Prophecy of Birth to the Virgin

²⁶ Then in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by Adonai into a town in the Galilee named Natzeret ²⁷ and to a virgin engaged to a man named Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Miriam. ²⁸ And coming to her, the angel said, “Shalom, favored one! Adonai is with you.^[a]” ²⁹ But at the message, she was perplexed and kept wondering what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ The angel spoke to her, “Do not be afraid, Miriam, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ Behold, you will become pregnant and give birth to a son, and you shall call His name Yeshua. ^{[b] 32} He will be great and will be called Ben-Elyon. Adonai Elohim will give Him the throne of David,^[c] His father. ³³ He shall reign over the house of Jacob for all eternity, and His kingdom will be without end.”^[d]

³⁴ Miriam said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am not intimate with a man?”^[e]

³⁵ And responding, the angel said to her, “The Ruach ha-Kodesh will come upon you, and the power of Elyon will overshadow you. Therefore, the Holy One being born will be called Ben-Elohim. ³⁶ Behold, even your relative Elizabeth has conceived a son in her old age; and the one who was called barren is six months pregnant. ³⁷ For nothing will be impossible with God.”^[f]

³⁸ So Miriam said, “Behold, the servant of Adonai. Let it be done to me according to your word.” And the angel left her.

²⁶ As it was in the days of Noah,^[a] so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man. ²⁷ They were eating, drinking, marrying, and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

²⁸ “It was just the same in the days of Lot.^[b] They were eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building. ²⁹ But on the day Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroyed them all. ³⁰ Things will be the same on the day when the Son of Man is made fully known. ³¹ In that day, the one who is on the roof, and his possessions in the house, must not go down to take them away. In the same way, the one who is in the field must not turn back. ³² Remember Lot’s wife! ^{[c] 33} Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life will preserve it.

³⁴ “I tell you, on that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken along and the other left. ³⁵ There will be two women grinding at the same place. One will be taken and the other left.” (³⁶ )^[d]

³⁷ “Where, Lord?” they replied.

And He said to them, “Where there is a corpse, there also will the vultures be gathered.”^[e]

³⁶ While they were speaking of these things, Yeshua Himself stood in the midst of them and said, “Shalom Aleichem!” ³⁷ But they were startled and terrified, thinking they were seeing a ghost.

³⁸ Then He said to them, “Why are you so shaken? And why do doubts arise in your heart? ³⁹ Look at My hands and My feet—it is I Myself! Touch Me and see! For a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” ⁴⁰ And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.

⁴¹ But while they were still in disbelief due to joy and wonder, He said to them, “Do you have anything to eat here?”

⁴² They gave Him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³ and He took it and ate it in their presence. ⁴⁴ Then He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you—everything written concerning Me in the Torah of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.

⁴⁵ Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, ⁴⁶ and He said to them, “So it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷ and that repentance for the removal of sins^[a] is to be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ^{[b] 48} You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹ And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Yeshua Ascends into Heaven

⁵⁰ Then Yeshua led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands^[c] and blessed them. ⁵¹ And while blessing them, He departed from them and was taken up into heaven. ⁵² After worshiping Him, they returned to Jerusalem with great joy. ⁵³ And they were continually in the Temple, praising God.

⁶ But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all those who are descended from Israel are Israel, ⁷ nor are they all children because they are Abraham’s seed; rather, “Your seed shall be called through Isaac.” ^{[a] 8} That is, it is not the children of the flesh who are children of God; rather, the children of the promise are counted as seed. ⁹ For the word of promise is this: “At this time I will come, and Sarah shall have a son.”

Midrash on Abraham’s Two Sons

²¹ Tell me, you who want to be under Torah, don’t you understand^[a] the Torah? ²² For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free woman. ^{[b] 23} But one—the son by the slave woman—was born naturally;^[c] while the other—the son by the free woman—was through the promise. ²⁴ Now these things are being treated allegorically, for these are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai, giving birth to slavery—this is Hagar. ²⁵ But this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery along with her children. ²⁶ But the Jerusalem above is free—she is our mother. ²⁷ For it is written:

²⁸ Now you, brothers and sisters—like Isaac, you are children of promise. ²⁹ But just as at that time the one born according to the flesh persecuted the one born according to the Ruach, so it is now. ³⁰ But what does the Scripture say? “Drive out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son”^[e] of the free woman. ³¹ So then, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman but of the free woman.

The Promise and the Oath

¹³ Now when God made His promise to Abraham—since He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, ¹⁴ saying, “Surely I will bless you, and surely I will multiply you.” ^{[a] 15} And so after waiting patiently, Abraham reached the promise. ^{[b] 16} For people swear by someone greater; and the oath, as confirmation, is an end to all their disputing. ¹⁷ In the same way God, determining to point out more clearly to the heirs of the promise the unchanging nature of His purpose, guaranteed it with an oath. ¹⁸ So by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie,^[c] we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. ¹⁹ We have this hope as an anchor of the soul, both firm and steady—a hope that enters the inner place behind the curtain. ^{[d] 20} Yeshua has entered there as a forerunner on our behalf, having become Kohen Gadol “forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”^[e]

¹³ These all died in faith without receiving the things promised—but they saw them and welcomed them from afar, and they confessed that they were strangers and sojourners on the earth. ^{[a] 14} For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. ¹⁵ If indeed they had been thinking about where they had come from, they would have had opportunity to return. ¹⁶ But as it is, they yearn for a better land—that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

¹⁷ By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. Yes, he who had received the promises was offering up his one and only son— ¹⁸ the one about whom it was said, “Through Isaac offspring shall be named for you.” ^{[b] 19} He reasoned that God was able to raise him up even from the dead—and in a sense, he did receive him back from there.

Show Faith with Works

¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith, but does not have works? Can such faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in shalom, keep warm and well fed,” but you do not give them what the body needs, what good is that? ¹⁷ So also faith, if it does not have works, is dead by itself.

¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith without works and I will show you faith by my works. ¹⁹ You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe—and shudder! ²⁰ But do you want to know, you empty person, that faith without works is dead? ²¹ Wasn’t Abraham our father proved righteous by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? ²² You see that faith worked together with his works, and by the works his faith was made complete. ²³ The Scripture was fulfilled that says, “And Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness”^[a]—and he was called God’s friend. ^{[b] 24} You see that a man is proved righteous by works and not by faith alone.

⁴ For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but threw them into Sheol.^[a] He put them in chains of gloomy darkness, to be held until the judgment. ^{[b] 5} He did not spare the ancient world. He preserved only Noah, a proclaimer of righteousness, along with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly. ⁶ He devastated the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reducing them to ashes^[c]—making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. ⁷ He rescued Lot, a righteous man deeply troubled by the shameless immorality of the wicked. ^{[d] 8} (For that righteous man, while living among them, was tormented in his righteous soul day after day by lawless deeds he saw and heard.) ⁹ Therefore the Lord certainly knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and how to keep the unrighteous being punished until the Day of Judgment— ¹⁰ especially those who follow after the flesh in its unclean desires and who despise the Lord’s authority.^[e]

Brazen and arrogant, these people do not tremble while slandering glorious beings; ¹¹ yet even angels, though stronger and more powerful, do not bring a slanderous charge against them before the Lord.