Welcome to the 2023 King Street Church Bible Reading Plan.  This year we will be following a chronological plan.

In your personal journal, consider answering these questions as part of your devotional time:

 

In this passage…

Hosea 8-14

8“Put the trumpet to your lips! An eagle is over the house of the Lord because the people have broken my covenant and rebelled against my law.

²Israel cries out to me, ‘O our God, we acknowledge you!’

³But Israel has rejected what is good; an enemy will pursue him.

⁴They set up kings without my consent; they choose princes without my approval. With their silver and gold they make idols for themselves to their own destruction.

⁵Throw out your calf-idol, O Samaria! My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of purity?

⁶They are from Israel! This calf-a craftsman has made it; it is not God. It will be broken in pieces, that calf of Samaria.

⁷“They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. The stalk has no head; it will produce no flour. Were it to yield grain, foreigners would swallow it up.

⁸Israel is swallowed up; now she is among the nations like a worthless thing.

⁹For they have gone up to Assyria like a wild donkey wandering alone. Ephraim has sold herself to lovers.

¹⁰Although they have sold themselves among the nations, I will now gather them together. They will begin to waste away under the oppression of the mighty king.

¹¹“Though Ephraim built many altars for sin offerings, these have become altars for sinning.

¹²I wrote for them the many things of my law, but they regarded them as something alien.

¹³They offer sacrifices given to me and they eat the meat, but the Lord is not pleased with them. Now he will remember their wickedness and punish their sins: They will return to Egypt.

¹⁴Israel has forgotten his Maker and built palaces; Judah has fortified many towns. But I will send fire upon their cities that will consume their fortresses.”

9Do not rejoice, O Israel; do not be jubilant like the other nations. For you have been unfaithful to your God; you love the wages of a prostitute at every threshing floor.

²Threshing floors and winepresses will not feed the people; the new wine will fail them.

³They will not remain in the Lord ‘s land; Ephraim will return to Egypt and eat unclean food in Assyria.

⁴They will not pour out wine offerings to the Lord , nor will their sacrifices please him. Such sacrifices will be to them like the bread of mourners; all who eat them will be unclean. This food will be for themselves; it will not come into the temple of the Lord .

⁵What will you do on the day of your appointed feasts, on the festival days of the Lord ?

⁶Even if they escape from destruction, Egypt will gather them, and Memphis will bury them. Their treasures of silver will be taken over by briers, and thorns will overrun their tents.

⁷The days of punishment are coming, the days of reckoning are at hand. Let Israel know this. Because your sins are so many and your hostility so great, the prophet is considered a fool, the inspired man a maniac.

⁸The prophet, along with my God, is the watchman over Ephraim, yet snares await him on all his paths, and hostility in the house of his God.

⁹They have sunk deep into corruption, as in the days of Gibeah. God will remember their wickedness and punish them for their sins.

¹⁰“When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree. But when they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and became as vile as the thing they loved.

¹¹Ephraim’s glory will fly away like a bird- no birth, no pregnancy, no conception.

¹²Even if they rear children, I will bereave them of every one. Woe to them when I turn away from them!

¹³I have seen Ephraim, like Tyre, planted in a pleasant place. But Ephraim will bring out their children to the slayer.”

¹⁴Give them, O Lord – what will you give them? Give them wombs that miscarry and breasts that are dry.

¹⁵“Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal, I hated them there. Because of their sinful deeds, I will drive them out of my house. I will no longer love them; all their leaders are rebellious.

¹⁶Ephraim is blighted, their root is withered, they yield no fruit. Even if they bear children, I will slay their cherished offspring.”

¹⁷My God will reject them because they have not obeyed him; they will be wanderers among the nations.

10Israel was a spreading vine; he brought forth fruit for himself. As his fruit increased, he built more altars; as his land prospered, he adorned his sacred stones.

²Their heart is deceitful, and now they must bear their guilt. The Lord will demolish their altars and destroy their sacred stones.

³Then they will say, “We have no king because we did not revere the Lord . But even if we had a king, what could he do for us?”

⁴They make many promises, take false oaths and make agreements; therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds in a plowed field.

⁵The people who live in Samaria fear for the calf-idol of Beth Aven. Its people will mourn over it, and so will its idolatrous priests, those who had rejoiced over its splendor, because it is taken from them into exile.

⁶It will be carried to Assyria as tribute for the great king. Ephraim will be disgraced; Israel will be ashamed of its wooden idols.

⁷Samaria and its king will float away like a twig on the surface of the waters.

⁸The high places of wickedness will be destroyed- it is the sin of Israel. Thorns and thistles will grow up and cover their altars. Then they will say to the mountains, “Cover us!” and to the hills, “Fall on us!”

⁹“Since the days of Gibeah, you have sinned, O Israel, and there you have remained. Did not war overtake the evildoers in Gibeah?

¹⁰When I please, I will punish them; nations will be gathered against them to put them in bonds for their double sin.

¹¹Ephraim is a trained heifer that loves to thresh; so I will put a yoke on her fair neck. I will drive Ephraim, Judah must plow, and Jacob must break up the ground.

¹²Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the Lord , until he comes and showers righteousness on you.

¹³But you have planted wickedness, you have reaped evil, you have eaten the fruit of deception. Because you have depended on your own strength and on your many warriors,

¹⁴the roar of battle will rise against your people, so that all your fortresses will be devastated- as Shalman devastated Beth Arbel on the day of battle, when mothers were dashed to the ground with their children.

¹⁵Thus will it happen to you, O Bethel, because your wickedness is great. When that day dawns, the king of Israel will be completely destroyed.

11“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.

²But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.

³It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them.

⁴I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.

⁵“Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent?

⁶Swords will flash in their cities, will destroy the bars of their gates and put an end to their plans.

⁷My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.

⁸“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.

⁹I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man- the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath.

¹⁰They will follow the Lord ; he will roar like a lion. When he roars, his children will come trembling from the west.

¹¹They will come trembling like birds from Egypt, like doves from Assyria. I will settle them in their homes,” declares the Lord .

¹²Ephraim has surrounded me with lies, the house of Israel with deceit. And Judah is unruly against God, even against the faithful Holy One.

12Ephraim feeds on the wind; he pursues the east wind all day and multiplies lies and violence. He makes a treaty with Assyria and sends olive oil to Egypt.

²The Lord has a charge to bring against Judah; he will punish Jacob according to his ways and repay him according to his deeds.

³In the womb he grasped his brother’s heel; as a man he struggled with God.

⁴He struggled with the angel and overcame him; he wept and begged for his favor. He found him at Bethel and talked with him there-

⁵the Lord God Almighty, the Lord is his name of renown!

⁶But you must return to your God; maintain love and justice, and wait for your God always.

⁷The merchant uses dishonest scales; he loves to defraud.

⁸Ephraim boasts, “I am very rich; I have become wealthy. With all my wealth they will not find in me any iniquity or sin.”

⁹“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt; I will make you live in tents again, as in the days of your appointed feasts.

¹⁰I spoke to the prophets, gave them many visions and told parables through them.”

¹¹Is Gilead wicked? Its people are worthless! Do they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal? Their altars will be like piles of stones on a plowed field.

¹²Jacob fled to the country of Aram ; Israel served to get a wife, and to pay for her he tended sheep.

¹³The Lord used a prophet to bring Israel up from Egypt, by a prophet he cared for him.

¹⁴But Ephraim has bitterly provoked him to anger; his Lord will leave upon him the guilt of his bloodshed and will repay him for his contempt.

13When Ephraim spoke, men trembled; he was exalted in Israel. But he became guilty of Baal worship and died.

²Now they sin more and more; they make idols for themselves from their silver, cleverly fashioned images, all of them the work of craftsmen. It is said of these people, “They offer human sacrifice and kiss the calf-idols.”

³Therefore they will be like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears, like chaff swirling from a threshing floor, like smoke escaping through a window.

⁴“But I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. You shall acknowledge no God but me, no Savior except me.

⁵I cared for you in the desert, in the land of burning heat.

⁶When I fed them, they were satisfied; when they were satisfied, they became proud; then they forgot me.

⁷So I will come upon them like a lion, like a leopard I will lurk by the path.

⁸Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and rip them open. Like a lion I will devour them; a wild animal will tear them apart.

