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Both of them were righteous in the sight of God, observing all the Lord’s commands and decrees blamelessly.
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Once when Zechariah’s division was on duty and he was serving as priest before God,
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He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.
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The angel said to him, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news.
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The Birth of Jesus Foretold
In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee,
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But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God.
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You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus.
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He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David,
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The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
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For no word from God will ever fail.”
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and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
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On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him after his father Zechariah,
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Then they made signs to his father, to find out what he would like to name the child.
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Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue set free, and he began to speak, praising God.
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Zechariah’s Song
His father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
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“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.
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the oath he swore to our father Abraham:
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because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven
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The Birth of Jesus
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.
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Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
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“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
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The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
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On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.
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Jesus Presented in the Temple
When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord
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Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required,
