Read the Gospels in 40 Days

1 Dear Theophilos:

Concerning the matters that have taken place among us, many people have undertaken to draw up accounts ² based on what was handed down to us by those who from the start were eyewitnesses and proclaimers of the message. ³ Therefore, Your Excellency, since I have carefully investigated all these things from the beginning, it seemed good to me that I too should write you an accurate and ordered narrative, ⁴ so that you might know how well-founded are the things about which you have been taught.

⁵ In the days of Herod, King of Y’hudah, there was a cohen named Z’kharyah who belonged to the Aviyah division. His wife was a descendant of Aharon, and her name was Elisheva. ⁶ Both of them were righteous before God, observing all the mitzvot and ordinances of Adonai blamelessly. ⁷ But they had no children, because Elisheva was barren; and they were both well along in years.

⁸ One time, when Z’kharyah was fulfilling his duties as cohen during his division’s period of service before God, ⁹ he was chosen by lot (according to the custom among the cohanim) to enter the Temple and burn incense. ¹⁰ All the people were outside, praying, at the time of the incense burning, ¹¹ when there appeared to him an angel of Adonai standing to the right of the incense altar. ¹² Z’kharyah was startled and terrified at the sight. ¹³ But the angel said to him, “Don’t be afraid, Z’kharyah; because your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elisheva will bear you a son, and you are to name him Yochanan. ¹⁴ He will be a joy and a delight to you, and many people will rejoice when he is born, ¹⁵ for he will be great in the sight of Adonai. He is never to drink wine or other liquor, and he will be filled with the Ruach HaKodesh even from his mother’s womb. ¹⁶ He will turn many of the people of Isra’el to Adonai their God. ¹⁷ He will go out ahead of Adonai in the spirit and power of Eliyahu to turn the hearts of fathers to their children^[a] and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready for Adonai a people prepared.”

¹⁸ Z’kharyah said to the angel, “How can I be sure of this? For I am an old man; my wife too is well on in years.” ¹⁹ “I am Gavri’el,” the angel answered him, “and I stand in the presence of God. I was sent to speak to you, to give you this good news. ²⁰ Now, because you didn’t believe what I said, which will be fulfilled when the time comes, you will be silent, unable to speak until the day these things take place.”

²¹ Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Z’kharyah; they were surprised at his taking so long in the Temple. ²² But when he came out unable to talk to them, they realized that he had seen a vision in the Temple; speechless, he communicated to them with signs.

²³ When his period of his Temple service was over, he returned home. ²⁴ Following this, Elisheva his wife conceived, and she remained five months in seclusion, saying, ²⁵ “Adonai has done this for me; he has shown me favor at this time, so as to remove my public disgrace.”

²⁶ In the sixth month, the angel Gavri’el was sent by God to a city in the Galil called Natzeret, ²⁷ to a virgin engaged to a man named Yosef, of the house of David; the virgin’s name was Miryam. ²⁸ Approaching her, the angel said, “Shalom, favored lady! Adonai is with you!” ²⁹ She was deeply troubled by his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. ³⁰ The angel said to her, “Don’t be afraid, Miryam, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ Look! You will become pregnant, you will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Yeshua. ³² He will be great, he will be called Son of Ha‘Elyon. Adonai, God, will give him the throne of his forefather David; ³³ and he will rule the House of Ya‘akov forever — there will be no end to his Kingdom.” ³⁴ “How can this be,” asked Miryam of the angel, “since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel answered her,

³⁶ “You have a relative, Elisheva, who is an old woman; and everyone says she is barren. But she has conceived a son and is six months pregnant! ³⁷ For with God, nothing is impossible.” ³⁸ Miryam said, “I am the servant of Adonai; may it happen to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.

³⁹ Without delay, Miryam set out and hurried to the town in the hill country of Y’hudah ⁴⁰ where Z’kharyah lived, entered his house and greeted Elisheva. ⁴¹ When Elisheva heard Miryam’s greeting, the baby in her womb stirred. Elisheva was filled with the Ruach HaKodesh ⁴² and spoke up in a loud voice,

⁴³ “But who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ For as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy! ⁴⁵ Indeed you are blessed, because you have trusted that the promise Adonai has made to you will be fulfilled.”

⁴⁶ Then Miryam said,

⁵⁶ Miryam stayed with Elisheva for about three months and then returned home.

⁵⁷ The time arrived for Elisheva to have her baby, and she gave birth to a son. ⁵⁸ Her neighbors and relatives heard how good Adonai had been to her, and they rejoiced with her.