⁹“You are destroyed, O Israel, because you are against me, against your helper.

¹⁰Where is your king, that he may save you? Where are your rulers in all your towns, of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’?

¹¹So in my anger I gave you a king, and in my wrath I took him away.

¹²The guilt of Ephraim is stored up, his sins are kept on record.

¹³Pains as of a woman in childbirth come to him, but he is a child without wisdom; when the time arrives, he does not come to the opening of the womb.

¹⁴“I will ransom them from the power of the grave ; I will redeem them from death. Where, O death, are your plagues? Where, O grave, is your destruction? “I will have no compassion,

¹⁵even though he thrives among his brothers. An east wind from the Lord will come, blowing in from the desert; his spring will fail and his well dry up. His storehouse will be plundered of all its treasures.

¹⁶The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.”

14Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God. Your sins have been your downfall!

²Take words with you and return to the Lord . Say to him: “Forgive all our sins and receive us graciously, that we may offer the fruit of our lips.

³Assyria cannot save us; we will not mount war-horses. We will never again say ‘Our gods’ to what our own hands have made, for in you the fatherless find compassion.”

⁴“I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.

⁵I will be like the dew to Israel; he will blossom like a lily. Like a cedar of Lebanon he will send down his roots;

⁶his young shoots will grow. His splendor will be like an olive tree, his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.

⁷Men will dwell again in his shade. He will flourish like the grain. He will blossom like a vine, and his fame will be like the wine from Lebanon.

⁸O Ephraim, what more have I to do with idols? I will answer him and care for him. I am like a green pine tree; your fruitfulness comes from me.”

⁹Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them. The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.

Welcome to the 2023 King Street Church Bible Reading Plan.  This year we will be following a chronological plan.

In your personal journal, consider answering these questions as part of your devotional time:

 

In this passage…

Hosea 1-7

1The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel:

²When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the Lord .”

³So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

⁴Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call him Jezreel, because I will soon punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of Israel.

⁵In that day I will break Israel’s bow in the Valley of Jezreel.”

⁶Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the Lord said to Hosea, “Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them.

⁷Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them-not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the Lord their God.”

⁸After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son.

⁹Then the Lord said, “Call him Lo-Ammi, for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

¹⁰“Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’

¹¹The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, and they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

2“Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.’

²“Rebuke your mother, rebuke her, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband. Let her remove the adulterous look from her face and the unfaithfulness from between her breasts.

³Otherwise I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a desert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst.

⁴I will not show my love to her children, because they are the children of adultery.

⁵Their mother has been unfaithful and has conceived them in disgrace. She said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my food and my water, my wool and my linen, my oil and my drink.’

⁶Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.

⁷She will chase after her lovers but not catch them; she will look for them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go back to my husband as at first, for then I was better off than now.’

⁸She has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine and oil, who lavished on her the silver and gold- which they used for Baal.

⁹“Therefore I will take away my grain when it ripens, and my new wine when it is ready. I will take back my wool and my linen, intended to cover her nakedness.

¹⁰So now I will expose her lewdness before the eyes of her lovers; no one will take her out of my hands.

¹¹I will stop all her celebrations: her yearly festivals, her New Moons, her Sabbath days-all her appointed feasts.

¹²I will ruin her vines and her fig trees, which she said were her pay from her lovers; I will make them a thicket, and wild animals will devour them.

¹³I will punish her for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,” declares the Lord .

¹⁴“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.

¹⁵There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

¹⁶“In that day,” declares the Lord , “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master. ‘

¹⁷I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked.

¹⁸In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety.

¹⁹I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.

²⁰I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord .

²¹“In that day I will respond,” declares the Lord – “I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth;

²²and the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel.

²³I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one I called ‘Not my loved one. ‘ I will say to those called ‘Not my people, ‘ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.’ “

3The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”

²So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley.

³Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will live with you.”

⁴For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or idol.

⁵Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

4Hear the word of the Lord , you Israelites, because the Lord has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land.

²There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed.

³Because of this the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying.

⁴“But let no man bring a charge, let no man accuse another, for your people are like those who bring charges against a priest.

⁵You stumble day and night, and the prophets stumble with you. So I will destroy your mother-

⁶my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.

⁷The more the priests increased, the more they sinned against me; they exchanged their Glory for something disgraceful.

⁸They feed on the sins of my people and relish their wickedness.

⁹And it will be: Like people, like priests. I will punish both of them for their ways and repay them for their deeds.

¹⁰“They will eat but not have enough; they will engage in prostitution but not increase, because they have deserted the Lord to give themselves

¹¹to prostitution, to old wine and new, which take away the understanding

¹²of my people. They consult a wooden idol and are answered by a stick of wood. A spirit of prostitution leads them astray; they are unfaithful to their God.

¹³They sacrifice on the mountaintops and burn offerings on the hills, under oak, poplar and terebinth, where the shade is pleasant. Therefore your daughters turn to prostitution and your daughters-in-law to adultery.

¹⁴“I will not punish your daughters when they turn to prostitution, nor your daughters-in-law when they commit adultery, because the men themselves consort with harlots and sacrifice with shrine prostitutes- a people without understanding will come to ruin!

¹⁵“Though you commit adultery, O Israel, let not Judah become guilty. “Do not go to Gilgal; do not go up to Beth Aven. And do not swear, ‘As surely as the Lord lives!’

¹⁶The Israelites are stubborn, like a stubborn heifer. How then can the Lord pasture them like lambs in a meadow?

¹⁷Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone!

¹⁸Even when their drinks are gone, they continue their prostitution; their rulers dearly love shameful ways.

¹⁹A whirlwind will sweep them away, and their sacrifices will bring them shame.

5“Hear this, you priests! Pay attention, you Israelites! Listen, O royal house! This judgment is against you: You have been a snare at Mizpah, a net spread out on Tabor.

²The rebels are deep in slaughter. I will discipline all of them.

³I know all about Ephraim; Israel is not hidden from me. Ephraim, you have now turned to prostitution; Israel is corrupt.

⁴“Their deeds do not permit them to return to their God. A spirit of prostitution is in their heart; they do not acknowledge the Lord .

⁵Israel’s arrogance testifies against them; the Israelites, even Ephraim, stumble in their sin; Judah also stumbles with them.

⁶When they go with their flocks and herds to seek the Lord , they will not find him; he has withdrawn himself from them.

⁷They are unfaithful to the Lord ; they give birth to illegitimate children. Now their New Moon festivals will devour them and their fields.

⁸“Sound the trumpet in Gibeah, the horn in Ramah. Raise the battle cry in Beth Aven ; lead on, O Benjamin.

⁹Ephraim will be laid waste on the day of reckoning. Among the tribes of Israel I proclaim what is certain.

¹⁰Judah’s leaders are like those who move boundary stones. I will pour out my wrath on them like a flood of water.

¹¹Ephraim is oppressed, trampled in judgment, intent on pursuing idols.

¹²I am like a moth to Ephraim, like rot to the people of Judah.

¹³“When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his sores, then Ephraim turned to Assyria, and sent to the great king for help. But he is not able to cure you, not able to heal your sores.

¹⁴For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them.

¹⁵Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me.”

6“Come, let us return to the Lord . He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds.

²After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.

³Let us acknowledge the Lord ; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.”

⁴“What can I do with you, Ephraim? What can I do with you, Judah? Your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears.

⁵Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth; my judgments flashed like lightning upon you.

⁶For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.

⁷Like Adam, they have broken the covenant- they were unfaithful to me there.

⁸Gilead is a city of wicked men, stained with footprints of blood.

⁹As marauders lie in ambush for a man, so do bands of priests; they murder on the road to Shechem, committing shameful crimes.

¹⁰I have seen a horrible thing in the house of Israel. There Ephraim is given to prostitution and Israel is defiled.

¹¹“Also for you, Judah, a harvest is appointed. “Whenever I would restore the fortunes of my people,

7whenever I would heal Israel, the sins of Ephraim are exposed and the crimes of Samaria revealed. They practice deceit, thieves break into houses, bandits rob in the streets;

²but they do not realize that I remember all their evil deeds. Their sins engulf them; they are always before me.

³“They delight the king with their wickedness, the princes with their lies.

