Formation Journal Reading Plan

2:1 It happened in the month Nisan, in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king, when wine was before him, that I took up the wine, and gave it to the king. Now I had not been sad before in his presence.

2:2 The king said to me, “Why is your face sad, since you are not sick? This is nothing else but sorrow of heart.” Then I was very much afraid.

2:3 I said to the king, “Let the king live forever! Why shouldn’t my face be sad, when the city, the place of my fathers’ tombs, lies waste, and its gates have been consumed with fire?”

2:4 Then the king said to me, “For what do you make request?” So I prayed to the God of heaven.

2:5 I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, and if your servant has found favor in your sight, that you would send me to Judah, to the city of my fathers’ tombs, that I may build it.”

2:6 The king said to me (the queen was also sitting by him), “For how long shall your journey be? And when will you return?” So it pleased the king to send me; and I set him a time.

2:7 Moreover I said to the king, “If it pleases the king, let letters be given me to the governors beyond the River, that they may let me pass through until I come to Judah;

2:8 and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the citadel by the temple, for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into.” The king granted my requests, because of the good hand of my God on me.

2:9 Then I came to the governors beyond the River, and gave them the king’s letters. Now the king had sent with me captains of the army and horsemen.

2:10 When Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, heard of it, it grieved them exceedingly, because a man had come to seek the welfare of the children of Israel.

2:11 So I came to Jerusalem, and was there three days.

2:12 I arose in the night, I and some few men with me; neither told I any man what my God put into my heart to do for Jerusalem; neither was there any animal with me, except the animal that I rode on.

2:13 I went out by night by the valley gate, even toward the jackal’s well, and to the dung gate, and viewed the walls of Jerusalem, which were broken down, and its gates were consumed with fire.

2:14 Then I went on to the spring gate and to the king’s pool: but there was no place for the animal that was under me to pass.

2:15 Then went I up in the night by the brook, and viewed the wall; and I turned back, and entered by the valley gate, and so returned.

2:16 The rulers didn’t know where I went, or what I did; neither had I as yet told it to the Jews, nor to the priests, nor to the nobles, nor to the rulers, nor to the rest who did the work.

2:17 Then I said to them, “You see the evil case that we are in, how Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burned with fire. Come, let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we won’t be disgraced.”

2:18 I told them of the hand of my God which was good on me, as also of the king’s words that he had spoken to me. They said, “Let’s rise up and build.” So they strengthened their hands for the good work.

2:19 But when Sanballat the Horonite, and Tobiah the servant, the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arabian, heard it, they ridiculed us, and despised us, and said, “What is this thing that you are doing? Will you rebel against the king?”

2:20 Then answered I them, and said to them, “The God of heaven will prosper us. Therefore we, his servants, will arise and build; but you have no portion, nor right, nor memorial, in Jerusalem.”

34:11 Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of Yahweh.

34:12 Who is someone who desires life, and loves many days, that he may see good?

34:13 Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking lies.

34:14 Depart from evil, and do good. seek peace, and pursue it.

34:15 Yahweh’s eyes are toward the righteous. His ears listen to their cry.

34:16 Yahweh’s face is against those who do evil, to cut off their memory from the earth.

34:17 The righteous cry, and Yahweh hears, and delivers them out of all their troubles.

34:18 Yahweh is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves those who have a crushed spirit.

34:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but Yahweh delivers him out of them all.

34:20 He protects all of his bones. Not one of them is broken.

34:21 Evil shall kill the wicked. Those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.

34:22 Yahweh redeems the soul of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him shall be condemned.

3:21 But now apart from the law, a righteousness of God has been revealed, being testified by the law and the prophets;

3:22 even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ to all and on all those who believe. For there is no distinction,

3:23 for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God;

3:24 being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus;

3:25 whom God set forth to be an atoning sacrifice, through faith in his blood, for a demonstration of his righteousness through the passing over of prior sins, in God’s forbearance;

3:26 to demonstrate his righteousness at this present time; that he might himself be just, and the justifier of him who has faith in Jesus.

3:27 Where then is the boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.

3:28 We maintain therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

3:29 Or is God the God of Jews only? Isn’t he the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also,

3:30 since indeed there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith, and the uncircumcised through faith.

3:31 Do we then nullify the law through faith? May it never be! No, we establish the law.

4:1 What then will we say that Abraham, our forefather, has found according to the flesh?

4:2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not toward God.

4:3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

4:4 Now to him who works, the reward is not counted as grace, but as something owed.

4:5 But to him who doesn’t work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness.

4:6 Even as David also pronounces blessing on the man to whom God counts righteousness apart from works,

4:7 “Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, whose sins are covered.

4:8 Blessed is the man whom the Lord will by no means charge with sin.”

4:9 Is this blessing then pronounced on the circumcised, or on the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness.

4:10 How then was it counted? When he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision.

4:11 He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while he was in uncircumcision, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they might be in uncircumcision, that righteousness might also be accounted to them.

4:12 He is the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had in uncircumcision.

4:13 For the promise to Abraham and to his seed that he should be heir of the world wasn’t through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

4:14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void, and the promise is made of no effect.

4:15 For the law works wrath, for where there is no law, neither is there disobedience.

4:16 For this cause it is of faith, that it may be according to grace, to the end that the promise may be sure to all the seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

4:17 As it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations.” This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were.

4:18 Who in hope believed against hope, to the end that he might become a father of many nations, according to that which had been spoken, “So will your seed be.”

4:19 Without being weakened in faith, he didn’t consider his own body, already having been worn out, (he being about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

4:20 Yet, looking to the promise of God, he didn’t waver through unbelief, but grew strong through faith, giving glory to God,

4:21 and being fully assured that what he had promised, he was also able to perform.

4:22 Therefore it also was “reckoned to him for righteousness.”

4:23 Now it was not written that it was accounted to him for his sake alone,

4:24 but for our sake also, to whom it will be accounted, who believe in him who raised Jesus, our Lord, from the dead,

4:25 who was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification.