Luke 1:55-75

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.”