This will bring gladness and delight to you, and many will rejoice over his birth.

Zechariah said to the angel, "How am I to know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in life."

The angel answered, "I am Gabriel. I stand in the very presence of God. I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.

Now you will keep silent and be unable to speak until the day when this happens, because you have not believed what I have said, for it will all be fulfilled in due time."

"This is what the Lord has done for me," she said, "now that he has deigned to remove the disgrace I have endured."

But she was startled at what he said, and wondered what this greeting meant.

Mary said to the angel, "How can this be, when I have no husband?"

And your relative, Elizabeth, although she is old, is going to give birth to a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was said to be barren.

For he has noticed his slave in her humble station, For from this time all the ages will think me favored!

and everyone who heard them kept them in mind, and said, "What is this child going to be?" For the Lord's hand was with him.

"By the lips of his holy prophets he promised of old to do this??71 To save us from our enemies and from the hands of all who hate us,

And this will prove it to you: You will find a baby wrapped up and lying in a manger."

When the angels left them and returned to heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Come! Let us go over to Bethlehem, and see this thing that has happened, that the Lord has told us of!"

When they saw this, they told what had been said to them about this child.

And he gave them his blessing, and said to Mary, the child's mother, "This child is destined to cause the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a portent that will be much debated??35 you yourself will be pierced to the heart??nd so the thoughts of many minds will be revealed."

When his parents saw him they were amazed, and his mother said to him. "My child, why did you treat us like this? Here your father and I have been looking for you, and have been very anxious."

As all this aroused people's expectations, and they were all wondering in their hearts whether John was the Christ,

And the devil said to him, "If you are God's son, tell this stone to turn into bread!"

And the devil said to him, "I will give you all this power and their splendor, for it has been turned over to me, and I can give it to anyone I please.

And he began by saying to them, "This passage of Scripture has been fulfilled here in your hearing today!"

He said to them, "No doubt you will quote this proverb to me: 'Doctor, cure yourself! Do the things here in your own country that we hear you did at Capernaum.'

And when the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all very angry,

And they were all amazed and said to one another, "What is the meaning of this teaching? For he gives orders authoritatively and effectually to the foul spirits, and they come out."

And the scribes and the Pharisees began to debate and say, "Who is this man who talks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?"

After this he went out, and he saw a tax-collector named Levi sitting at the tollhouse, and he said to him, "Follow me!"

He used this figure also in speaking to them: "No one tears a piece from a new coat and sews it on an old one, or if he does, he will both tear the new one and the piece from the new one will not match the old one.

If anyone comes to me and listens to this teaching of mine and acts upon it, I will show you whom he is like.

When he had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he went to Capernaum.

And they went to Jesus and urged him strongly to do it, and said, "He deserves to have you do this for him,

When Jesus heard this, he was astonished at him, and turning to the crowd that was following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such faith as this even in Israel!"

This story about him spread all over Judea and the surrounding country.

John's disciples told him of all this,

This is the man of whom the Scripture says, " 'Here I send my messenger on before you, He will prepare the road ahead of you!'

So what is there to which I can compare the men of this age? What are they like?

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were really a prophet, he would know who and what the woman is who is touching him, for she leads a wicked life."

And turning to the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came to your house; you did not give me any water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with tears and wiped them with her hair.

The men at table with him began to say to themselves, "Who is this man, who even forgives sins?"

And some fell on good soil, and grew up and yielded a hundred fold!" As he said this he called out, "Let him who has ears to hear with, listen!"

His disciples asked him what this figure meant.

This is what the figure means. The seed is God's message.

But Herod said, "John I have beheaded, but who can this be about whom I hear such reports?" And he endeavored to see him.

But he warned them particularly not to tell this to anyone,

It was about eight days after Jesus said this that he took Peter, John, and James, and went up on the mountain to pray.

And from the cloud came a voice that said, "This is my Son, my Chosen! Listen to him!"

and said to them, "Whoever welcomes this child on my account is welcoming me, and whoever welcomes me, welcomes him who has sent me. For it is the lowliest among you all who is really great."

When the disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, "Master, will you have us order fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"

After this the Master appointed seventy-two others, and sent them on before him, two by two, to every town or place to which he intended to come.

Whenever you go to stay at a house, first say, 'Peace to this household!'

'The very dust of your town that sticks to our feet we wipe off in protest. But understand this: the Kingdom of God is at hand!'

At that moment he was inspired with joy, and said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for hiding all this from the learned and intelligent, and revealing it to children! Yes, I thank you, Father, for choosing to have it so!

As he said this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the mother who bore you and nursed you!"