⁵⁹ On the eighth day, they came to do the child’s b’rit-milah. They were about to name him Z’kharyah, after his father, ⁶⁰ when his mother spoke up and said, “No, he is to be called Yochanan.” ⁶¹ They said to her, “None of your relatives has that name,” ⁶² and they made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called. ⁶³ He motioned for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s surprise he wrote, “His name is Yochanan.” ⁶⁴ At that moment, his power of speech returned, and his first words were a b’rakhah to God. ⁶⁵ All their neighbors were awestruck; and throughout the hill country of Y’hudah, people talked about all these things. ⁶⁶ Everyone who heard of them said to himself, “What is this child going to be?” For clearly the hand of Adonai was with him.

⁶⁷ His father Z’kharyah was filled with the Ruach HaKodesh and spoke this prophecy:

⁸⁰ The child grew and became strong in spirit, and he lived in the wilderness until the time came for him to appear in public to Isra’el.

2 Around this time, Emperor Augustus issued an order for a census to be taken throughout the Empire. ² This registration, the first of its kind, took place when Quirinius was governing in Syria. ³ Everyone went to be registered, each to his own town. ⁴ So Yosef, because he was a descendant of David, went up from the town of Natzeret in the Galil to the town of David, called Beit-Lechem, in Y’hudah, ⁵ to be registered, with Miryam, to whom he was engaged, and who was pregnant. ⁶ While they were there, the time came for her to give birth; ⁷ and she gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him in cloth and laid him down in a feeding trough, because there was no space for them in the living-quarters.

⁸ In the countryside nearby were some shepherds spending the night in the fields, guarding their flocks, ⁹ when an angel of Adonai appeared to them, and the Sh’khinah of Adonai shone around them. They were terrified; ¹⁰ but the angel said to them, “Don’t be afraid, because I am here announcing to you Good News that will bring great joy to all the people. ¹¹ This very day, in the town of David, there was born for you a Deliverer who is the Messiah, the Lord. ¹² Here is how you will know: you will find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a feeding trough.” ¹³ Suddenly, along with the angel was a vast army from heaven praising God:

¹⁵ No sooner had the angels left them and gone back into heaven than the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go over to Beit-Lechem and see this thing that has happened, that Adonai has told us about.” ¹⁶ Hurrying off, they came and found Miryam and Yosef, and the baby lying in the feeding trough. ¹⁷ Upon seeing this, they made known what they had been told about this child; ¹⁸ and all who heard were amazed by what the shepherds said to them. ¹⁹ Miryam treasured all these things and kept mulling them over in her heart. ²⁰ Meanwhile, the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen; it had been just as they had been told.

²¹ On the eighth day, when it was time for his b’rit-milah, he was given the name Yeshua, which is what the angel had called him before his conception.

²² When the time came for their purification according to the Torah of Moshe, they took him up to Yerushalayim to present him to Adonai ²³ (as it is written in the Torah of Adonai, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to Adonai”^[g]) ²⁴ and also to offer a sacrifice of a pair of doves or two young pigeons,^[h] as required by the Torah of Adonai.

²⁵ There was in Yerushalayim a man named Shim‘on. This man was a tzaddik, he was devout, he waited eagerly for God to comfort Isra’el, and the Ruach HaKodesh was upon him. ²⁶ It had been revealed to him by the Ruach HaKodesh that he would not die before he had seen the Messiah of Adonai. ²⁷ Prompted by the Spirit, he went into the Temple courts; and when the parents brought in the child Yeshua to do for him what the Torah required, ²⁸ Shim‘on took him in his arms, made a b’rakhah to God, and said,

³³ Yeshua’s father and mother were marvelling at the things Shim‘on was saying about him. ³⁴ Shim‘on blessed them and said to the child’s mother, Miryam,

³⁶ There was also a prophet named Hannah Bat-P’nu’el, of the tribe of Asher. She was a very old woman — she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage ³⁷ and had remained a widow ever since; now she was eighty-four. She never left the Temple grounds but worshipped there night and day, fasting and praying. ³⁸ She came by at that moment and began thanking God and speaking about the child to everyone who was waiting for Yerushalayim to be liberated.

³⁹ When Yosef and Miryam had finished doing everything required by the Torah of Adonai, they returned to the Galil, to their town Natzeret.

⁴⁰ The child grew and became strong and filled with wisdom — God’s favor was upon him.

