Formation Journal Reading Plan

5:1 Now it happened on the third day that Esther put on her royal clothing, and stood in the inner court of the king’s house, next to the king’s house. The king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, next to the entrance of the house.

5:2 When the king saw Esther the queen standing in the court, she obtained favor in his sight; and the king held out to Esther the golden scepter that was in his hand. So Esther came near, and touched the top of the scepter.

5:3 Then the king asked her, “What would you like, queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given you even to the half of the kingdom.”

5:4 Esther said, “If it seems good to the king, let the king and Haman come today to the banquet that I have prepared for him.”

5:5 Then the king said, “Bring Haman quickly, so that it may be done as Esther has said.” So the king and Haman came to the banquet that Esther had prepared.

5:6 The king said to Esther at the banquet of wine, “What is your petition? It shall be granted you. What is your request? Even to the half of the kingdom it shall be performed.”

5:7 Then Esther answered and said, “My petition and my request is this.

5:8 If I have found favor in the sight of the king, and if it please the king to grant my petition and to perform my request, let the king and Haman come to the banquet that I will prepare for them, and I will do tomorrow as the king has said.”

5:9 Then Haman went out that day joyful and glad of heart, but when Haman saw Mordecai in the king’s gate, that he didn’t stand up nor move for him, he was filled with wrath against Mordecai.

5:10 Nevertheless Haman restrained himself, and went home. There, he sent and called for his friends and Zeresh his wife.

5:11 Haman recounted to them the glory of his riches, the multitude of his children, all the things in which the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king.

5:12 Haman also said, “Yes, Esther the queen let no man come in with the king to the banquet that she had prepared but myself; and tomorrow I am also invited by her together with the king.

5:13 Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s gate.”

5:14 Then Zeresh his wife and all his friends said to him, “Let a gallows be made fifty cubits high, and in the morning speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on it. Then go in merrily with the king to the banquet.” This pleased Haman, so he had the gallows made.

6:1 On that night, the king couldn’t sleep. He commanded the book of records of the chronicles to be brought, and they were read to the king.

6:2 It was found written that Mordecai had told of Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s eunuchs, who were doorkeepers, who had tried to lay hands on the King Ahasuerus.

6:3 The king said, “What honor and dignity has been bestowed on Mordecai for this?” Then the king’s servants who attended him said, “Nothing has been done for him.”

6:4 The king said, “Who is in the court?” Now Haman had come into the outer court of the king’s house, to speak to the king about hanging Mordecai on the gallows that he had prepared for him.

6:5 The king’s servants said to him, “Behold, Haman stands in the court.” The king said, “Let him come in.”

6:6 So Haman came in. The king said to him, “What shall be done to the man whom the king delights to honor?” Now Haman said in his heart, “Who would the king delight to honor more than myself?”

6:7 Haman said to the king, “For the man whom the king delights to honor,

6:8 let royal clothing be brought which the king uses to wear, and the horse that the king rides on, and on the head of which a crown royal is set.

6:9 Let the clothing and the horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king’s most noble princes, that they may array the man whom the king delights to honor with them, and have him ride on horseback through the city square, and proclaim before him, ‘Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!’”

6:10 Then the king said to Haman, “Hurry and take the clothing and the horse, as you have said, and do this for Mordecai the Jew, who sits at the king’s gate. Let nothing fail of all that you have spoken.”

6:11 Then Haman took the clothing and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and had him ride through the city square, and proclaimed before him, “Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delights to honor!”

6:12 Mordecai came back to the king’s gate, but Haman hurried to his house, mourning and having his head covered.

6:13 Haman recounted to Zeresh his wife and all his friends everything that had happened to him. Then his wise men and Zeresh his wife said to him, “If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail against him, but you will surely fall before him.”

6:14 While they were yet talking with him, the king’s eunuchs came, and hurried to bring Haman to the banquet that Esther had prepared.

42:1 For the Chief Musician. A contemplation by the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants after you, God.

42:2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

42:3 My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”

42:4 These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, how I used to go with the crowd, and led them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, a multitude keeping a holy day.

42:5 Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him for the saving help of his presence.

42:6 My God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore I remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon, from the hill Mizar.

42:7 Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.

42:8 Yahweh will command his loving kindness in the daytime. In the night his song shall be with me: a prayer to the God of my life.

42:9 I will ask God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?”

42:10 As with a sword in my bones, my adversaries reproach me, while they continually ask me, “Where is your God?”

42:11 Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I shall still praise him, the saving help of my countenance, and my God.

11:11 I ask then, did they stumble that they might fall? May it never be! But by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles, to provoke them to jealousy.

11:12 Now if their fall is the riches of the world, and their loss the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?

11:13 For I speak to you who are Gentiles. Since then as I am an apostle to Gentiles, I glorify my ministry;

11:14 if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh, and may save some of them.

11:15 For if the rejection of them is the reconciling of the world, what would their acceptance be, but life from the dead?

11:16 If the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. If the root is holy, so are the branches.

11:17 But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them, and became partaker with them of the root and of the richness of the olive tree;

11:18 don’t boast over the branches. But if you boast, it is not you who support the root, but the root supports you.

11:19 You will say then, “Branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.”

11:20 True; by their unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by your faith. Don’t be conceited, but fear;

11:21 for if God didn’t spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you.

11:22 See then the goodness and severity of God. Toward those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in his goodness; otherwise you also will be cut off.

11:23 They also, if they don’t continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again.

11:24 For if you were cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and were grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more will these, which are the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

11:25 For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,

11:26 and so all Israel will be saved. Even as it is written, “There will come out of Zion the Deliverer, and he will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.

11:27 This is my covenant to them, when I will take away their sins.”

11:28 Concerning the Good News, they are enemies for your sake. But concerning the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sake.

11:29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

11:30 For as you in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience,

11:31 even so these also have now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they may also obtain mercy.

11:32 For God has shut up all to disobedience, that he might have mercy on all.