This Bible reading plan takes you through most of the Holy Scriptures each weekday of the year. Each day has three Bible readings:
You're welcome to read one, two, or all three of the readings every weekday. And if you fall behind, don't worry! You can either use the weekends to catch up or you can simply dive in to the reading for that day, even if you've missed a few days, weeks, or even months!
You can download a foldable bookmark here: 2026
11:1 Now Jesus1 was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” 2 And he said to them, “When you pray, say:
“Father, hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
3 Give us each day our daily bread,2
4 and forgive us our sins,
for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us.
And lead us not into temptation.”
5 And he said to them, “Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, 6 for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him’; 7 and he will answer from within, ‘Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I cannot get up and give you anything’? 8 I tell you, though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his impudence3 he will rise and give him whatever he needs. 9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What father among you, if his son asks for4 a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
14 Now he was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled. 15 But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,” 16 while others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven. 17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls. 18 And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. 19 And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. 20 But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. 21 When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe; 22 but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil. 23 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
24 “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and finding none it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ 25 And when it comes, it finds the house swept and put in order. 26 Then it goes and brings seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that person is worse than the first.”
27 As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!” 28 But he said, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
29 When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. 31 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. 32 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
33 “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”
37 While Jesus5 was speaking, a Pharisee asked him to dine with him, so he went in and reclined at table. 38 The Pharisee was astonished to see that he did not first wash before dinner. 39 And the Lord said to him, “Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. 40 You fools! Did not he who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But give as alms those things that are within, and behold, everything is clean for you.
42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you! For you are like unmarked graves, and people walk over them without knowing it.”
45 One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying these things you insult us also.” 46 And he said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers. 47 Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed. 48 So you are witnesses and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs. 49 Therefore also the Wisdom of God said, ‘I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute,’ 50 so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation, 51 from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. 52 Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves, and you hindered those who were entering.”
53 As he went away from there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him hard and to provoke him to speak about many things, 54 lying in wait for him, to catch him in something he might say.
[1] 11:1
[2] 11:3
[3] 11:8
[4] 11:11
[5] 11:37
(ESV)
My first Christmas as a pastor, I was living in Corpus Christi and was thrilled at the prospect of preaching at my first Christmas Eve candlelight service ever. I spent hours crafting my message, I carefully scoured the sanctuary's Christmas decorations, making sure everything was in its place, and painstakingly proofread the service several times. The big evening came and with anxious expectancy, I arrived at the church two hours before the service was to begin. But then something completely unexpected happened. I glanced out the church windows and noticed our parking lot was turning white. "How can blacktop turn white?" I wondered to myself. So I walked outside to investigate further. That is when I discovered, falling from the sky, these little, white, crystallized flakes. In South Texas, I don't think these flakes have an official name, but in other regions of the country, I hear they call them "snow."
Unfortunately, because South Texas snow on Christmas Eve is a once-in-a-century phenomenon, our Christmas Eve worship attendance was abysmal. People either did not want to drive in what for them was a menacing white powder, or they took the opportunity to spend a white Christmas around the comfort of their living room fireplaces. The snow was indeed beautiful. But after all of my planning for our Christmas Eve service, the attendance was disappointing.
Apparently, Jesus wasn't battling inclement weather in Luke 11. Attendance at Jesus' church services was increasing exponentially. Luke 11:29 begins, "As the crowds increased... " That pretty much says it all. People were cramming into synagogues to hear Jesus preach. And Jesus does indeed preach. Addressing a packed house, he begins his sermon for the day: "This is a wicked generation" (verse 29).
Uh, maybe Jesus needs to go back to seminary and take a remedial preaching course. I was taught to begin a sermon on a slightly more upbeat note. But Jesus, even in front of one of his largest crowds yet, wastes no time cutting the hearts of his hearers: "This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign" (verse 29). It seems as though with Jesus' ever-increasing crowds came the crowds' ever-increasing appetite for miraculous feats. But this crowd's appetite was not a hungering for faith in Jesus as the Son of God; rather, it was a hungering for the cheap chills and thrills that miracles inevitably bring. But Jesus refuses to feed the crowd this kind of spiritual junk food. Jesus offers no miraculous thrill, but instead an ominous sign: "No sign will be given except the sign of Jonah" (verse 29). In Matthew's account of this story, Jesus further explains his statement: "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth" (Matthew 12:40). "I will die and be buried," Jesus warns. "But I will only be dead for three days."