As the crowds pressed a round him, he went on to say, "This is a wicked age! It demands a sign, and no sign will be given it but the sign of Jonah.

For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be a sign to this age.

The queen of the south will rise with the men of this generation at the Judgment and will condemn them, for she came from the very ends of the earth to listen to Solomon's wisdom, and there is more than Solomon here!

Men of Nineveh will rise with this generation at the Judgment and will condemn it, for they repented at Jonah's preaching, and there is more than Jonah here.

When he said this, a Pharisee asked him to lunch with him, and he went to his house and took his place at table.

At this, one of the experts in the Law said to him, "Master, when you say that, you affront us too."

This is why the Wisdom of God said, 'I will send prophets and apostles to them, and some of them they will kill and some they will persecute'??50 so that this age may be charged with the blood of all the prophets that has been shed since the creation of the world,

from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you! This age will be charged with it all!

And he told them this story: "A certain rich man's lands yielded heavily.

Then he said, 'This is what I will do; I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and in them I will store all my grain and my goods.

But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your soul will be demanded of you. Then who will have all you have prepared?'

But you may be sure of this, that if the master of the house had known what time the thief was coming, he would have been on the watch, and would not have let his house be broken into.

Peter said to him, "Master, do you mean this figure for us, or is it for everybody?"

You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the look of the earth and sky; and why can you not interpret this present time?

And he answered, "Do you think, because this happened to them, that these Galileans were worse sinners than any other Galileans?

He used this figure: "A man had a fig tree growing in his garden, and he went to look for fruit on it, and could not find any.

And he said to the gardener, 'Here I have come three years to look for fruit on this fig tree, without finding any. Cut it down. Why should it waste the ground?'

He answered, 'Let it stand this one year more, sir, till I dig around it and manure it;

And did not this woman, who is a descendant of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen years, have to be released from those bonds on the Sabbath day?"

When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, and all the people were delighted at all the splendid things that he did.

And they could make no reply to this.

He noticed that the guests picked out the best places, and he gave them this illustration:

and your host will come and say to you 'Make room for this man,' and then you will proceed in confusion to take the poorest place.

One of the other guests heard this, and said to him, "Blessed is the man who shall be at the banquet in the Kingdom of God!"

So the slave went back, and reported this to his master. Then the master of the house was angry and said to his slave, 'Hurry out into the streets and squares of the city, and bring the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame in here!'

and say, 'This man started to erect a building, and could not finish it!'

And the Pharisees and scribes grumbled, and said, "This man welcomes irreligious people, and even eats with them!"

So in speaking to them he used this figure:

And he said to his disciples, "There was a rich man who had a manager, and it was reported to him that this man was squandering his property.

So he called him in and said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Make an accounting for your conduct of my affairs, for you cannot be manager any longer!'

And his master praised the dishonest manager, because he had acted shrewdly. For the sons of this age are shrewder in their relation to their own age than the sons of the light.

The Pharisees, who were avaricious, heard all this, and they ridiculed him.

Besides there is a great chasm set between you and us, so that those who want to go over from this side to you cannot, and they cannot cross from your side to us.'

for I have five brothers; let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torture.'

And the Master said, "If your faith is as big as a mustard seed, you might have said to this mulberry tree, 'Be pulled up by the roots and planted in the sea,' and it would have obeyed you!

Was no one found to return and give thanks to God except this foreigner?"

But first he must go through much suffering, and be refused by this age.

They said to him, "Where will this be, Master?" And he said to them, "Wherever there is a dead body the vultures will flock!"

yet because this widow bothers me, I will protect her, so that she may not finally wear me out with her coming.' "

And the Master said, "Listen to what this dishonest judge said!

To some who were confident of their own uprightness, and thought nothing of others, he used this illustration:

The Pharisee stood up and uttered this prayer to himself: 'O God, I thank you that I am not like other men, greedy, dishonest, or adulterous, like that tax-collector.

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "There is one thing that you still lack. Sell all that you have, and divide the money among the poor, and then you will have riches in heaven; and come back and be a follower of mine."

who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the coming age eternal life."

And they did not understand any of this; the words were obscure to them, and they did not know what he meant.

And when they saw this, everyone complained, and said, "He has gone to stay with an irreligious man!"

Jesus said to him, "Salvation has come to this house today, for he too is a descendant of Abraham.

As they were listening to this, Jesus went on to give them an illustration, because he was near Jerusalem and they supposed that the Kingdom of God was immediately going to appear.

But his countrymen hated him, and they sent a delegation after him to say, 'We do not want this man made king over us.'