⁴They are all adulterers, burning like an oven whose fire the baker need not stir from the kneading of the dough till it rises.

⁵On the day of the festival of our king the princes become inflamed with wine, and he joins hands with the mockers.

⁶Their hearts are like an oven; they approach him with intrigue. Their passion smolders all night; in the morning it blazes like a flaming fire.

⁷All of them are hot as an oven; they devour their rulers. All their kings fall, and none of them calls on me.

⁸“Ephraim mixes with the nations; Ephraim is a flat cake not turned over.

⁹Foreigners sap his strength, but he does not realize it. His hair is sprinkled with gray, but he does not notice.

¹⁰Israel’s arrogance testifies against him, but despite all this he does not return to the Lord his God or search for him.

¹¹“Ephraim is like a dove, easily deceived and senseless- now calling to Egypt, now turning to Assyria.

¹²When they go, I will throw my net over them; I will pull them down like birds of the air. When I hear them flocking together, I will catch them.

¹³Woe to them, because they have strayed from me! Destruction to them, because they have rebelled against me! I long to redeem them but they speak lies against me.

¹⁴They do not cry out to me from their hearts but wail upon their beds. They gather together for grain and new wine but turn away from me.

¹⁵I trained them and strengthened them, but they plot evil against me.

¹⁶They do not turn to the Most High; they are like a faulty bow. Their leaders will fall by the sword because of their insolent words. For this they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt.

Welcome to the 2023 King Street Church Bible Reading Plan.  This year we will be following a chronological plan.

In your personal journal, consider answering these questions as part of your devotional time:

 

In this passage…

2 Kings 18:1-8; 2 Chronicles 29-31; Psalm 48

2 Kings 18:1-8

18In the third year of Hoshea son of Elah king of Israel, Hezekiah son of Ahaz king of Judah began to reign.

²He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.

³He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord , just as his father David had done.

⁴He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan. )

⁵Hezekiah trusted in the Lord , the God of Israel. There was no one like him among all the kings of Judah, either before him or after him.

⁶He held fast to the Lord and did not cease to follow him; he kept the commands the Lord had given Moses.

⁷And the Lord was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

⁸From watchtower to fortified city, he defeated the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory.

2 Chronicles 29-31

29Hezekiah was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother’s name was Abijah daughter of Zechariah.

²He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord , just as his father David had done.

³In the first month of the first year of his reign, he opened the doors of the temple of the Lord and repaired them.

⁴He brought in the priests and the Levites, assembled them in the square on the east side

⁵and said: “Listen to me, Levites! Consecrate yourselves now and consecrate the temple of the Lord , the God of your fathers. Remove all defilement from the sanctuary.

⁶Our fathers were unfaithful; they did evil in the eyes of the Lord our God and forsook him. They turned their faces away from the Lord ‘s dwelling place and turned their backs on him.

⁷They also shut the doors of the portico and put out the lamps. They did not burn incense or present any burnt offerings at the sanctuary to the God of Israel.

⁸Therefore, the anger of the Lord has fallen on Judah and Jerusalem; he has made them an object of dread and horror and scorn, as you can see with your own eyes.

⁹This is why our fathers have fallen by the sword and why our sons and daughters and our wives are in captivity.

¹⁰Now I intend to make a covenant with the Lord , the God of Israel, so that his fierce anger will turn away from us.

¹¹My sons, do not be negligent now, for the Lord has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense.”

¹²Then these Levites set to work: from the Kohathites, Mahath son of Amasai and Joel son of Azariah; from the Merarites, Kish son of Abdi and Azariah son of Jehallelel; from the Gershonites, Joah son of Zimmah and Eden son of Joah;

¹³from the descendants of Elizaphan, Shimri and Jeiel; from the descendants of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah;

¹⁴from the descendants of Heman, Jehiel and Shimei; from the descendants of Jeduthun, Shemaiah and Uzziel.

¹⁵When they had assembled their brothers and consecrated themselves, they went in to purify the temple of the Lord , as the king had ordered, following the word of the Lord .

¹⁶The priests went into the sanctuary of the Lord to purify it. They brought out to the courtyard of the Lord ‘s temple everything unclean that they found in the temple of the Lord . The Levites took it and carried it out to the Kidron Valley.

¹⁷They began the consecration on the first day of the first month, and by the eighth day of the month they reached the portico of the Lord . For eight more days they consecrated the temple of the Lord itself, finishing on the sixteenth day of the first month.

¹⁸Then they went in to King Hezekiah and reported: “We have purified the entire temple of the Lord , the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the table for setting out the consecrated bread, with all its articles.

¹⁹We have prepared and consecrated all the articles that King Ahaz removed in his unfaithfulness while he was king. They are now in front of the Lord ‘s altar.”

²⁰Early the next morning King Hezekiah gathered the city officials together and went up to the temple of the Lord .

²¹They brought seven bulls, seven rams, seven male lambs and seven male goats as a sin offering for the kingdom, for the sanctuary and for Judah. The king commanded the priests, the descendants of Aaron, to offer these on the altar of the Lord .

²²So they slaughtered the bulls, and the priests took the blood and sprinkled it on the altar; next they slaughtered the rams and sprinkled their blood on the altar; then they slaughtered the lambs and sprinkled their blood on the altar.

²³The goats for the sin offering were brought before the king and the assembly, and they laid their hands on them.

²⁴The priests then slaughtered the goats and presented their blood on the altar for a sin offering to atone for all Israel, because the king had ordered the burnt offering and the sin offering for all Israel.

²⁵He stationed the Levites in the temple of the Lord with cymbals, harps and lyres in the way prescribed by David and Gad the king’s seer and Nathan the prophet; this was commanded by the Lord through his prophets.

²⁶So the Levites stood ready with David’s instruments, and the priests with their trumpets.

²⁷Hezekiah gave the order to sacrifice the burnt offering on the altar. As the offering began, singing to the Lord began also, accompanied by trumpets and the instruments of David king of Israel.

²⁸The whole assembly bowed in worship, while the singers sang and the trumpeters played. All this continued until the sacrifice of the burnt offering was completed.

²⁹When the offerings were finished, the king and everyone present with him knelt down and worshiped.

³⁰King Hezekiah and his officials ordered the Levites to praise the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph the seer. So they sang praises with gladness and bowed their heads and worshiped.

³¹Then Hezekiah said, “You have now dedicated yourselves to the Lord . Come and bring sacrifices and thank offerings to the temple of the Lord .” So the assembly brought sacrifices and thank offerings, and all whose hearts were willing brought burnt offerings.

³²The number of burnt offerings the assembly brought was seventy bulls, a hundred rams and two hundred male lambs-all of them for burnt offerings to the Lord .

³³The animals consecrated as sacrifices amounted to six hundred bulls and three thousand sheep and goats.

³⁴The priests, however, were too few to skin all the burnt offerings; so their kinsmen the Levites helped them until the task was finished and until other priests had been consecrated, for the Levites had been more conscientious in consecrating themselves than the priests had been.

³⁵There were burnt offerings in abundance, together with the fat of the fellowship offerings and the drink offerings that accompanied the burnt offerings. So the service of the temple of the Lord was reestablished.

³⁶Hezekiah and all the people rejoiced at what God had brought about for his people, because it was done so quickly.

30Hezekiah sent word to all Israel and Judah and also wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh, inviting them to come to the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the Lord , the God of Israel.

²The king and his officials and the whole assembly in Jerusalem decided to celebrate the Passover in the second month.

³They had not been able to celebrate it at the regular time because not enough priests had consecrated themselves and the people had not assembled in Jerusalem.

⁴The plan seemed right both to the king and to the whole assembly.

⁵They decided to send a proclamation throughout Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, calling the people to come to Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover to the Lord , the God of Israel. It had not been celebrated in large numbers according to what was written.

⁶At the king’s command, couriers went throughout Israel and Judah with letters from the king and from his officials, which read: “People of Israel, return to the Lord , the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, that he may return to you who are left, who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria.

⁷Do not be like your fathers and brothers, who were unfaithful to the Lord , the God of their fathers, so that he made them an object of horror, as you see.

⁸Do not be stiff-necked, as your fathers were; submit to the Lord . Come to the sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever. Serve the Lord your God, so that his fierce anger will turn away from you.

