have handed them down to us, I too, most excellent Theophilus, because I have carefully investigated them all from the start, have felt impressed to write them out in order for you

Once when he was acting as priest before God, when his division was on duty, it fell to his lot,

while all the throng of people were praying outside at the hour of the incense burning.

In the meantime, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right of the altar of incense.

Now you will keep silent and be unable to talk until the day when this takes place, because you did not believe what I told you, for it will be fulfilled at the proper time."

But when he came out, he could not speak to them, and so they knew that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. Meanwhile he kept on making signs to them, and remained dumb.

"This is what the Lord has done for me when He smiled upon me to take away my disgrace among men."

But she was agitated at what he said, and began to ponder what this greeting meant.

Then Mary said, "I am the Lord's slave. May what you say take place with me." Then the angel left her.

Blessed is she who has believed, for what is promised to her by the Lord will be fulfilled."

So it was time for Elizabeth to bear a child, and she bore a son.

So they began to make signs to his father to find out what he might wish him to be named.

Then the use of his voice and tongue was at once restored,: and he began to speak, and continued to praise God.

and all who heard them kept them in their hearts, and said, "What then is this child to be?" for the hand of the Lord was with him.

to show mercy to our forefathers, and carry out His sacred covenant,

and she bore her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him up and laid Him in a manger, for there was no room for them at the inn.

And all who heard it were astounded at what was told them by the shepherds,

but Mary continued to treasure it all up and to ponder it in her heart.

Then the shepherds went back continuing to give glory and praise to God for all that they had heard and seen, just as it had been told them.

When He was eight days old and it was time to circumcise Him, He was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before Mary had conceived Him.

Now when the period of their purification ended, in accordance with the law of Moses, they took Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord, to do as it is written in the law of the Lord,

and to offer the sacrifice in accordance with what is specified in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle-doves or two young pigeons."

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not die without seeing the Lord's Messiah.

And His father and mother kept wondering at the things spoken by Symeon about Him.

She was very old; from girlhood she had lived seven years with a husband, and now had been a widow eighty years. She never left the temple, but continued to worship all day and all night with fastings and prayers.

Just at that time she came up and began to give thanks to God and to speak about the child to all who were expecting the deliverance of Jerusalem.

His parents were in the habit of going to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.

and stayed the usual time. When they returned, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but His parents were not aware of it.

Now everyone who was listening to Him was showing astonishment at His intelligence and at His answers.

When His parents saw Him, they were utterly amazed, and yet His mother said to Him, "My child, why did you treat us so? Just see how your father and I, in agony of mind, have been searching for you!"

Then He said to them, "Why is it that you were searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"

But they did not understand what He said to them.

as it is written in the sermon-book of the prophet Isaiah: "Here is a voice of one shouting in the desert, 'Get the road ready for the Lord, make the paths straight for Him.

So he used to say to the crowds that continued to come out there to be baptized by him: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to escape from the wrath that is coming?

Produce, then, fruit that is consistent with the repentance that you profess, and do not even begin to say within yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our forefather,' for I tell you, God can raise up descendants for Abraham even out of these stones.

Now the axe is already lying at the roots of the trees. Every tree, then, that fails to bear good fruit is to be cut down and thrown into the fire."

So the crowds were asking him this question, "What then ought we to do?"

Then even the tax-collectors came to be baptized, and said to him, "Teacher, what ought we to do?"

Then some soldiers too were asking him, "What ought we too to do?" So he said to them, "Never extort money from anyone, never make a false accusation, and always be satisfied with your wages."

His winnowing-fork is in His hand, and He will clean out His threshing-floor, and store His wheat in His barn; but He will burn up the chaff with fire inextinguishable."

added this on top of it all, that he put John in prison.

and the Holy Spirit came down upon Him in bodily form as a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, "You are my Son, my Beloved! In you I am delighted!"

the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er,

while He was being tempted by the devil. During that time He ate nothing, and so at the end of it He felt hungry.

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

So if you will worship before me just once, it shall all be yours."

And Jesus answered him, "It has been said, 'You must not try the Lord your God.'"

The roll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him, and He unrolled it and found the place where it was written:

Then He rolled up the roll and gave it back to the attendant and took His seat. Now the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were gazing at Him.

So they all began to speak well of Him and to wonder at the gracious words that fell from His lips, and yet they continued to say, "Is He not Joseph's son?"

and yet Elijah was not sent to a single one of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.

And there were many lepers in Israel in Elisha's time, and yet not one of them was cured except Naaman the Syrian."

and they rose up and drove Him out of town and took Him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, to hurl Him down the cliff.

"Ha! What do you want of us, Jesus, you Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You are God's Holy One."

But Jesus reproved him, saying "Be quiet! Get out of him at once!" So the demon threw the man down in the midst of them and came out of him without doing him any harm.

Amazement then seized them all and they continued to talk it over among themselves, and to say, "What does this message mean? For with authority and power He gives orders to foul spirits, and they come out."

