just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.

Zechariah asked the angel, “How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well along in years.”

(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)

and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.

(as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”),

There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage,

The Boy Jesus at the Temple

Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover.

When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom.

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene—

Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph, the son of Heli,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land.

Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.

And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

Jesus Calls His First Disciples

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God.

Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.

How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.

I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”

And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?

He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”

“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’

‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’