⁹If you return to the Lord , then your brothers and your children will be shown compassion by their captors and will come back to this land, for the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.”

¹⁰The couriers went from town to town in Ephraim and Manasseh, as far as Zebulun, but the people scorned and ridiculed them.

¹¹Nevertheless, some men of Asher, Manasseh and Zebulun humbled themselves and went to Jerusalem.

¹²Also in Judah the hand of God was on the people to give them unity of mind to carry out what the king and his officials had ordered, following the word of the Lord .

¹³A very large crowd of people assembled in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Unleavened Bread in the second month.

¹⁴They removed the altars in Jerusalem and cleared away the incense altars and threw them into the Kidron Valley.

¹⁵They slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and the Levites were ashamed and consecrated themselves and brought burnt offerings to the temple of the Lord .

¹⁶Then they took up their regular positions as prescribed in the Law of Moses the man of God. The priests sprinkled the blood handed to them by the Levites.

¹⁷Since many in the crowd had not consecrated themselves, the Levites had to kill the Passover lambs for all those who were not ceremonially clean and could not consecrate their lambs to the Lord .

¹⁸Although most of the many people who came from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar and Zebulun had not purified themselves, yet they ate the Passover, contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah prayed for them, saying, “May the Lord , who is good, pardon everyone

¹⁹who sets his heart on seeking God-the Lord , the God of his fathers-even if he is not clean according to the rules of the sanctuary.”

²⁰And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people.

²¹The Israelites who were present in Jerusalem celebrated the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days with great rejoicing, while the Levites and priests sang to the Lord every day, accompanied by the Lord ‘s instruments of praise.

²²Hezekiah spoke encouragingly to all the Levites, who showed good understanding of the service of the Lord . For the seven days they ate their assigned portion and offered fellowship offerings and praised the Lord , the God of their fathers.

²³The whole assembly then agreed to celebrate the festival seven more days; so for another seven days they celebrated joyfully.

²⁴Hezekiah king of Judah provided a thousand bulls and seven thousand sheep and goats for the assembly, and the officials provided them with a thousand bulls and ten thousand sheep and goats. A great number of priests consecrated themselves.

²⁵The entire assembly of Judah rejoiced, along with the priests and Levites and all who had assembled from Israel, including the aliens who had come from Israel and those who lived in Judah.

²⁶There was great joy in Jerusalem, for since the days of Solomon son of David king of Israel there had been nothing like this in Jerusalem.

²⁷The priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard them, for their prayer reached heaven, his holy dwelling place.

31When all this had ended, the Israelites who were there went out to the towns of Judah, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. They destroyed the high places and the altars throughout Judah and Benjamin and in Ephraim and Manasseh. After they had destroyed all of them, the Israelites returned to their own towns and to their own property.

²Hezekiah assigned the priests and Levites to divisions-each of them according to their duties as priests or Levites-to offer burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, to minister, to give thanks and to sing praises at the gates of the Lord ‘s dwelling.

³The king contributed from his own possessions for the morning and evening burnt offerings and for the burnt offerings on the Sabbaths, New Moons and appointed feasts as written in the Law of the Lord .

⁴He ordered the people living in Jerusalem to give the portion due the priests and Levites so they could devote themselves to the Law of the Lord .

⁵As soon as the order went out, the Israelites generously gave the firstfruits of their grain, new wine, oil and honey and all that the fields produced. They brought a great amount, a tithe of everything.

⁶The men of Israel and Judah who lived in the towns of Judah also brought a tithe of their herds and flocks and a tithe of the holy things dedicated to the Lord their God, and they piled them in heaps.

⁷They began doing this in the third month and finished in the seventh month.

⁸When Hezekiah and his officials came and saw the heaps, they praised the Lord and blessed his people Israel.

⁹Hezekiah asked the priests and Levites about the heaps;

¹⁰and Azariah the chief priest, from the family of Zadok, answered, “Since the people began to bring their contributions to the temple of the Lord , we have had enough to eat and plenty to spare, because the Lord has blessed his people, and this great amount is left over.”

¹¹Hezekiah gave orders to prepare storerooms in the temple of the Lord , and this was done.

¹²Then they faithfully brought in the contributions, tithes and dedicated gifts. Conaniah, a Levite, was in charge of these things, and his brother Shimei was next in rank.

¹³Jehiel, Azaziah, Nahath, Asahel, Jerimoth, Jozabad, Eliel, Ismakiah, Mahath and Benaiah were supervisors under Conaniah and Shimei his brother, by appointment of King Hezekiah and Azariah the official in charge of the temple of God.

¹⁴Kore son of Imnah the Levite, keeper of the East Gate, was in charge of the freewill offerings given to God, distributing the contributions made to the Lord and also the consecrated gifts.

¹⁵Eden, Miniamin, Jeshua, Shemaiah, Amariah and Shecaniah assisted him faithfully in the towns of the priests, distributing to their fellow priests according to their divisions, old and young alike.

¹⁶In addition, they distributed to the males three years old or more whose names were in the genealogical records-all who would enter the temple of the Lord to perform the daily duties of their various tasks, according to their responsibilities and their divisions.

¹⁷And they distributed to the priests enrolled by their families in the genealogical records and likewise to the Levites twenty years old or more, according to their responsibilities and their divisions.

¹⁸They included all the little ones, the wives, and the sons and daughters of the whole community listed in these genealogical records. For they were faithful in consecrating themselves.

¹⁹As for the priests, the descendants of Aaron, who lived on the farm lands around their towns or in any other towns, men were designated by name to distribute portions to every male among them and to all who were recorded in the genealogies of the Levites.

²⁰This is what Hezekiah did throughout Judah, doing what was good and right and faithful before the Lord his God.

²¹In everything that he undertook in the service of God’s temple and in obedience to the law and the commands, he sought his God and worked wholeheartedly. And so he prospered.

Psalm 48

PSALM 48

¹Great is the Lord , and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain.

²It is beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth. Like the utmost heights of Zaphon is Mount Zion, the city of the Great King.

³God is in her citadels; he has shown himself to be her fortress.

⁴When the kings joined forces, when they advanced together,

⁵they saw her and were astounded; they fled in terror.

⁶Trembling seized them there, pain like that of a woman in labor.

⁷You destroyed them like ships of Tarshish shattered by an east wind.

⁸As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord Almighty, in the city of our God: God makes her secure forever. Selah

⁹Within your temple, O God, we meditate on your unfailing love.

¹⁰Like your name, O God, your praise reaches to the ends of the earth; your right hand is filled with righteousness.

¹¹Mount Zion rejoices, the villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments.

¹²Walk about Zion, go around her, count her towers,

¹³consider well her ramparts, view her citadels, that you may tell of them to the next generation.

¹⁴For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.

Welcome to the 2023 King Street Church Bible Reading Plan.  This year we will be following a chronological plan.

In your personal journal, consider answering these questions as part of your devotional time:

 

In this passage…

Isaiah 23-27

23An oracle concerning Tyre: Wail, O ships of Tarshish! For Tyre is destroyed and left without house or harbor. From the land of Cyprus word has come to them.

²Be silent, you people of the island and you merchants of Sidon, whom the seafarers have enriched.

³On the great waters came the grain of the Shihor; the harvest of the Nile was the revenue of Tyre, and she became the marketplace of the nations.

⁴Be ashamed, O Sidon, and you, O fortress of the sea, for the sea has spoken: “I have neither been in labor nor given birth; I have neither reared sons nor brought up daughters.”

⁵When word comes to Egypt, they will be in anguish at the report from Tyre.

⁶Cross over to Tarshish; wail, you people of the island.

⁷Is this your city of revelry, the old, old city, whose feet have taken her to settle in far-off lands?

⁸Who planned this against Tyre, the bestower of crowns, whose merchants are princes, whose traders are renowned in the earth?

⁹The Lord Almighty planned it, to bring low the pride of all glory and to humble all who are renowned on the earth.

¹⁰Till your land as along the Nile, O Daughter of Tarshish, for you no longer have a harbor.

¹¹The Lord has stretched out his hand over the sea and made its kingdoms tremble. He has given an order concerning Phoenicia that her fortresses be destroyed.

