Luke 1:11-77

¹¹Then God sent one of his angel messengers to that room, and he stood beside the metal table where that stuff was burning.

¹²Zechariah saw the angel there and got a big shock. He was really frightened.

¹³But the angel told him, “Don’t be frightened, Zechariah. God has heard what you have been asking him, and he will give you what you want. Your wife, Elizabeth, will have a baby boy, and you will name him John.

¹⁴You will be really happy, and a lot of other people will be happy with you.

¹⁵God will say that this kid is important, so you have to make sure he never drinks any kind of wine or grog at all. You see, the Holy Spirit will come into this kid while he is still inside his mother, before he gets born.

¹⁶And after he grows up he will get lots of you Israel people to turn away from bad things and turn back to God.

¹⁷Do you remember the story about God’s man called Elijah, that lived a long time ago? He had God’s spirit in him and he did powerful things. Well, in the same way, John will have God’s spirit and his power. He will come to this world ahead of the special man that God will send. John will get men that are fathers to love their kids. You know, there are some people now that don’t want God, but John will get them to listen to the sensible words of good people. In that way he will get people ready for the special man that God will send.”

¹⁸Zechariah said to the angel, “Just a minute. Is this message true? I am an old man, and my wife is old too. We are too old to have a baby. How can I be sure that this message is true?”

¹⁹The angel said, “Look, I am Gabriel. I am always close to God, and I do special jobs for him. And he sent me to tell you this good message.

²⁰And everything I said will happen at the right time. But you didn’t believe me, so now God will shut you up. You will not be able to talk until this kid gets born.”

²¹While they were talking in that room, the people outside were waiting for Zechariah. They were thinking, “Why is he staying a long time in that room?”

²²Then Zechariah came out, and he tried to talk to them, but he couldn’t say anything. He had to make signs with his hands, and at last they understood that he saw something powerful in that room.

²³After that Zechariah finished his days of work in God’s ceremony house, then he went home.

²⁴Soon after that his wife, Elizabeth, found out she was going to have a baby. She stayed inside her house for 5 months.

²⁵She said, “Wow. God is properly good to me. He will let me have a baby, and nobody will rubbish me any more.”

²⁶That baby grew inside Elizabeth for about 6 months. Then God sent one of his angel messengers, called Gabriel, to Galilee country, to a town called Nazareth.

²⁷He went there to a young girl that was not married, called Mary. Before that time, Mary didn’t ever sleep with any man, like a woman does with her husband. She was promised to a man called Joseph. He belonged to the family of David, the big boss of a long time ago.

²⁸Gabriel came to Mary and said, “Hello, Mary. God loves you and is good to you. He is here with you now and he will do something good for you.”

²⁹This worried Mary. She thought, “What’s he talking about?”

³⁰So Gabriel said, “Don’t be frightened, Mary. God is real happy with you.

³¹Listen. You will soon have a baby son, and you will call him Jesus.

³²God will make him the biggest boss of you Israel people, like David, his grand-father of a long time ago. He will be very important, and he will be the biggest boss for ever. He will never stop being the biggest boss. People will call him the Son of God.”

³⁴Mary said, “But I’m not married. How will I get a baby?”

³⁵Gabriel said, “The Holy Spirit will come to you, and God’s power will come over you and give you a baby. Your baby will be real special, and people will say he is God’s son.

³⁶And you know your cousin Elizabeth? Everyone reckoned she is too old to have a baby, but now she is carrying one inside her. She has been carrying it for the last 6 months, and soon she will have a baby.

³⁷You see, God can do anything. Nothing is too hard for him.”

³⁸Mary said, “All right then, I will do whatever God wants. I want everything to happen just like you have said.” Then Gabriel left her.

³⁹A few days later Mary got up and quickly went south to a town in the hilly part of the country called Judea.

⁴⁰Zechariah and Elizabeth lived in that town. Mary went to their house, and went in and said, “Hello cousin” to Elizabeth.