⁴¹ Every year Yeshua’s parents went to Yerushalayim for the festival of Pesach. ⁴² When he was twelve years old, they went up for the festival, as custom required. ⁴³ But after the festival was over, when his parents returned, Yeshua remained in Yerushalayim. They didn’t realize this; ⁴⁴ supposing that he was somewhere in the caravan, they spent a whole day on the road before they began searching for him among their relatives and friends. ⁴⁵ Failing to find him, they returned to Yerushalayim to look for him. ⁴⁶ On the third day they found him — he was sitting in the Temple court among the rabbis, not only listening to them but questioning what they said; ⁴⁷ and everyone who heard him was astonished at his insight and his responses. ⁴⁸ When his parents saw him, they were shocked; and his mother said to him, “Son! Why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been terribly worried looking for you!” ⁴⁹ He said to them, “Why did you have to look for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be concerning myself with my Father’s affairs?” ⁵⁰ But they didn’t understand what he meant.

⁵¹ So he went with them to Natzeret and was obedient to them. But his mother stored up all these things in her heart.

⁵² And Yeshua grew both in wisdom and in stature, gaining favor both with other people and with God.

3 In the fifteenth year of Emperor Tiberius’ rule; when Pontius Pilate was governor of Y’hudah, Herod ruler of the Galil, his brother Philip ruler of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, ² with ‘Anan and Kayafa being the cohanim g’dolim; the word of God came to Yochanan Ben-Z’kharyah in the desert. ³ He went all through the Yarden region proclaiming an immersion involving turning to God from sin in order to be forgiven. ⁴ It was just as had been written in the book of the sayings of the prophet Yesha‘yahu,

⁷ Therefore, Yochanan said to the crowds who came out to be immersed by him, “You snakes! Who warned you to escape the coming punishment? ⁸ If you have really turned from your sins, produce fruit that will prove it! And don’t start saying to yourselves, ‘Avraham is our father’! For I tell you that God can raise up for Avraham sons from these stones! ⁹ Already the axe is at the root of the trees, ready to strike; every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown in the fire!”

¹⁰ The crowds asked Yochanan, “So then, what should we do?” ¹¹ He answered, “Whoever has two coats should share with somebody who has none, and whoever has food should do the same.” ¹² Tax-collectors also came to be immersed; and they asked him, “Rabbi, what should we do?” ¹³ “Collect no more than the government assesses,” he told them. ¹⁴ Some soldiers asked him, “What about us? What should we do?” To them he said, “Don’t intimidate anyone, don’t accuse people falsely, and be satisfied with your pay.”

¹⁵ The people were in a state of great expectancy, and everyone was wondering whether perhaps Yochanan himself might be the Messiah; ¹⁶ so Yochanan answered them all, “I am immersing you in water, but he who is coming is more powerful than I — I’m not worthy to untie his sandals! He will immerse you in the Ruach HaKodesh and in fire. ¹⁷ He has with him his winnowing fork to clear out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the straw with unquenchable fire!”

¹⁸ And with many other warnings besides these he announced the Good News to the people.

¹⁹ But Yochanan also denounced Herod the regional governor for taking as his own wife Herodias, the wife of his brother, and for all the other wicked things Herod had done; ²⁰ whereupon Herod added this to the rest: he locked up Yochanan in prison.

²¹ While all the people were being immersed, Yeshua too was immersed. As he was praying, heaven was opened; ²² the Ruach HaKodesh came down on him in physical form like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, whom I love; I am well pleased with you.”

²³ Yeshua was about thirty years old when he began his public ministry. It was supposed that he was a son of Yosef who was of Eli,

²⁴ of Mattat, of Levi, of Malki, of Yannai, of Yosef,

²⁵ of Mattityahu, of Amotz, of Nachum, of Hesli, of Naggai,

²⁶ of Machat, of Mattityahu, of Shim‘i, of Yosef, of Yodah,

²⁷ of Yochanan, of Reisha, of Z’rubavel, of Sh’altiel, of Neri,

²⁸ of Malki, of Addi, of Kosam, of Elmadan, of Er,

²⁹ of Yeshua, of Eli‘ezer, of Yoram, of Mattat, of Levi,

³⁰ of Shim‘on, of Y’hudah, of Yosef, of Yonam, of Elyakim,

³¹ of Mal’ah, of Manah, of Mattatah, of Natan, of David,

³² of Yishai, of ‘Oved, of Bo‘az, of Salmon, of Nachshon,

³³ of Amminadav, of Admin, of Arni, of Hetzron, of Peretz, of Y’hudah,

³⁴ of Ya‘akov, of Yitz’chak, of Avraham, of Terach, of Nachor,

³⁵ of S’rug, of Re‘u, of Peleg, of ‘Ever, of Shelah,

³⁶ of Keinan, of Arpakhshad, of Shem, of Noach, of Lemekh,

³⁷ of Metushelach, of Hanokh, of Yered, of Mahalal’el, of Keinan,

³⁸ of Enosh, of Shet, of Adam, of God.