¹²He said, “No more of your reveling, O Virgin Daughter of Sidon, now crushed! “Up, cross over to Cyprus ; even there you will find no rest.”

¹³Look at the land of the Babylonians, this people that is now of no account! The Assyrians have made it a place for desert creatures; they raised up their siege towers, they stripped its fortresses bare and turned it into a ruin.

¹⁴Wail, you ships of Tarshish; your fortress is destroyed!

¹⁵At that time Tyre will be forgotten for seventy years, the span of a king’s life. But at the end of these seventy years, it will happen to Tyre as in the song of the prostitute:

¹⁶“Take up a harp, walk through the city, O prostitute forgotten; play the harp well, sing many a song, so that you will be remembered.”

¹⁷At the end of seventy years, the Lord will deal with Tyre. She will return to her hire as a prostitute and will ply her trade with all the kingdoms on the face of the earth.

¹⁸Yet her profit and her earnings will be set apart for the Lord ; they will not be stored up or hoarded. Her profits will go to those who live before the Lord , for abundant food and fine clothes.

24See, the Lord is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants-

²it will be the same for priest as for people, for master as for servant, for mistress as for maid, for seller as for buyer, for borrower as for lender, for debtor as for creditor.

³The earth will be completely laid waste and totally plundered. The Lord has spoken this word.

⁴The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers, the exalted of the earth languish.

⁵The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant.

⁶Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up, and very few are left.

⁷The new wine dries up and the vine withers; all the merrymakers groan.

⁸The gaiety of the tambourines is stilled, the noise of the revelers has stopped, the joyful harp is silent.

⁹No longer do they drink wine with a song; the beer is bitter to its drinkers.

¹⁰The ruined city lies desolate; the entrance to every house is barred.

¹¹In the streets they cry out for wine; all joy turns to gloom, all gaiety is banished from the earth.

¹²The city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces.

¹³So will it be on the earth and among the nations, as when an olive tree is beaten, or as when gleanings are left after the grape harvest.

¹⁴They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the Lord ‘s majesty.

¹⁵Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord ; exalt the name of the Lord , the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea.

¹⁶From the ends of the earth we hear singing: “Glory to the Righteous One.” But I said, “I waste away, I waste away! Woe to me! The treacherous betray! With treachery the treacherous betray!”

¹⁷Terror and pit and snare await you, O people of the earth.

¹⁸Whoever flees at the sound of terror will fall into a pit; whoever climbs out of the pit will be caught in a snare. The floodgates of the heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth shake.

¹⁹The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken.

²⁰The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind; so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion that it falls-never to rise again.

²¹In that day the Lord will punish the powers in the heavens above and the kings on the earth below.

²²They will be herded together like prisoners bound in a dungeon; they will be shut up in prison and be punished after many days.

²³The moon will be abashed, the sun ashamed; for the Lord Almighty will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, and before its elders, gloriously.

25O Lord , you are my God; I will exalt you and praise your name, for in perfect faithfulness you have done marvelous things, things planned long ago.

²You have made the city a heap of rubble, the fortified town a ruin, the foreigners’ stronghold a city no more; it will never be rebuilt.

³Therefore strong peoples will honor you; cities of ruthless nations will revere you.

⁴You have been a refuge for the poor, a refuge for the needy in his distress, a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat. For the breath of the ruthless is like a storm driving against a wall

⁵and like the heat of the desert. You silence the uproar of foreigners; as heat is reduced by the shadow of a cloud, so the song of the ruthless is stilled.

⁶On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine- the best of meats and the finest of wines.

⁷On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations;

⁸he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.

⁹In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord , we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”

¹⁰The hand of the Lord will rest on this mountain; but Moab will be trampled under him as straw is trampled down in the manure.

¹¹They will spread out their hands in it, as a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim. God will bring down their pride despite the cleverness of their hands.

¹²He will bring down your high fortified walls and lay them low; he will bring them down to the ground, to the very dust.

26In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah: We have a strong city; God makes salvation its walls and ramparts.

²Open the gates that the righteous nation may enter, the nation that keeps faith.

³You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.

⁴Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord , the Lord , is the Rock eternal.

⁵He humbles those who dwell on high, he lays the lofty city low; he levels it to the ground and casts it down to the dust.

⁶Feet trample it down- the feet of the oppressed, the footsteps of the poor.

⁷The path of the righteous is level; O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth.

⁸Yes, Lord , walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.

⁹My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.

¹⁰Though grace is shown to the wicked, they do not learn righteousness; even in a land of uprightness they go on doing evil and regard not the majesty of the Lord .

¹¹O Lord , your hand is lifted high, but they do not see it. Let them see your zeal for your people and be put to shame; let the fire reserved for your enemies consume them.

¹²Lord , you establish peace for us; all that we have accomplished you have done for us.

¹³O Lord , our God, other lords besides you have ruled over us, but your name alone do we honor.

¹⁴They are now dead, they live no more; those departed spirits do not rise. You punished them and brought them to ruin; you wiped out all memory of them.

¹⁵You have enlarged the nation, O Lord ; you have enlarged the nation. You have gained glory for yourself; you have extended all the borders of the land.

¹⁶Lord , they came to you in their distress; when you disciplined them, they could barely whisper a prayer.

¹⁷As a woman with child and about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pain, so were we in your presence, O Lord .

¹⁸We were with child, we writhed in pain, but we gave birth to wind. We have not brought salvation to the earth; we have not given birth to people of the world.

¹⁹But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.

²⁰Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by.

²¹See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her; she will conceal her slain no longer.

27In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.

²In that day- “Sing about a fruitful vineyard:

³I, the Lord , watch over it; I water it continually. I guard it day and night so that no one may harm it.

⁴I am not angry. If only there were briers and thorns confronting me! I would march against them in battle; I would set them all on fire.

⁵Or else let them come to me for refuge; let them make peace with me, yes, let them make peace with me.”

⁶In days to come Jacob will take root, Israel will bud and blossom and fill all the world with fruit.

⁷Has the Lord struck her as he struck down those who struck her? Has she been killed as those were killed who killed her?

⁸By warfare and exile you contend with her- with his fierce blast he drives her out, as on a day the east wind blows.

⁹By this, then, will Jacob’s guilt be atoned for, and this will be the full fruitage of the removal of his sin: When he makes all the altar stones to be like chalk stones crushed to pieces, no Asherah poles or incense altars will be left standing.

¹⁰The fortified city stands desolate, an abandoned settlement, forsaken like the desert; there the calves graze, there they lie down; they strip its branches bare.

¹¹When its twigs are dry, they are broken off and women come and make fires with them. For this is a people without understanding; so their Maker has no compassion on them, and their Creator shows them no favor.

¹²In that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, O Israelites, will be gathered up one by one.

¹³And in that day a great trumpet will sound. Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

Welcome to the 2023 King Street Church Bible Reading Plan.  This year we will be following a chronological plan.

In your personal journal, consider answering these questions as part of your devotional time:

 

In this passage…

Isaiah 18-22

18Woe to the land of whirring wings along the rivers of Cush,

²which sends envoys by sea in papyrus boats over the water. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers.

³All you people of the world, you who live on the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it, and when a trumpet sounds, you will hear it.

⁴This is what the Lord says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”

⁵For, before the harvest, when the blossom is gone and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the shoots with pruning knives, and cut down and take away the spreading branches.

⁶They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey and to the wild animals; the birds will feed on them all summer, the wild animals all winter.

⁷At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord Almighty from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers- the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the Lord Almighty.

19An oracle concerning Egypt: See, the Lord rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt tremble before him, and the hearts of the Egyptians melt within them.

²“I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian- brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.

³The Egyptians will lose heart, and I will bring their plans to nothing; they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead, the mediums and the spiritists.

⁴I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them,” declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.

⁵The waters of the river will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and dry.

⁶The canals will stink; the streams of Egypt will dwindle and dry up. The reeds and rushes will wither,

⁷also the plants along the Nile, at the mouth of the river. Every sown field along the Nile will become parched, will blow away and be no more.

⁸The fishermen will groan and lament, all who cast hooks into the Nile; those who throw nets on the water will pine away.

⁹Those who work with combed flax will despair, the weavers of fine linen will lose hope.

¹⁰The workers in cloth will be dejected, and all the wage earners will be sick at heart.