One of the marks of a good sermon is that it moves people to do something. For instance, if a pastor preaches a sermon on reconciliation, one of his hopes might naturally be that his congregants will seek to reconcile their own broken relationships even as Christ reconciled us to God through Christ. Jesus' sermon, then, which is not only a good, but a perfect, sermon, is meant to move his listeners to action, as Jesus himself says: "Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it" (verse 28). Sadly, the people listening on this day do not obey, but rather rebel: "When Jesus left, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, waiting to catch him in something he might say" (verses 53-54). Jesus' sermon leads his listeners to action, but not to obedient action. Instead, it leads his listeners to persecute him. Indeed, his listeners eventually kill him and bury him for three days, according to the very miraculous sign he has just preached about. Thus, his persecutors become part of his sign.
Jesus still preaches. He still preaches through his Word. But Jesus doesn't only preach so that we will passively soak in his message, he also preaches so that we will do something with his message - so that we will obey him. And happily, Jesus has given us plenty to obey. From loving our neighbors to helping the poor to comforting the bereaved to approaching God in prayer, there's plenty to do today. I hope you'll heed God's voice and do it.
31:1 In the eleventh year, in the third month, on the first day of the month, the word of the LORD came to me: 2 “Son of man, say to Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude:
“Whom are you like in your greatness?
3 Behold, Assyria was a cedar in Lebanon,
with beautiful branches and forest shade,
and of towering height,
its top among the clouds.1
4 The waters nourished it;
the deep made it grow tall,
making its rivers flow
around the place of its planting,
sending forth its streams
to all the trees of the field.
5 So it towered high
above all the trees of the field;
its boughs grew large
and its branches long
from abundant water in its shoots.
6 All the birds of the heavens
made their nests in its boughs;
under its branches all the beasts of the field
gave birth to their young,
and under its shadow
lived all great nations.
7 It was beautiful in its greatness,
in the length of its branches;
for its roots went down
to abundant waters.
8 The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it,
nor the fir trees equal its boughs;
neither were the plane trees
like its branches;
no tree in the garden of God
was its equal in beauty.
9 I made it beautiful
in the mass of its branches,
and all the trees of Eden envied it,
that were in the garden of God.
10 “Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: Because it2 towered high and set its top among the clouds,3 and its heart was proud of its height, 11 I will give it into the hand of a mighty one of the nations. He shall surely deal with it as its wickedness deserves. I have cast it out. 12 Foreigners, the most ruthless of nations, have cut it down and left it. On the mountains and in all the valleys its branches have fallen, and its boughs have been broken in all the ravines of the land, and all the peoples of the earth have gone away from its shadow and left it. 13 On its fallen trunk dwell all the birds of the heavens, and on its branches are all the beasts of the field. 14 All this is in order that no trees by the waters may grow to towering height or set their tops among the clouds,4 and that no trees that drink water may reach up to them in height. For they are all given over to death, to the world below, among the children of man,5 with those who go down to the pit.
15 “Thus says the Lord GOD: On the day the cedar6 went down to Sheol I caused mourning; I closed the deep over it, and restrained its rivers, and many waters were stopped. I clothed Lebanon in gloom for it, and all the trees of the field fainted because of it. 16 I made the nations quake at the sound of its fall, when I cast it down to Sheol with those who go down to the pit. And all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the world below. 17 They also went down to Sheol with it, to those who are slain by the sword; yes, those who were its arm, who lived under its shadow among the nations.
18 “Whom are you thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden? You shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the world below. You shall lie among the uncircumcised, with those who are slain by the sword.
“This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, declares the Lord GOD.”
[1] 31:3
[2] 31:10
[3] 31:10
[4] 31:14
[5] 31:14
[6] 31:15
(ESV)
The next prophetic word against Egypt specifically took on the Pharaoh, king of Egypt. God compared Egypt in its greatness to Assyria, described as a giant Cedar tree. Tall with large branches, towering above the other trees of the forest, home for all the birds of the air, beautiful in its greatness, none could rival it. But instead of acknowledging its Maker, the Cedar was proud of its height, so God cut it down. Assyria had met its fate already, and Egypt would be next. The LORD would cause ruthless foreigners to cut it down and break its boughs. King Nebuchadnezzar, "a mighty one of the nations" would deal with Pharaoh as his wickedness deserved. Just as it is impossible for those who go down to Sheol to return to their former place, it was impossible for Egypt, and Pharaoh king of Egypt, to avoid the fate of Assyria, and the other nations, "all the trees of Eden," that had been cut down before it. All would be brought down in death to equal status, as nothing before the LORD God.
126:1 When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dream.
2 Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongue with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”
3 The LORD has done great things for us;
we are glad.
4 Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like streams in the Negeb!
5 Those who sow in tears
shall reap with shouts of joy!
6 He who goes out weeping,
bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy,
bringing his sheaves with him.
127:1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.
3 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children1 of one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.2
[1] 127:4
[2] 127:5
(ESV)