⁴¹As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary say those words, she felt her baby jump inside her. And the Holy Spirit came into her,

⁴²and she talked really loud, she said, “God is really good to you, and he is making you happy. He is being more good to you than to any other woman. And he is being really good to your baby, too.

⁴³I’m not important, but you are the mother of my leader, the one from God. It is really good of you to visit me.

⁴⁴You see, as soon as I heard you say ‘hello,’ my baby inside me was so happy he jumped.

⁴⁵Yes, you believed that God will do everything he told you, and that makes you very happy.”

⁴⁶Mary said, “God is really good and really great. I feel that really deep inside myself, and I want to tell it to everybody.

⁴⁷God is the one that saves me, so my spirit is really happy.

⁴⁸God knew that I was not important, but he picked me, and now everyone will say that God has been good to me.

⁴⁹Yes, he is the really strong one, and he did great things for me. God is properly good, better than anyone else.

⁵⁰He is good to the people that respect him, and to their kids, and to their grand-kids, and to all their grand-kids to come.

⁵¹He did great things with his power, to show everyone that he is really strong. Those people that reckoned they were smart and strong, they all got frightened of him, and they ran away.

⁵²He chucked out the big bosses and took their power away. But he got people that were not important, and he made them bosses.

⁵³And he gave hungry people good food, and they ate till they were full. But he didn’t give anything to the rich people. They went away with nothing.

⁵⁴He is sorry for his own people, us Israel mob, and he helps us,

⁵⁵just like he promised to our grand-father Abraham, and to our other grand-fathers of long ago. He said he will look after us for ever.”

⁵⁶Mary stayed with Elizabeth about 3 months, then she went back to her own home.

⁵⁷Then the time came for Elizabeth to have her baby, and she had a son.

⁵⁸All her family, and the people that lived near her, they heard that she had a baby, and they knew that God had been very good to her. Elizabeth was happy, and they were all happy too.

⁵⁹When the baby was 8 days old, all those people came to Zechariah and Elizabeth’s place. The baby boy had to have a young man’s operation on that day, and they used to give a baby his name at that time. The people wanted to call him Zechariah, the same name that his father had.

⁶⁰But Elizabeth said, “No. His name is John.”

⁶¹They said, “What? Nobody in your family has that name.”

⁶²So they made signs with their hands to his father, to ask him what name he wanted to give to the boy.

⁶³Zechariah made signs to get them to give him something to write on, then he wrote, “His name is John.” Everyone was shocked.

⁶⁴Then, straight away, Zechariah started to talk again, and he told everyone that God is very great.

⁶⁵Everybody there was really surprised, and they told other people about everything that happened, and soon a lot of people in the hilly part of Judea country were talking about it.

⁶⁶Everyone that heard the news thought about it, and they said, “What will this kid be, after he grows up?” They knew God’s power was with that boy.

⁶⁷At that time, when Zechariah started talking again, the Holy Spirit came into him, and he told everyone a message from God. He said,

⁶⁸“The God of us Israel mob, he is a great God. He has come now to save us, his people.

⁶⁹He has sent us a very strong person to save us. You know about David, the boss that worked for God a long time ago, well this person is in David’s family.

⁷⁰God promised this to us a long time ago, and he got his men to tell us this message.

⁷¹God promised to save us from our enemies, and from everyone that hates us.

⁷²He promised to be good to our grand-fathers of long ago, and he will remember to do everything that he promised.

⁷³Yes, God will remember the things promised to Abraham, our grand-father of long ago.

⁷⁴He promised to save us from our enemies, so we can work for him without being frightened.

⁷⁵We can live God’s way and work for him in the right way, and we can do it all our lives.”

⁷⁶Then Zechariah talked to his baby boy, he said, “This word is for you, my son. Everyone will know that you tell people messages from God. You will go ahead of the one that God is sending to be our leader, and you will get everything ready for him.

⁷⁷You will teach his people how God can say they are not guilty for the bad things they did, and then God will save them.