Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
3 Lo, I am sending My messenger, And he hath prepared a way before Me, And suddenly come in unto his temple Doth the Lord whom ye are seeking, Even the messenger of the covenant, Whom ye are desiring, Lo, he is coming, said Jehovah of Hosts.
2 And who is bearing the day of his coming? And who is standing in his appearing? For he [is] as fire of a refiner, And as soap of a fuller.
3 And he hath sat, a refiner and purifier of silver, And he hath purified the sons of Levi, And hath refined them as gold and as silver, And they have been to Jehovah bringing nigh a present in righteousness.
4 And sweet to Jehovah hath been the present of Judah and Jerusalem, As in days of old, and as in former years.
68 `Blessed [is] the Lord, the God of Israel, Because He did look upon, And wrought redemption for His people,
69 And did raise an horn of salvation to us, In the house of David His servant,
70 As He spake by the mouth of His holy prophets, Which have been from the age;
71 Salvation from our enemies, And out of the hand of all hating us,
72 To do kindness with our fathers, And to be mindful of His holy covenant,
73 An oath that He sware to Abraham our father,
74 To give to us, without fear, Out of the hand of our enemies having been delivered,
75 To serve Him, in holiness and righteousness Before Him, all the days of our life.
76 And thou, child, Prophet of the Highest Shalt thou be called; For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord, To prepare His ways.
77 To give knowledge of salvation to His people In remission of their sins,
78 Through the tender mercies of our God, In which the rising from on high did look upon us,
79 To give light to those sitting in darkness and death-shade, To guide our feet to a way of peace.'
3 I give thanks to my God upon all the remembrance of you,
4 always, in every supplication of mine for you all, with joy making the supplication,
5 for your contribution to the good news from the first day till now,
6 having been confident of this very thing, that He who did begin in you a good work, will perform [it] till a day of Jesus Christ,
7 according as it is righteous for me to think this in behalf of you all, because of my having you in the heart, both in my bonds, and [in] the defence and confirmation of the good news, all of you being fellow-partakers with me of grace.
8 For God is my witness, how I long for you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ,
9 and this I pray, that your love yet more and more may abound in full knowledge, and all judgment,
10 for your proving the things that differ, that ye may be pure and offenceless -- to a day of Christ,
11 being filled with the fruit of righteousness, that [is] through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
3 And in the fifteenth year of the government of Tiberius Caesar -- Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother, tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene --
2 Annas and Caiaphas being chief priests -- there came a word of God unto John the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness,
3 and he came to all the region round the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of reformation -- to remission of sins,
4 as it hath been written in the scroll of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying, `A voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, straight make ye His paths;
5 every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straightness, and the rough become smooth ways;
6 and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'