Now during the blessing he departed and was taken up into heaven.

How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while you yourself don’t see the beam in your own? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

The expert answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

But they did not have a child, because Elizabeth was barren, and they were both very old.

In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,

“And look, your relative Elizabeth has also become pregnant with a son in her old age – although she was called barren, she is now in her sixth month!

She exclaimed with a loud voice, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child in your womb!

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they wanted to name him Zechariah after his father.

All their neighbors were filled with fear, and throughout the entire hill country of Judea all these things were talked about.

And the child kept growing and becoming strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day he was revealed to Israel.

Now there were shepherds nearby living out in the field, keeping guard over their flock at night.

So they hurried off and located Mary and Joseph, and found the baby lying in a manger.

There was also a prophetess, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old, having been married to her husband for seven years until his death.

But he replied, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

While the people were filled with anticipation and they all wondered whether perhaps John could be the Christ,

where for forty days he endured temptations from the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were completed, he was famished.

Then Jesus, in the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and news about him spread throughout the surrounding countryside.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed,

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him.

And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, yet none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.”