised before God that you would be faithful to her.
15
Didn't God make you one body and spirit with her? What was his purpose in this? It was that you should have children who are truly God's people. So make sure that none of you breaks his promise to his wife.
16
"I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel. "I hate it when one of you does such a cruel thing to his wife. Make sure that you do not break your promise to be faithful to your wife."
17
You have tired the LORD out with your talk. But you ask, "How have we tired him?" By saying, "The LORD Almighty thinks all evildoers are good; in fact he likes them." Or by asking, "Where is the God who is supposed to be just?"

Acts chapter 4

1
Peter and John were still speaking to the people when some priests, the officer in charge of the Temple guards, and some Sadducees arrived.
2
They were annoyed because the two apostles were teaching the people that Jesus had risen from death, which proved that the dead will rise to life.
3
So they arrested them and put them in jail until the next day, since it was already late.
4
But many who heard the message believed; and the number grew to about five thousand.
5
The next day the Jewish leaders, the elders, and the teachers of the Law gathered in Jerusalem.
6
They met with the High Priest Annas and with Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and the others who belonged to the High Priest's family.
7
They made the apostles stand before them and asked them, "How did you do this? What power do you have or whose name did you use?"
8
Peter, full of the Holy Spirit, answered them, "Leaders of the people and elders:
9
if we are being questioned today about the good deed done to the lame man and how he was healed,
10
then you should all know, and all the people of Israel should know, that this man stands here before you completely well through the power of the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth---whom you crucified and whom God raised from death.
11
Jesus is the one of whom the scripture says, 'The stone that you the builders despised turned out to be the most important of all.'
12
Salvation is to be found through him alone; in all the world there is no one else whom God has given who can save us."
13
The members of the Council were amazed to see how bold Peter and John were and to learn that they were ordinary men of no education. They realized then that they had been companions of Jesus.
14
But there was nothing that they could say, because they saw the man who had been healed standing there with Peter and John.
15
So they told them to leave the Council room, and then they started discussing among themselves.
16
"What shall we do with these men?" they asked. "Everyone in Jerusalem knows that this extraordinary miracle has been performed by them, and we cannot deny it.
17
But to keep this matter from spreading any further among the people, let us warn these men never again to speak to anyone in the name of Jesus."
18
So they called them back in and told them that under no condition were they to speak or to teach in the name of Jesus.
19
But Peter and John answered them, "You yourselves judge which is right in God's sight---to obey you or to obey God.
20
For we cannot stop speaking of what we ourselves have seen and heard."
21
So the Council warned them even more strongly and then set them free. They saw that it was impossible to punish them, because the people were all praising God for what had happened.
22
The man on whom this miracle of healing had been performed was over forty years old.
23
As soon as Peter and John were set free, they returned to their group and told them what the chief priests and the elders had said.
24
When the believers heard it, they all joined together in prayer to God: "Master and Creator of heaven, earth, and sea, and all that is in them!
25
By means of the Holy Spirit you spoke through our ancestor David, your servant, when he said, 'Why were the Gentiles furious; why did people make their useless plots?
26
The kings of the earth prepared themselves, and the rulers met together against the Lord and his Messiah.'
27
For indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together in this city with the Gentiles and the people of Israel against Jesus, your holy Servant, whom you made Messiah.
28
They gathered to do everything that you by your power and will had already decided would happen.
29
And now, Lord, take notice of the threats they have made, and allow us, your servants, to speak your message with all boldness.
30
Reach out your hand to heal, and grant that wonders and miracles may be performed through the name of your holy Servant Jesus."
31
When they finished praying, the place where they were meeting was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to proclaim God's message with boldness.
32
The group of believers was one in mind and heart. None of them said that any of their belongings were their own, but they all shared with one another everything they had.
33
With great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and God poured rich blessings on them all.
34
There was no one in the group who was in need. Those who owned fields or houses would sell them, bring the money received from the sale,
35
and turn it over to the apostles; and the money was distributed according to the needs of the people.
36
And so it was that Joseph, a Levite born in Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means "One who Encourages"),
37
sold a field he owned, brought the money, and turned it over to the apostles.

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