Luke 1:55-75

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.