Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁴⁶ Mary responded, “Oh, how I praise the Lord. ⁴⁷ How I rejoice in God my Savior! ⁴⁸ For he took notice of his lowly servant girl, and now generation after generation forever shall call me blest of God. ⁴⁹ For he, the mighty Holy One, has done great things to me. ⁵⁰ His mercy goes on from generation to generation, to all who reverence him.

⁵¹ “How powerful is his mighty arm! How he scatters the proud and haughty ones! ⁵² He has torn princes from their thrones and exalted the lowly. ⁵³ He has satisfied the hungry hearts and sent the rich away with empty hands. ⁵⁴ And how he has helped his servant Israel! He has not forgotten his promise to be merciful. ⁵⁵ For he promised our fathers—Abraham and his children—to be merciful to them forever.”

¹⁸ Then David went into the Tabernacle and sat before the Lord and prayed, “O Lord God, why have you showered your blessings on such an insignificant person as I am?

²³ What other nation in all the earth has received such blessings as Israel, your people? For you have rescued your chosen nation in order to bring glory to your name. You have done great miracles to destroy Egypt and its gods. ²⁴ You chose Israel to be your people forever, and you became our God.

²⁵ “And now, Lord God, do as you have promised concerning me and my family. ²⁶ And may you be eternally honored when you have established Israel as your people and have established my dynasty before you. ²⁷ For you have revealed to me, O Lord of heaven, God of Israel, that I am the first of a dynasty which will rule your people forever; that is why I have been bold enough to pray this prayer of acceptance. ²⁸ For you are indeed God, and your words are truth; and you have promised me these good things— ²⁹ so do as you have promised! Bless me and my family forever! May our dynasty continue on and on before you; for you, Lord God, have promised it.”

⁶ Abraham had the same experience—God declared him fit for heaven only because he believed God’s promises. ⁷ You can see from this that the real children of Abraham are all the men of faith who truly trust in God.

^8-9 What’s more, the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would save the Gentiles also, through their faith. God told Abraham about this long ago when he said, “I will bless those in every nation who trust in me as you do.” And so it is: all who trust in Christ share the same blessing Abraham received.

¹⁰ Yes, and those who depend on the Jewish laws to save them are under God’s curse, for the Scriptures point out very clearly, “Cursed is everyone who at any time breaks a single one of these laws that are written in God’s Book of the Law.” ¹¹ Consequently, it is clear that no one can ever win God’s favor by trying to keep the Jewish laws because God has said that the only way we can be right in his sight is by faith. As the prophet Habakkuk says it, “The man who finds life will find it through trusting God.” ¹² How different from this way of faith is the way of law, which says that a man is saved by obeying every law of God, without one slip. ¹³ But Christ has bought us out from under the doom of that impossible system by taking the curse for our wrongdoing upon himself. For it is written in the Scripture, “Anyone who is hanged on a tree is cursed” (as Jesus was hung upon a wooden cross^[a]).

¹⁴ Now God can bless the Gentiles, too, with this same blessing he promised to Abraham; and all of us as Christians can have the promised Holy Spirit through this faith.