¹¹The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools; the wise counselors of Pharaoh give senseless advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am one of the wise men, a disciple of the ancient kings”?

¹²Where are your wise men now? Let them show you and make known what the Lord Almighty has planned against Egypt.

¹³The officials of Zoan have become fools, the leaders of Memphis are deceived; the cornerstones of her peoples have led Egypt astray.

¹⁴The Lord has poured into them a spirit of dizziness; they make Egypt stagger in all that she does, as a drunkard staggers around in his vomit.

¹⁵There is nothing Egypt can do- head or tail, palm branch or reed.

¹⁶In that day the Egyptians will be like women. They will shudder with fear at the uplifted hand that the Lord Almighty raises against them.

¹⁷And the land of Judah will bring terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom Judah is mentioned will be terrified, because of what the Lord Almighty is planning against them.

¹⁸In that day five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord Almighty. One of them will be called the City of Destruction.

¹⁹In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord at its border.

²⁰It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them.

²¹So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord . They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the Lord and keep them.

²²The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the Lord , and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.

²³In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together.

²⁴In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth.

²⁵The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

20In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it-

²at that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah son of Amoz. He said to him, “Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet.” And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot.

³Then the Lord said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush,

⁴so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared-to Egypt’s shame.

⁵Those who trusted in Cush and boasted in Egypt will be afraid and put to shame.

⁶In that day the people who live on this coast will say, ‘See what has happened to those we relied on, those we fled to for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?’ “

21An oracle concerning the Desert by the Sea: Like whirlwinds sweeping through the southland, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror.

²A dire vision has been shown to me: The traitor betrays, the looter takes loot. Elam, attack! Media, lay siege! I will bring to an end all the groaning she caused.

³At this my body is racked with pain, pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor; I am staggered by what I hear, I am bewildered by what I see.

⁴My heart falters, fear makes me tremble; the twilight I longed for has become a horror to me.

⁵They set the tables, they spread the rugs, they eat, they drink! Get up, you officers, oil the shields!

⁶This is what the Lord says to me: “Go, post a lookout and have him report what he sees.

⁷When he sees chariots with teams of horses, riders on donkeys or riders on camels, let him be alert, fully alert.”

⁸And the lookout shouted, “Day after day, my lord, I stand on the watchtower; every night I stay at my post.

⁹Look, here comes a man in a chariot with a team of horses. And he gives back the answer: ‘Babylon has fallen, has fallen! All the images of its gods lie shattered on the ground!’ “

¹⁰O my people, crushed on the threshing floor, I tell you what I have heard from the Lord Almighty, from the God of Israel.

¹¹An oracle concerning Dumah : Someone calls to me from Seir, “Watchman, what is left of the night? Watchman, what is left of the night?”

¹²The watchman replies, “Morning is coming, but also the night. If you would ask, then ask; and come back yet again.”

¹³An oracle concerning Arabia: You caravans of Dedanites, who camp in the thickets of Arabia,

¹⁴bring water for the thirsty; you who live in Tema, bring food for the fugitives.

¹⁵They flee from the sword, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow and from the heat of battle.

¹⁶This is what the Lord says to me: “Within one year, as a servant bound by contract would count it, all the pomp of Kedar will come to an end.

¹⁷The survivors of the bowmen, the warriors of Kedar, will be few.” The Lord , the God of Israel, has spoken.

22An oracle concerning the Valley of Vision: What troubles you now, that you have all gone up on the roofs,

²O town full of commotion, O city of tumult and revelry? Your slain were not killed by the sword, nor did they die in battle.

³All your leaders have fled together; they have been captured without using the bow. All you who were caught were taken prisoner together, having fled while the enemy was still far away.

⁴Therefore I said, “Turn away from me; let me weep bitterly. Do not try to console me over the destruction of my people.”

⁵The Lord, the Lord Almighty, has a day of tumult and trampling and terror in the Valley of Vision, a day of battering down walls and of crying out to the mountains.

⁶Elam takes up the quiver, with her charioteers and horses; Kir uncovers the shield.

⁷Your choicest valleys are full of chariots, and horsemen are posted at the city gates;

⁸the defenses of Judah are stripped away. And you looked in that day to the weapons in the Palace of the Forest;

⁹you saw that the City of David had many breaches in its defenses; you stored up water in the Lower Pool.

¹⁰You counted the buildings in Jerusalem and tore down houses to strengthen the wall.

¹¹You built a reservoir between the two walls for the water of the Old Pool, but you did not look to the One who made it, or have regard for the One who planned it long ago.

¹²The Lord, the Lord Almighty, called you on that day to weep and to wail, to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth.

¹³But see, there is joy and revelry, slaughtering of cattle and killing of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine! “Let us eat and drink,” you say, “for tomorrow we die!”

¹⁴The Lord Almighty has revealed this in my hearing: “Till your dying day this sin will not be atoned for,” says the Lord, the Lord Almighty.

¹⁵This is what the Lord, the Lord Almighty, says: “Go, say to this steward, to Shebna, who is in charge of the palace:

¹⁶What are you doing here and who gave you permission to cut out a grave for yourself here, hewing your grave on the height and chiseling your resting place in the rock?

¹⁷“Beware, the Lord is about to take firm hold of you and hurl you away, O you mighty man.

¹⁸He will roll you up tightly like a ball and throw you into a large country. There you will die and there your splendid chariots will remain- you disgrace to your master’s house!

¹⁹I will depose you from your office, and you will be ousted from your position.

²⁰“In that day I will summon my servant, Eliakim son of Hilkiah.

²¹I will clothe him with your robe and fasten your sash around him and hand your authority over to him. He will be a father to those who live in Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.

²²I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.

²³I will drive him like a peg into a firm place; he will be a seat of honor for the house of his father.

²⁴All the glory of his family will hang on him: its offspring and offshoots-all its lesser vessels, from the bowls to all the jars.

²⁵“In that day,” declares the Lord Almighty, “the peg driven into the firm place will give way; it will be sheared off and will fall, and the load hanging on it will be cut down.” The Lord has spoken.

Welcome to the 2023 King Street Church Bible Reading Plan.  This year we will be following a chronological plan.

In your personal journal, consider answering these questions as part of your devotional time:

 

In this passage…

Isaiah 13-17

13An oracle concerning Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:

²Raise a banner on a bare hilltop, shout to them; beckon to them to enter the gates of the nobles.

³I have commanded my holy ones; I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath- those who rejoice in my triumph.

⁴Listen, a noise on the mountains, like that of a great multitude! Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms, like nations massing together! The Lord Almighty is mustering an army for war.

⁵They come from faraway lands, from the ends of the heavens- the Lord and the weapons of his wrath- to destroy the whole country.

⁶Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

⁷Because of this, all hands will go limp, every man’s heart will melt.

⁸Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame.

⁹See, the day of the Lord is coming -a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger- to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.

¹⁰The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light.

¹¹I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless.

¹²I will make man scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir.

¹³Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, in the day of his burning anger.

¹⁴Like a hunted gazelle, like sheep without a shepherd, each will return to his own people, each will flee to his native land.

¹⁵Whoever is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword.

¹⁶Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives ravished.

¹⁷See, I will stir up against them the Medes, who do not care for silver and have no delight in gold.

¹⁸Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants nor will they look with compassion on children.

¹⁹Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Babylonians’ pride, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.

²⁰She will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flocks there.

²¹But desert creatures will lie there, jackals will fill her houses; there the owls will dwell, and there the wild goats will leap about.

²²Hyenas will howl in her strongholds, jackals in her luxurious palaces. Her time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged.

14The Lord will have compassion on Jacob; once again he will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land. Aliens will join them and unite with the house of Jacob.

²Nations will take them and bring them to their own place. And the house of Israel will possess the nations as menservants and maidservants in the Lord ‘s land. They will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors.

³On the day the Lord gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage,

⁴you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended!

⁵The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers,

⁶which in anger struck down peoples with unceasing blows, and in fury subdued nations with relentless aggression.

⁷All the lands are at rest and at peace; they break into singing.

⁸Even the pine trees and the cedars of Lebanon exult over you and say, “Now that you have been laid low, no woodsman comes to cut us down.”

