Readings for Celebrating Advent

⁶⁸ “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
    for He has visited and redeemed His people,
⁶⁹ and has raised up a horn of salvation for us
    in the house of His servant David,
⁷⁰ as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets of long ago,
⁷¹ that we should be saved from our enemies
    and from the hand of all who hate us,
⁷² to perform the mercy promised to our fathers
    and to remember His holy covenant,
⁷³     the oath which He swore to our father Abraham,
⁷⁴ to grant us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies,
    might serve Him without fear,
⁷⁵     in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our lives.

⁷⁶ “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Highest;
    for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,
⁷⁷ to give knowledge of salvation to His people
    by the remission of their sins,
⁷⁸ through the tender mercy of our God,
    whereby the sunrise from on high has visited us;
⁷⁹ to give light to those who sit in darkness
    and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”