Luke 1:38-80

³⁸So Mary said: “Yes, I am the Lord's slave! Let it happen to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

³⁹Then Mary quickly got ready and went into the hill country in those days, to a town of Judah,

⁴⁰and entered the house of Zacharias and saluted Elizabeth.

⁴¹Well it happened that as Elizabeth heard Mary's salutation the babe bounced up and down in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with Holy Spirit.

⁴²And she cried out with a great voice and said: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the Fruit of your womb!

⁴³Why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

⁴⁴Yes indeed, because as the sound of your salutation came into my ears the babe bounced up and down in my womb for joy.

⁴⁵Blessed is she who believed, because there will be a fulfillment of the things that have been spoken to her from the Lord.”

⁴⁶So Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord,

⁴⁷and my spirit has exulted over God my Savior,

⁴⁸in that He paid attention to the humble station of His slave (f). Yes indeed, because from now on all generations will declare me to be highly favored,

⁴⁹in that the Mighty One did sublime things for me, and Holy is His name.

⁵⁰His mercy is for generations of generations to those fearing Him.

⁵¹He has done mighty deeds with His arm; He has dispersed the arrogant in the reasoning of their hearts.

⁵²He has dethroned rulers and exalted the lowly.

⁵³He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty.

⁵⁴He has taken the part of His servant Israel, in remembrance of mercy,

⁵⁵just as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed while there is an age.”

⁵⁶So Mary stayed with her about three months, and returned to her house.

⁵⁷Now the time for Elizabeth to give birth was completed and she bore a son.

⁵⁸Her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had used His great mercy with her, and they rejoiced with her.

⁵⁹So it was, on the eighth day, that they came to circumcise the child, and they started calling him by the name of his father, Zacharias.

⁶⁰His mother reacted and said, “Absolutely not; he shall be called John!”

⁶¹So they said to her, “There is no one among your relatives who is called by this name.”

⁶²So they started motioning to his father, as to what he would have him called.

⁶³Asking for a writing tablet he wrote this: “His name is to be John!” They all marveled.

⁶⁴Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed and he started to speak, blessing God.

⁶⁵(Well a fear came on all who lived around them; and all these sayings kept being talked about throughout all the hill country of Judea.

⁶⁶All who heard kept them in their hearts saying, “What then will this child be?” And the hand of the Lord was with him.)

⁶⁷Now his father Zacharias was filled with Holy Spirit and prophesied saying:

⁶⁸“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has visited and provided redemption for His people;

⁶⁹and has raised up a horn of deliverance for us in the house of His servant David

⁷⁰—just as He spoke through the mouth of His holy prophets from antiquity—

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

⁷²to use mercy with our fathers, even to remember His Holy covenant,

⁷³the oath that He swore to our father Abraham;

⁷⁴to grant to us (having been rescued from the hand of our enemies) to serve Him without fear,

⁷⁵in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.

⁷⁶And you, child, will be called Prophet of the Most High, because you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,

⁷⁷to give a knowledge of salvation to His people by the forgiveness of their sins,

⁷⁸through the merciful compassions of our God, with which the divine Dawn has contemplated us,

⁷⁹to give light to those who are sitting in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

⁸⁰So the child kept growing and being strengthened in spirit, and he stayed in uninhabited areas until the day of his manifestation to Israel.