⁹The grave below is all astir to meet you at your coming; it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you- all those who were leaders in the world; it makes them rise from their thrones- all those who were kings over the nations.

¹⁰They will all respond, they will say to you, “You also have become weak, as we are; you have become like us.”

¹¹All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of your harps; maggots are spread out beneath you and worms cover you.

¹²How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!

¹³You said in your heart, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.

¹⁴I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”

¹⁵But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.

¹⁶Those who see you stare at you, they ponder your fate: “Is this the man who shook the earth and made kingdoms tremble,

¹⁷the man who made the world a desert, who overthrew its cities and would not let his captives go home?”

¹⁸All the kings of the nations lie in state, each in his own tomb.

¹⁹But you are cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch; you are covered with the slain, with those pierced by the sword, those who descend to the stones of the pit. Like a corpse trampled underfoot,

²⁰you will not join them in burial, for you have destroyed your land and killed your people. The offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again.

²¹Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the sins of their forefathers; they are not to rise to inherit the land and cover the earth with their cities.

²²“I will rise up against them,” declares the Lord Almighty. “I will cut off from Babylon her name and survivors, her offspring and descendants,” declares the Lord .

²³“I will turn her into a place for owls and into swampland; I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,” declares the Lord Almighty.

²⁴The Lord Almighty has sworn, “Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.

²⁵I will crush the Assyrian in my land; on my mountains I will trample him down. His yoke will be taken from my people, and his burden removed from their shoulders.”

²⁶This is the plan determined for the whole world; this is the hand stretched out over all nations.

²⁷For the Lord Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?

²⁸This oracle came in the year King Ahaz died:

²⁹Do not rejoice, all you Philistines, that the rod that struck you is broken; from the root of that snake will spring up a viper, its fruit will be a darting, venomous serpent.

³⁰The poorest of the poor will find pasture, and the needy will lie down in safety. But your root I will destroy by famine; it will slay your survivors.

³¹Wail, O gate! Howl, O city! Melt away, all you Philistines! A cloud of smoke comes from the north, and there is not a straggler in its ranks.

³²What answer shall be given to the envoys of that nation? “The Lord has established Zion, and in her his afflicted people will find refuge.”

15An oracle concerning Moab: Ar in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night! Kir in Moab is ruined, destroyed in a night!

²Dibon goes up to its temple, to its high places to weep; Moab wails over Nebo and Medeba. Every head is shaved and every beard cut off.

³In the streets they wear sackcloth; on the roofs and in the public squares they all wail, prostrate with weeping.

⁴Heshbon and Elealeh cry out, their voices are heard all the way to Jahaz. Therefore the armed men of Moab cry out, and their hearts are faint.

⁵My heart cries out over Moab; her fugitives flee as far as Zoar, as far as Eglath Shelishiyah. They go up the way to Luhith, weeping as they go; on the road to Horonaim they lament their destruction.

⁶The waters of Nimrim are dried up and the grass is withered; the vegetation is gone and nothing green is left.

⁷So the wealth they have acquired and stored up they carry away over the Ravine of the Poplars.

⁸Their outcry echoes along the border of Moab; their wailing reaches as far as Eglaim, their lamentation as far as Beer Elim.

⁹Dimon’s waters are full of blood, but I will bring still more upon Dimon – a lion upon the fugitives of Moab and upon those who remain in the land.

16Send lambs as tribute to the ruler of the land, from Sela, across the desert, to the mount of the Daughter of Zion.

²Like fluttering birds pushed from the nest, so are the women of Moab at the fords of the Arnon.

³“Give us counsel, render a decision. Make your shadow like night- at high noon. Hide the fugitives, do not betray the refugees.

⁴Let the Moabite fugitives stay with you; be their shelter from the destroyer.” The oppressor will come to an end, and destruction will cease; the aggressor will vanish from the land.

⁵In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it- one from the house of David- one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness.

⁶We have heard of Moab’s pride- her overweening pride and conceit, her pride and her insolence- but her boasts are empty.

⁷Therefore the Moabites wail, they wail together for Moab. Lament and grieve for the men of Kir Hareseth.

⁸The fields of Heshbon wither, the vines of Sibmah also. The rulers of the nations have trampled down the choicest vines, which once reached Jazer and spread toward the desert. Their shoots spread out and went as far as the sea.

⁹So I weep, as Jazer weeps, for the vines of Sibmah. O Heshbon, O Elealeh, I drench you with tears! The shouts of joy over your ripened fruit and over your harvests have been stilled.

¹⁰Joy and gladness are taken away from the orchards; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards; no one treads out wine at the presses, for I have put an end to the shouting.

¹¹My heart laments for Moab like a harp, my inmost being for Kir Hareseth.

¹²When Moab appears at her high place, she only wears herself out; when she goes to her shrine to pray, it is to no avail.

¹³This is the word the Lord has already spoken concerning Moab.

¹⁴But now the Lord says: “Within three years, as a servant bound by contract would count them, Moab’s splendor and all her many people will be despised, and her survivors will be very few and feeble.”

17An oracle concerning Damascus: “See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.

²The cities of Aroer will be deserted and left to flocks, which will lie down, with no one to make them afraid.

³The fortified city will disappear from Ephraim, and royal power from Damascus; the remnant of Aram will be like the glory of the Israelites,” declares the Lord Almighty.

⁴“In that day the glory of Jacob will fade; the fat of his body will waste away.

⁵It will be as when a reaper gathers the standing grain and harvests the grain with his arm- as when a man gleans heads of grain in the Valley of Rephaim.

⁶Yet some gleanings will remain, as when an olive tree is beaten, leaving two or three olives on the topmost branches, four or five on the fruitful boughs,” declares the Lord , the God of Israel.

⁷In that day men will look to their Maker and turn their eyes to the Holy One of Israel.

⁸They will not look to the altars, the work of their hands, and they will have no regard for the Asherah poles and the incense altars their fingers have made.

⁹In that day their strong cities, which they left because of the Israelites, will be like places abandoned to thickets and undergrowth. And all will be desolation.

¹⁰You have forgotten God your Savior; you have not remembered the Rock, your fortress. Therefore, though you set out the finest plants and plant imported vines,

¹¹though on the day you set them out, you make them grow, and on the morning when you plant them, you bring them to bud, yet the harvest will be as nothing in the day of disease and incurable pain.

¹²Oh, the raging of many nations- they rage like the raging sea! Oh, the uproar of the peoples- they roar like the roaring of great waters!

¹³Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters, when he rebukes them they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumbleweed before a gale.

¹⁴In the evening, sudden terror! Before the morning, they are gone! This is the portion of those who loot us, the lot of those who plunder us.

Welcome to the 2023 King Street Church Bible Reading Plan.  This year we will be following a chronological plan.

In your personal journal, consider answering these questions as part of your devotional time:

 

In this passage…

2 Chronicles 28; 2 Kings 16-17

2 Chronicles 28

28Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord .

²He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and also made cast idols for worshiping the Baals.

³He burned sacrifices in the Valley of Ben Hinnom and sacrificed his sons in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

⁴He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree.

⁵Therefore the Lord his God handed him over to the king of Aram. The Arameans defeated him and took many of his people as prisoners and brought them to Damascus. He was also given into the hands of the king of Israel, who inflicted heavy casualties on him.

⁶In one day Pekah son of Remaliah killed a hundred and twenty thousand soldiers in Judah-because Judah had forsaken the Lord , the God of their fathers.

⁷Zicri, an Ephraimite warrior, killed Maaseiah the king’s son, Azrikam the officer in charge of the palace, and Elkanah, second to the king.

⁸The Israelites took captive from their kinsmen two hundred thousand wives, sons and daughters. They also took a great deal of plunder, which they carried back to Samaria.

⁹But a prophet of the Lord named Oded was there, and he went out to meet the army when it returned to Samaria. He said to them, “Because the Lord , the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he gave them into your hand. But you have slaughtered them in a rage that reaches to heaven.

¹⁰And now you intend to make the men and women of Judah and Jerusalem your slaves. But aren’t you also guilty of sins against the Lord your God?

¹¹Now listen to me! Send back your fellow countrymen you have taken as prisoners, for the Lord ‘s fierce anger rests on you.”