Then He took His stand by her and reproved the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them.

Even demons came out of many people, shrieking and saying, "You are the Son of God!" But He reproved them and would not let them speak, because they knew that He was the Christ.

But He said to them, "To other towns also I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God, for that is what I was sent to do."

So He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to push out a little from the shore. Then He sat down and continued to teach the crowds from the boat.

When He stopped speaking, He said to Simon, "Push out into deep water, and set your nets for a haul."

When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' feet and said, "Leave me, Lord, because I am a sinful man."

For at the haul of fish that they had made, bewildering amazement had seized him and all his men,

So He reached out His hand and touched him, saying, "I do choose to; be cured." And at once the leprosy left him.

Then He warned him not to tell anybody, but rather He said, "Go, show yourself to the priest, and, to prove it to the people, make the offering for your purification, just as Moses prescribed."

Then at once he got up before them all, picked up the pallet on which he had been lying, and went off home, giving praise to God.

After this He went out and saw a tax-collector named Levi in his seat at the tax-collector's desk, and He said to him, "Follow me."

Then Levi gave a great reception for Him in his house, and there was a large crowd of tax-collectors and others who were at table with them.

Now the Pharisees and their scribes were grumbling at His disciples, and were saying, "Why are you eating and drinking with tax-collectors and notorious sinners?"

It is not upright but sinful people that I have come to invite to repentance."

But a time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them; at that time they will fast."

Then He told them a short story: "No one tears a piece from a new coat and puts it on an old one; or if he does, he will tear the new one too, and the patch from the new coat will not match the old one.

So no one puts fresh wine into old wine bottles; or, if he does, the fresh wine will burst the bottles, the wine will run out, and the bottles will be ruined.

One Sabbath He happened to be passing through the wheat fields, and His disciples were pulling and eating the heads of wheat, rubbing them in their hands.

And some of the Pharisees said, "Why are you doing what is against the law to do on the Sabbath?"

Jesus answered them, "Did you never read what David did, when he and his soldiers became hungry?

How he went into the house of God and took and ate the sacred loaves, which it was against the law for anyone to eat except the priests, and gave some to his soldiers?"

But He knew what they were thinking, and He said to the man with the withered hand, "Get up and stand at the front." So he got up and stood there.

Then Jesus said to them, "Is it right on the Sabbath to do people good, or to do them evil, to save life or to take it?"

Then He glanced around at them all and said to him, "Put out your hand." And he did so, and his hand was at once completely restored.

But they were filled with fury and began to discuss what they could do to Jesus.

Now it was in those days that He went up on the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.

Now if you practice loving only those who love you, what credit do you get for that? Why, even notorious sinners practice loving those who love them.

And if you practice doing good only to those who do good to you, what credit do you get for that? Even notorious sinners practice the same.

And if you ever lend to people expecting to get it back, what credit do you get for that? Even notorious sinners practice lending to one another, expecting to get it back in full.

Why do you continue to look at the tiny speck in your brother's eye, but pay no attention to the heavy girder in your own eye?

How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me get that tiny speck out of your eye,' when you cannot see the girder in your own eye? You hypocrite! First get the girder out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly how to get out the tiny speck in your brother's eye.

The good man, out of his good inner storehouse, brings forth what is good, the bad man, out of his bad one, what is bad. For a man's mouth usually speaks the things that fill his heart.

"So why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' but do not practice what I tell you?

He is like a man who was building a house, who dug deep, and laid its foundation upon the rock; and when a flood came, the torrent burst upon that house but it could not shake it, because it was well built.

But the man who merely hears them and does not practice them is like a man who built a house upon the ground without a foundation. The torrent burst upon it, and at once it collapsed, and the wreck of that house was complete."

There was a Roman captain who had a slave that was very dear to him, and he was sick and at the point of death,

For I too am under authority of others, and have soldiers under me, and I order one to go, and he goes, another to come, and he comes, my slave to do this, and he does it."

When Jesus heard this, He was astounded at him, and turning to the crowd that was following Him He said, "I tell you, I have not found, in a single case among the Jews, so great faith as this!"

As He approached the gate of the town, look, there was being carried out a dead man, his mother's only son, and she was a widow! A considerable crowd of townspeople were with her.

At that very hour He cured many people of diseases and scourges and evil spirits, and graciously granted sight to many blind persons.

And so He answered them, "Go and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind are seeing and the crippled are walking, the lepers are being healed and the deaf are hearing, the dead are being raised and the poor are having the good news preached to them.

But when John's messengers had gone, He began to speak to the crowds about John: "What did you go out into the desert to gaze at? A reed that is tossed to and fro by the wind?

If not, what did you go out there to see? A man dressed in silks and satins? No. People who dress gorgeously and live luxuriously are found in royal palaces.

If not, then what did you go out there to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and one who is far more than a prophet.