Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)
46 Mary said,
“My soul declares that the Lord is great,
47 my spirit exults in my savior, my God.
48 He saw his servant-girl in her humility;
from now, I’ll be blessed by all peoples to come.
49 The Powerful One, whose name is Holy,
has done great things for me, for me.
50 His mercy extends from father to son,
from mother to daughter for those who fear him.
51 Powerful things he has done with his arm:
he routed the arrogant through their own cunning.
52 Down from their thrones he hurled the rulers,
up from the earth he raised the humble.
53 The hungry he filled with the fat of the land,
but the rich he sent off with nothing to eat.
54 He has rescued his servant, Israel his child,
because he remembered his mercy of old,
55 just as he said to our long-ago ancestors—
Abraham and his descendants forever.”
6 It’s like Abraham. “He believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness.” 7 So you know that it’s people of faith who are children of Abraham. 8 The Bible foresaw that God would justify the nations by faith, so it announced the gospel to Abraham in advance, when it declared that “the nations will be blessed in you.” 9 So you see: the people of faith are blessed along with faithful Abraham.
Redeemed from the law’s curse
10 Because, you see, those who belong to the “works-of-the-law” camp are under a curse! Yes, that’s what the Bible says: “Cursed is everyone who doesn’t stick fast by everything written in the book of the law, to perform it.” 11 But, because nobody is justified before God in the law, it’s clear that “the righteous shall live by faith.” 12 The law, however, is not by faith: rather, “the one who does them shall live in them.”
13 The Messiah redeemed us from the curse of the law, by becoming a curse on our behalf, as the Bible says: “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.” 14 This was so that the blessing of Abraham could flow through to the nations in Messiah Jesus—and so that we might receive the promise of the spirit, through faith.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.