Jesus’ Birth Foretold

²⁶ Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin ^[a]engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the ^[b]descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was ^[c]Mary. ²⁸ And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, ^[d]favored one! The Lord ^[e]is with you.” ²⁹ But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. ³⁰ The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; ³³ and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” ³⁴ Mary said to the angel, “How ^[f]can this be, since I ^[g]am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the ^[h]holy Child shall be called the Son of God. ³⁶ And behold, even your relative Elizabeth has also conceived a son in her old age; and ^[i]she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. ³⁷ For ^[j]nothing will be impossible with God.” ³⁸ And Mary said, “Behold, the ^[k]bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

Mary Visits Elizabeth

³⁹ Now ^[l]at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah, ⁴⁰ and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. ⁴² And she cried out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! ⁴³ And ^[m]how has it happened to me, that the mother of my Lord would come to me? ⁴⁴ For behold, when the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. ⁴⁵ And blessed is she who ^[n]believed that there would be a fulfillment of what had been spoken to her ^[o]by the Lord.”

The Magnificat

⁴⁶ And Mary said:

⁵⁶ And Mary stayed with her about three months, and then returned to her home.

Vision of Abominations in Jerusalem

8 It came about in the sixth year, on the fifth day of the sixth month, as I was sitting in my house with the elders of Judah sitting before me, that the hand of the Lord ^[a]God fell on me there. ² Then I looked, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of ^[b]a man; from His loins and downward there was the appearance of fire, and from His loins and upward the appearance of brightness, like the appearance of ^[c]glowing metal. ³ He stretched out the form of a hand and caught me by a lock of my head; and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the ^[d]north gate of the inner court, where the seat of the idol of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy, was located. ⁴ And behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, like the appearance which I saw in the plain.

⁵ Then He said to me, “Son of man, raise your eyes now toward the north.” So I raised my eyes toward the north, and behold, to the north of the altar gate was this idol of jealousy at the entrance. ⁶ And He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what they are doing, the great abominations which the house of Israel are committing here, so that I would be far from My sanctuary? But yet you will see still greater abominations.”

⁷ Then He brought me to the entrance of the court, and when I looked, behold, a hole in the wall. ⁸ He said to me, “Son of man, now dig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall, and behold, an entrance. ⁹ And He said to me, “Go in and see the wicked abominations that they are committing here.” ¹⁰ So I entered and looked, and behold, every form of creeping things and beasts and detestable things, with all the idols of the house of Israel, were carved on the wall all around. ¹¹ Standing in front of them were seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan standing among them, each man with his censer in his hand and the fragrance of the cloud of incense rising. ¹² Then He said to me, “Son of man, do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are committing in the dark, each man in the room of his carved images? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us; the Lord has forsaken the land.’” ¹³ And He said to me, “Yet you will see still greater abominations which they are committing.”

¹⁴ Then He brought me to the entrance of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and behold, women were sitting there weeping for Tammuz. ¹⁵ He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Yet you will see still greater abominations than these.”

¹⁶ Then He brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they were ^[e]prostrating themselves eastward toward the sun. ¹⁷ He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they have committed here, that they have filled the land with violence and provoked Me repeatedly? For behold, they are putting the twig to their nose. ¹⁸ Therefore, I indeed will deal in wrath. My eye will have no pity nor will I spare; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, yet I will not listen to them.”