Formation Journal Reading Plan

4:1 Behold, you are beautiful, my love. Behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is as a flock of goats, that descend from Mount Gilead.

4:2 Your teeth are like a newly shorn flock, which have come up from the washing, where every one of them has twins. None is bereaved among them.

4:3 Your lips are like scarlet thread. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples are like a piece of a pomegranate behind your veil.

4:4 Your neck is like David’s tower built for an armory, whereon a thousand shields hang, all the shields of the mighty men.

4:5 Your two breasts are like two fawns that are twins of a roe, which feed among the lilies.

4:6 Until the day is cool, and the shadows flee away, I will go to the mountain of myrrh, to the hill of frankincense.

4:7 You are all beautiful, my love. There is no spot in you.

4:8 Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, with me from Lebanon. Look from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir and Hermon, from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards.

4:9 You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride. You have ravished my heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck.

4:10 How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine! The fragrance of your perfumes than all kinds of spices!

4:11 Your lips, my bride, drip like the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

4:12 A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.

4:13 Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits: henna with spikenard plants,

4:14 spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree; myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices,

4:15 a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, flowing streams from Lebanon.

4:16 Awake, north wind; and come, you south! Blow on my garden, that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and taste his precious fruits.

5:1 I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, friends! Drink, yes, drink abundantly, beloved.

5:2 I was asleep, but my heart was awake. It is the voice of my beloved who knocks: “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, and my hair with the dampness of the night.”

5:3 I have taken off my robe. Indeed, must I put it on? I have washed my feet. Indeed, must I soil them?

5:4 My beloved thrust his hand in through the latch opening. My heart pounded for him.

5:5 I rose up to open for my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the lock.

5:6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved left; and had gone away. My heart went out when he spoke. I looked for him, but I didn’t find him. I called him, but he didn’t answer.

5:7 The watchmen who go about the city found me. They beat me. They bruised me. The keepers of the walls took my cloak away from me.

5:8 I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, If you find my beloved, that you tell him that I am faint with love.

5:9 How is your beloved better than another beloved, you fairest among women? How is your beloved better than another beloved, that you do so adjure us?

5:10 My beloved is white and ruddy. The best among ten thousand.

5:11 His head is like the purest gold. His hair is bushy, black as a raven.

5:12 His eyes are like doves beside the water brooks, washed with milk, mounted like jewels.

5:13 His cheeks are like a bed of spices with towers of perfumes. His lips are like lilies, dropping liquid myrrh.

5:14 His hands are like rings of gold set with beryl. His body is like ivory work overlaid with sapphires.

5:15 His legs are like pillars of marble set on sockets of fine gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.

5:16 His mouth is sweetness; yes, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, daughters of Jerusalem.

73:1 A Psalm by Asaph. Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

73:2 But as for me, my feet were almost gone. My steps had nearly slipped.

73:3 For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

73:4 For there are no struggles in their death, but their strength is firm.

73:5 They are free from burdens of men, neither are they plagued like other men.

73:6 Therefore pride is like a chain around their neck. Violence covers them like a garment.

73:7 Their eyes bulge with fat. Their minds pass the limits of conceit.

73:8 They scoff and speak with malice. In arrogance, they threaten oppression.

73:9 They have set their mouth in the heavens. Their tongue walks through the earth.

73:10 Therefore their people return to them, and they drink up waters of abundance.

73:11 They say, “How does God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?”

73:12 Behold, these are the wicked. Being always at ease, they increase in riches.

73:13 Surely in vain I have cleansed my heart, and washed my hands in innocence,

73:14 For all day long have I been plagued, and punished every morning.

8:1 Moreover, brothers, we make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the assemblies of Macedonia;

8:2 how that in much proof of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded to the riches of their liberality.

8:3 For according to their power, I testify, yes and beyond their power, they gave of their own accord,

8:4 begging us with much entreaty to receive this grace and the fellowship in the service to the saints.

8:5 This was not as we had hoped, but first they gave their own selves to the Lord, and to us through the will of God.

8:6 So we urged Titus, that as he made a beginning before, so he would also complete in you this grace.

8:7 But as you abound in everything, in faith, utterance, knowledge, all earnestness, and in your love to us, see that you also abound in this grace.

8:8 I speak not by way of commandment, but as proving through the earnestness of others the sincerity also of your love.

8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might become rich.

8:10 I give a judgment in this: for this is expedient for you, who were the first to start a year ago, not only to do, but also to be willing.

8:11 But now complete the doing also, that as there was the readiness to be willing, so there may be the completion also out of your ability.

8:12 For if the readiness is there, it is acceptable according to what you have, not according to what you don’t have.

8:13 For this is not that others may be eased and you distressed,

8:14 but for equality. Your abundance at this present time supplies their lack, that their abundance also may become a supply for your lack; that there may be equality.

8:15 As it is written, “He who gathered much had nothing left over, and he who gathered little had no lack.”