just as the original eye-witnesses who became teachers of the message have handed it down to us.

For that reason, Theophilus, and because I have investigated it all carefully from the beginning, I have determined to write a connected account of it for Your Excellency,

it fell to his lot, according to the priests' practice, to go into the sanctuary of the Lord and burn the incense,

while all the throng of people was outside, praying at the hour of the incense offering.

And 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 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."

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

"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.

And Mary said, "I am the Lord's slave. Let it be as you say." Then the angel left her.

In those days Mary set out and hurried to the hill-country, to a town in Judah,

Blessed is she who has believed, For what the Lord has promised her will be fulfilled!"

But they made signs to the child's father and asked him what he wished to have the child named.

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.

It was the first census, taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.

and she gave birth to her first-born son; and she wrapped him up, and laid him in a manger, for there was no room for them at the inn.

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

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

And all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them,

but Mary treasured up all they had said, and pondered over it.

And the shepherds went back glorifying God and praising him for all that they had heard and seen in fulfilment of what they had been told.

When he was eight days old and it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, as the angel had named him, before his birth was first expected.

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

And under the Spirit's influence he went into the Temple, and when Jesus' parents brought him there to do for him what the Law required,

The child's father and mother were astonished at what Symeon said.

and she had been a widow until she was now eighty-four. She never left the Temple, but worshipped night and day with fasting and prayer.

She came up just at that time and gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were living in expectation of the liberation of Jerusalem.

His parents used to go to Jerusalem every year at the Passover Festival.

and everyone who heard him was astonished at his intelligence and at the answers he made.

He said to them, "How did you come to look for me? Did you not know that I must be at my Father's house?"

But they did not understand what he told them.

Every hollow must be filled up, And every mountain and hill leveled. What is crooked is to be made straight, And the rough roads are to be made smooth,

So he would say to the crowds that came out there to be baptized by him, "You brood of snakes! Who warned you to fly from the wrath that is coming?

Then produce fruit that will be consistent with your professed repentance! And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham for our forefather,' for I tell you, God can produce descendants for Abraham right out of these stones!

But the axe is already lying at the roots of the trees. Any tree that fails to produce good fruit is going to be cut down and thrown into the fire."

The crowds would ask him, "Then what ought we to do?"

Even tax-collectors came to be baptized, and they said to him, "Master, what ought we to do?"

And soldiers would ask him, "And what ought we to do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money or make false charges against people, but be satisfied with your pay."

He has his winnowing fork in his hand, to clean up his threshing-floor, and store his wheat in his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with inextinguishable fire."

Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his work. He was the son, it was supposed, of Joseph, the son of Eli,

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

for forty days by the Spirit, and was tempted by the devil. In all those days he ate nothing, and when they were over he was famished.

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.

If you will do homage before me, it shall all be yours."

And the roll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him, and he unrolled it and found the place where it says,

"The spirit of the Lord is upon me, For he has consecrated me to preach the good news to the poor, He has sent me to announce to the prisoners their release and to the blind the recovery of their sight, To set the down-trodden at liberty,

And he rolled up the roll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed upon him.

And they all spoke well of him and were astonished at the winning words that fell from his lips, and they said, "Is he not Joseph's son?"

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 Elijah was not sent to one of them, but to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon.

and they got up and drove him out of the town and took him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, intending to throw him down from it.

and they were amazed at his teaching, for he spoke with authority.

There was a man in the synagogue who was possessed by the spirit of a foul demon and he cried out loudly,

"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!"

Jesus reproved him and said, "Silence! Get out of him!" And the demon threw the man down in the midst of them, and came out of him, without doing him any harm.

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 he stood over her and reproved the fever and it left her, and she got up and waited on them.

And demons came out of many people, crying out, "You are the Son of God!" But he reproved them and forbade them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ.

When it was day, he left the house and made his way to a lonely spot, and crowds of people went in search of him, and overtook him and tried to keep him from leaving them.

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

and he saw two boats on the shore of the lake, for the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets.

And 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 taught the crowds of people from the boat.

When he stopped speaking, he said to Simon, "Push out into deep water, and then put down your nets for a haul."

Simon answered, "Master, we worked all night and caught nothing, but as you tell me to do it, I will put down the nets."

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

For he and all the men with him were perfectly amazed at the haul of fish they had made,

And he stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I do choose! Be cured!" And the leprosy immediately left him,

Yet the news about him spread more and more, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be cured of their diseases.

But Jesus saw what they were discussing, and said to them, "What are you pondering over in your minds?

And he got up at once before them all, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home, praising God.

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

Then Levi gave a great entertainment for him in his house, and there was a great throng of tax-collectors and others who were at table with them.

And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled about it to his disciples, and said, "Why do you eat and drink with tax-collectors and irreligious people?"

Jesus answered them, "It is not well people but the sick who have to have the doctor.

They said to him, "John's disciples observe frequent fasts and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but your disciples eat and drink."

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.

And nobody puts new wine into old wine-skins, or if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and run out, and the skins will be spoiled.

One Sabbath he happened to be passing through the wheat fields, and his disciples were picking the heads of wheat, and eating them, rubbing them in their hands.

And some of the Pharisees said, "Why do you do what it is against the Law to do on the Sabbath?"

Jesus answered, "Have you not read even what David did, when he and his companions were hungry?

How he went into the house of God and took the Presentation Loaves, which it was against the Law for anyone but the priests to eat, and ate them with his companions?"

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

Jesus said to them, "I want to ask you, Is it allowable on the Sabbath to do people good or to do them harm? to save life or to destroy it?"

And he looked around at them all and said to the man, "Hold out your hand!" And he did so, and his hand was restored.

But they were perfectly furious, and discussed with one another what they could do to Jesus.

It was in those days that he went up on the mountain to pray, and passed the whole night in prayer to God.

Judas, the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who turned out a traitor.

"Alas for you who have plenty to eat now, for you will be hungry! "Alas for you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep!

Give to everyone that asks of you, and if anyone takes away what is yours, do not demand it back.

If you love only those who love you, what merit is there in that? For even godless people love those who love them.

And if you help only those who help you, what merit is there in that? Even godless people act in that way.

And if you lend only to people from whom you expect to get something, what merit is there in that? Even godless people lend to godless people, meaning to get it back again in full.

Why do you keep looking at the speck in your brother's eye, and pay no attention to the beam that is in your own?

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

A good man, out of the good he has accumulated in his heart, produces good, and a bad man, out of what he has accumulated that is bad, produces what is bad. For his mouth says only what his heart is full of.

Why do you call me: 'Lord! Lord!' and not do what I tell you?

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

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

But the man who listens to it, and does not act upon it, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation. The torrent burst upon it, and it collapsed at once, and the wreck of that house was complete."

A Roman captain had a slave whom he thought a great deal of, and the slave was sick and at the point of death.