麦琴一年读经计划

Called from Slaves to Sons

¹Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he is lord of all;

²But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed by the father.

³Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:

⁴But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law,

⁵To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

⁶And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

⁷Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Do Not Turn Back to Weak Elemental Principles

⁸However then, when ye knew not God, ye did service to them which by nature are no gods.

⁹But now, after ye have known God, or rather are known by God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which ye desire again to be in bondage?

¹⁰Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.

¹¹I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain.

Paul's Heartfelt Appeal to the Galatians

¹²Brethren, I beseech you, be as I am; for I am as ye are : ye have not injured me at all.

¹³Ye know that in infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel to you at the first.

¹⁴And my temptation which was in my flesh ye despised not, nor rejected; but received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.

¹⁵What then was the blessedness ye spoke of; for I bear you testimony, that, if it had been possible, ye would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.

¹⁶Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth?

¹⁷They zealously affect you, but not well; for, they would exclude you, that ye may affect them.

¹⁸But it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing , and not only when I am present with you.

¹⁹My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you,

²⁰I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you.

Hagar and Sarah, an Allegory of Two Covenants

²¹Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law?

²²For it is written, that Abraham had two sons; the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free-woman.

²³But he who was of the bond-woman, was born according to the flesh; but he of the free-woman was by promise.

²⁴Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.

²⁵For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

²⁶But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

²⁷For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she who hath a husband.

²⁸Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

²⁹But as then he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now.

³⁰Nevertheless, what saith the scripture? Cast out the bond-woman and her son: for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free-woman.

³¹So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond-woman, but of the free.

Egypt Likened to a Cedar of Lebanon

¹And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month , in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came to me, saying,

²Son of man, speak to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?

³Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shady cover, and of a high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.

⁴The waters made him great, the deep set him up on high with her rivers running round his plants, and sent out her little rivers to all the trees of the field.

⁵Therefore his hight was exalted above all the trees of the field, and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long because of the multitude of waters, when he shot forth.

⁶All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs, and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young, and under his shade dwelt all great nations.

⁷Thus was he fair in his greatness, in the length of his branches: for his root was by great waters.

⁸The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: the fir-trees were not like his boughs, and the chesnut-trees were not like his branches; not any tree in the garden of God was like to him in his beauty.

⁹I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches: so that all the trees of Eden, that were in the garden of God, envied him.

The Cedar Cut Down and Brought to Sheol

¹⁰Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast lifted up thyself in hight, and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs, and his heart is lifted up in his hight;

¹¹I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness.

¹²And strangers, the terrible of the nations, have cut him off, and have left him: upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen, and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land; and all the people of the earth have gone down from his shade, and have left him.

¹³Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of the heaven remain, and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches:

¹⁴To the end that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their hight, neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs, neither their trees stand up in their hight, all that drink water: for they are all delivered to death, to the nether parts of the earth, in the midst of the children of men, with them that go down to the pit.

¹⁵Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning: I covered the deep for him, and I restrained its floods, and the great waters were stayed: and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.

¹⁶I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to the grave with them that descend into the pit: and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.

¹⁷They also went down into the grave with him to them that are slain with the sword; and they that were his arm, that dwelt under his shade in the midst of the heathen.

¹⁸To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden to the nether parts of the earth: thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that are slain by the sword. This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord GOD.

A Lament over the Defiled Temple

¹A Psalm of Asaph. O God, the heathen have come into thy inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled; they have laid Jerusalem on heaps.

²The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be food to the fowls of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints, to the beasts of the earth.

³Their blood have they shed like water around Jerusalem; and there was none to bury them .

⁴We have become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are around us.

⁵How long, LORD? wilt thou be angry for ever? shall thy jealousy burn like fire?

⁶Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name.

⁷For they have devoured Jacob, and laid waste his dwelling-place.

⁸O remember not against us former iniquities: let thy tender mercies speedily succor us: for we are brought very low.

⁹Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's sake.

¹⁰Why should the heathen say, Where is their God? let him be known among the heathen in our sight by avenging the blood of thy servants which is shed.

¹¹Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; according to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to die;

¹²And render to our neighbors seven-fold into their bosom their reproach, with which they have reproached thee, O LORD.

¹³So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture will give thee thanks for ever: we will show forth thy praise to all generations.