Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

3 Behold, I send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me; and the Lord whom ye seek will suddenly come to his temple, and the Angel of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he cometh, saith Jehovah of hosts.

² But who shall endure the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? For he will be like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' lye.

³ And he shall sit [as] a refiner and purifier of silver; and he will purify the children of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver; and they shall offer unto Jehovah an oblation in righteousness.

⁴ Then shall the oblation of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto Jehovah, as in the days of old, and as in former years.

⁶⁸ Blessed be [the] Lord the God of Israel, because he has visited and wrought redemption for his people,

⁶⁹ and raised up a horn of deliverance for us in the house of David his servant;

⁷⁰ as he spoke by [the] mouth of his holy prophets, who have been since the world began;

⁷¹ deliverance from our enemies and out of the hand of all who hate us;

⁷² to fulfil mercy with our fathers and remember his holy covenant,

⁷³ [the] oath which he swore to Abraham our father,

⁷⁴ to give us, that, saved out of the hand of our enemies, we should serve him without fear

⁷⁵ in piety and righteousness before him all our days.

⁷⁶ And *thou*, child, shalt be called [the] prophet of [the] Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of [the] Lord to make ready his ways;

⁷⁷ to give knowledge of deliverance to his people by [the] remission of their sins

⁷⁸ on account of [the] bowels of mercy of our God; wherein [the] dayspring from on high has visited us,

⁷⁹ to shine upon them who were sitting in darkness and in [the] shadow of death, to guide our feet into [the] way of peace.

³ I thank my God for my whole remembrance of you,

⁴ constantly in my every supplication, making the supplication for you all with joy,

⁵ because of your fellowship with the gospel, from the first day until now;

⁶ having confidence of this very thing, that he who has begun in you a good work will complete it unto Jesus Christ's day:

⁷ as it is righteous for me to think this as to you all, because ye have *me* in your hearts, and that both in my bonds and in the defence and confirmation of the glad tidings ye are all participators in my grace.

⁸ For God is my witness how I long after you all in [the] bowels of Christ Jesus.

⁹ And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in full knowledge and all intelligence,

¹⁰ that ye may judge of and approve the things that are more excellent, in order that ye may be pure and without offence for Christ's day,

¹¹ being complete as regards the fruit of righteousness, which [is] by Jesus Christ, to God's glory and praise.

3 Now in the fifteenth year of the government of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother tetrarch of Ituraea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,

² in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, [the] word of God came upon John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.

³ And he came into all the district round the Jordan, preaching [the] baptism of repentance for [the] remission of sins,

⁴ as it is written in [the] book of [the] words of Esaias the prophet: Voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of [the] Lord, make straight his paths.

⁵ Every gorge shall be filled up, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked [places] shall become a straight [path], and the rough places smooth ways,

⁶ and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.