¹²Then some of the leaders in Ephraim-Azariah son of Jehohanan, Berekiah son of Meshillemoth, Jehizkiah son of Shallum, and Amasa son of Hadlai-confronted those who were arriving from the war.

¹³“You must not bring those prisoners here,” they said, “or we will be guilty before the Lord . Do you intend to add to our sin and guilt? For our guilt is already great, and his fierce anger rests on Israel.”

¹⁴So the soldiers gave up the prisoners and plunder in the presence of the officials and all the assembly.

¹⁵The men designated by name took the prisoners, and from the plunder they clothed all who were naked. They provided them with clothes and sandals, food and drink, and healing balm. All those who were weak they put on donkeys. So they took them back to their fellow countrymen at Jericho, the City of Palms, and returned to Samaria.

¹⁶At that time King Ahaz sent to the king of Assyria for help.

¹⁷The Edomites had again come and attacked Judah and carried away prisoners,

¹⁸while the Philistines had raided towns in the foothills and in the Negev of Judah. They captured and occupied Beth Shemesh, Aijalon and Gederoth, as well as Soco, Timnah and Gimzo, with their surrounding villages.

¹⁹The Lord had humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had promoted wickedness in Judah and had been most unfaithful to the Lord .

²⁰Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria came to him, but he gave him trouble instead of help.

²¹Ahaz took some of the things from the temple of the Lord and from the royal palace and from the princes and presented them to the king of Assyria, but that did not help him.

²²In his time of trouble King Ahaz became even more unfaithful to the Lord .

²³He offered sacrifices to the gods of Damascus, who had defeated him; for he thought, “Since the gods of the kings of Aram have helped them, I will sacrifice to them so they will help me.” But they were his downfall and the downfall of all Israel.

²⁴Ahaz gathered together the furnishings from the temple of God and took them away. He shut the doors of the Lord ‘s temple and set up altars at every street corner in Jerusalem.

²⁵In every town in Judah he built high places to burn sacrifices to other gods and provoked the Lord , the God of his fathers, to anger.

²⁶The other events of his reign and all his ways, from beginning to end, are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.

²⁷Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of Jerusalem, but he was not placed in the tombs of the kings of Israel. And Hezekiah his son succeeded him as king.

2 Kings 16-17

16In the seventeenth year of Pekah son of Remaliah, Ahaz son of Jotham king of Judah began to reign.

²Ahaz was twenty years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God.

³He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites.

⁴He offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, on the hilltops and under every spreading tree.

⁵Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel marched up to fight against Jerusalem and besieged Ahaz, but they could not overpower him.

⁶At that time, Rezin king of Aram recovered Elath for Aram by driving out the men of Judah. Edomites then moved into Elath and have lived there to this day.

⁷Ahaz sent messengers to say to Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria, “I am your servant and vassal. Come up and save me out of the hand of the king of Aram and of the king of Israel, who are attacking me.”

⁸And Ahaz took the silver and gold found in the temple of the Lord and in the treasuries of the royal palace and sent it as a gift to the king of Assyria.

⁹The king of Assyria complied by attacking Damascus and capturing it. He deported its inhabitants to Kir and put Rezin to death.

¹⁰Then King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. He saw an altar in Damascus and sent to Uriah the priest a sketch of the altar, with detailed plans for its construction.

¹¹So Uriah the priest built an altar in accordance with all the plans that King Ahaz had sent from Damascus and finished it before King Ahaz returned.

¹²When the king came back from Damascus and saw the altar, he approached it and presented offerings on it.

¹³He offered up his burnt offering and grain offering, poured out his drink offering, and sprinkled the blood of his fellowship offerings on the altar.

¹⁴The bronze altar that stood before the Lord he brought from the front of the temple-from between the new altar and the temple of the Lord -and put it on the north side of the new altar.

¹⁵King Ahaz then gave these orders to Uriah the priest: “On the large new altar, offer the morning burnt offering and the evening grain offering, the king’s burnt offering and his grain offering, and the burnt offering of all the people of the land, and their grain offering and their drink offering. Sprinkle on the altar all the blood of the burnt offerings and sacrifices. But I will use the bronze altar for seeking guidance.”

¹⁶And Uriah the priest did just as King Ahaz had ordered.

¹⁷King Ahaz took away the side panels and removed the basins from the movable stands. He removed the Sea from the bronze bulls that supported it and set it on a stone base.

¹⁸He took away the Sabbath canopy that had been built at the temple and removed the royal entryway outside the temple of the Lord , in deference to the king of Assyria.

¹⁹As for the other events of the reign of Ahaz, and what he did, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

²⁰Ahaz rested with his fathers and was buried with them in the City of David. And Hezekiah his son succeeded him as king.

17In the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah, Hoshea son of Elah became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned nine years.

²He did evil in the eyes of the Lord , but not like the kings of Israel who preceded him.

³Shalmaneser king of Assyria came up to attack Hoshea, who had been Shalmaneser’s vassal and had paid him tribute.

⁴But the king of Assyria discovered that Hoshea was a traitor, for he had sent envoys to So king of Egypt, and he no longer paid tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore Shalmaneser seized him and put him in prison.

⁵The king of Assyria invaded the entire land, marched against Samaria and laid siege to it for three years.

⁶In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria. He settled them in Halah, in Gozan on the Habor River and in the towns of the Medes.

⁷All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods

⁸and followed the practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced.

⁹The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right. From watchtower to fortified city they built themselves high places in all their towns.

¹⁰They set up sacred stones and Asherah poles on every high hill and under every spreading tree.

¹¹At every high place they burned incense, as the nations whom the Lord had driven out before them had done. They did wicked things that provoked the Lord to anger.

¹²They worshiped idols, though the Lord had said, “You shall not do this.”

¹³The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: “Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your fathers to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.”

¹⁴But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who did not trust in the Lord their God.

¹⁵They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their fathers and the warnings he had given them. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the Lord had ordered them, “Do not do as they do,” and they did the things the Lord had forbidden them to do.

¹⁶They forsook all the commands of the Lord their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal.

¹⁷They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sorcery and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the Lord , provoking him to anger.

¹⁸So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left,

¹⁹and even Judah did not keep the commands of the Lord their God. They followed the practices Israel had introduced.

²⁰Therefore the Lord rejected all the people of Israel; he afflicted them and gave them into the hands of plunderers, until he thrust them from his presence.

²¹When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the Lord and caused them to commit a great sin.

²²The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them

²³until the Lord removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.

²⁴The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns.

²⁵When they first lived there, they did not worship the Lord ; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people.

²⁶It was reported to the king of Assyria: “The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off, because the people do not know what he requires.”

²⁷Then the king of Assyria gave this order: “Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.”

²⁸So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the Lord .

²⁹Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places.

³⁰The men from Babylon made Succoth Benoth, the men from Cuthah made Nergal, and the men from Hamath made Ashima;

³¹the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

³²They worshiped the Lord , but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places.

³³They worshiped the Lord , but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.

³⁴To this day they persist in their former practices. They neither worship the Lord nor adhere to the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob, whom he named Israel.

³⁵When the Lord made a covenant with the Israelites, he commanded them: “Do not worship any other gods or bow down to them, serve them or sacrifice to them.

³⁶But the Lord , who brought you up out of Egypt with mighty power and outstretched arm, is the one you must worship. To him you shall bow down and to him offer sacrifices.

³⁷You must always be careful to keep the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands he wrote for you. Do not worship other gods.

³⁸Do not forget the covenant I have made with you, and do not worship other gods.

³⁹Rather, worship the Lord your God; it is he who will deliver you from the hand of all your enemies.”

⁴⁰They would not listen, however, but persisted in their former practices.

⁴¹Even while these people were worshiping the Lord , they were serving their idols. To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did.

Welcome to the 2023 King Street Church Bible Reading Plan.  This year we will be following a chronological plan.

In your personal journal, consider answering these questions as part of your devotional time:

 

In this passage…

Welcome to the 2023 King Street Church Bible Reading Plan.  This year we will be following a chronological plan.

In your personal journal, consider answering these questions as part of your devotional time:

 

In this passage…

Welcome to the 2023 King Street Church Bible Reading Plan.  This year we will be following a chronological plan.

In your personal journal, consider answering these questions as part of your devotional time:

 

In this passage…