Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

⁶⁸ Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. ⁶⁹ And he has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, ⁷⁰ just as he promised by the mouth of his holy prophets, who have been since the world began: ⁷¹ that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hands of all who hate us, ⁷² to fulfil the mercy promised to our fathers, to remember his holy covenant, ⁷³ and to perform the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, ⁷⁴ to give us, so that we, delivered out of the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear all the days of our life, ⁷⁵ in such holiness and righteousness as are accepted before him.

⁷⁶ And thou, child, shall be called the prophet of the Highest. For you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, ⁷⁷ and to give knowledge of salvation to his people for the remission of sins, ⁷⁸ through the tender mercy of our God, whereby the Dayspring from on high has visited us, ⁷⁹ to give light to those who sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

³ I thank my God with every remembrance of you, ⁴ always in all my prayers for you, and pray with gladness, ⁵ because of the fellowship that you have had in the gospel from the first day until now. ⁶ And I am confident of this: that he who began a good work in you will go forth with it until the day of Jesus Christ – ⁷ as it is fitting for me so to judge of you all, because I have you in my heart, and have you also every one companions of grace with me, even in my bonds, as I defend and establish the gospel.

⁸ For God is my witness how greatly I long after you all from the very heart root in Jesus Christ. ⁹ And this I pray: that your love may increase more and more in knowledge and in all experience, ¹⁰ that you may accept the things of most value, that you may be pure, and such as would hurt no man’s conscience until the day of Christ – ¹¹ filled with the fruits of righteousness, which fruits come by Jesus Christ for the glory and laud of God.

The preaching, baptism, and imprisonment of John. The baptism of Christ. A recital of the lineage of the fathers.

3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius the Emperor (Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch in Iturea and in the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene), ² when Annas and Caiaphas were the high priests, the word of God came to John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. ³ And he came into all the country about the Jordan River preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, ⁴ as it is written in the book of the sayings of Isaiah the prophet, which says: The voice of a crier in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make his paths straight! ⁵ Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low. And crooked things shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth. ⁶ And all flesh shall see the saviour sent by God.