Malachi · Luke's purpose · The Word became flesh …

Malachi 2–4 WEB

^2:1“Now, you priests, this commandment is for you. ²If you will not listen, and if you will not take it to heart, to give glory to my name,” says the LORD of Armies, “then I will send the curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have cursed them already, because you do not take it to heart. ³Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, and will spread dung on your faces, even the dung of your feasts; and you will be taken away with it. ⁴You will know that I have sent this commandment to you, that my covenant may be with Levi,” says the LORD of Armies. ⁵“My covenant was with him of life and peace; and I gave them to him that he might be reverent toward me; and he was reverent toward me, and stood in awe of my name. ⁶The law of truth was in his mouth, and unrighteousness was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and turned many away from iniquity. ⁷For the priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the LORD of Armies. ⁸But you have turned away from the path. You have caused many to stumble in the law. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi,” says the LORD of Armies. ⁹“Therefore I have also made you contemptible and wicked before all the people, according to the way you have not kept my ways, but have had respect for persons in the law. ¹⁰Don’t we all have one father? Hasn’t one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, profaning the covenant of our fathers? ¹¹Judah has dealt treacherously, and an abomination is committed in Israel and in Jerusalem; for Judah has profaned the holiness of the LORD which he loves, and has married the daughter of a foreign god. ¹²The LORD will cut off the man who does this, him who wakes and him who answers, out of the tents of Jacob and him who offers an offering to the LORD of Armies. ¹³“This again you do: you cover the LORD’s altar with tears, with weeping, and with sighing, because he doesn’t regard the offering any more, neither receives it with good will at your hand. ¹⁴Yet you say, ‘Why?’ Because the LORD has been witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and the wife of your covenant. ¹⁵Did he not make you one, although he had the residue of the Spirit? Why one? He sought godly offspring. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let no one deal treacherously against the wife of his youth. ¹⁶One who hates and divorces”, says the LORD, the God of Israel, “covers his garment with violence!” says the LORD of Armies. “Therefore pay attention to your spirit, that you don’t be unfaithful. ¹⁷You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, ‘How have we wearied him?’ In that you say, ‘Everyone who does evil is good in the LORD’s sight, and he delights in them;’ or ‘Where is the God of justice?’

^3:1“Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me! The Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to his temple. Behold, the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, is coming!” says the LORD of Armies. ²“But who can endure the day of his coming? And who will stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderers’ soap; ³and he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi, and refine them as gold and silver; and they shall offer to the LORD offerings in righteousness. ⁴Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the LORD as in the days of old and as in ancient years. ⁵I will come near to you to judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against the perjurers, and against those who oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and who deprive the foreigner of justice, and don’t fear me,” says the LORD of Armies. ⁶“For I, the LORD, don’t change; therefore you, sons of Jacob, are not consumed. ⁷From the days of your fathers you have turned away from my ordinances and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you,” says the LORD of Armies. “But you say, ‘How shall we return?’ ⁸Will a man rob God? Yet you rob me! But you say, ‘How have we robbed you?’ In tithes and offerings. ⁹You are cursed with the curse; for you rob me, even this whole nation. ¹⁰Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and test me now in this,” says the LORD of Armies, “if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there will not be enough room for. ¹¹I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast its fruit before its time in the field,” says the LORD of Armies. ¹²“All nations shall call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land,” says the LORD of Armies. ¹³“Your words have been harsh against me,” says the LORD. “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against you?’ ¹⁴You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God,’ and ‘What profit is it that we have followed his instructions and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of Armies? ¹⁵Now we call the proud happy; yes, those who work wickedness are built up; yes, they tempt God, and escape.’ ¹⁶Then those who feared the LORD spoke one with another; and the LORD listened and heard, and a book of memory was written before him for those who feared the LORD and who honored his name. ¹⁷They shall be mine,” says the LORD of Armies, “my own possession in the day that I make. I will spare them, as a man spares his own son who serves him. ¹⁸Then you shall return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who doesn’t serve him.

^4:1“For behold, the day comes, burning like a furnace, when all the proud and all who work wickedness will be stubble. The day that comes will burn them up,” says the LORD of Armies, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. ²But to you who fear my name shall the sun of righteousness arise with healing in its wings. You will go out and leap like calves of the stall. ³You shall tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I make,” says the LORD of Armies. ⁴“Remember the law of Moses my servant, which I commanded to him in Horeb for all Israel, even statutes and ordinances. ⁵Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD comes. ⁶He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

Luke 1:1–4 WEB

¹Since many have undertaken to set in order a narrative concerning those matters which have been fulfilled among us, ²even as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word delivered them to us, ³it seemed good to me also, having traced the course of all things accurately from the first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus; ⁴that you might know the certainty concerning the things in which you were instructed.

John 1:1–18 WEB

¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²The same was in the beginning with God. ³All things were made through him. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. ⁴In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it. ⁶There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷The same came as a witness, that he might testify about the light, that all might believe through him. ⁸He was not the light, but was sent that he might testify about the light. ⁹The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world didn’t recognize him. ¹¹He came to his own, and those who were his own didn’t receive him. ¹²But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become God’s children, to those who believe in his name: ¹³who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. ¹⁴The Word became flesh and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the only born Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. ¹⁵John testified about him. He cried out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me, for he was before me.’” ¹⁶From his fullness we all received grace upon grace. ¹⁷For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. ¹⁸No one has seen God at any time. The only born Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared him.

Matthew 1 WEB

¹The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. ²Abraham became the father of Isaac. Isaac became the father of Jacob. Jacob became the father of Judah and his brothers. ³Judah became the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar. Perez became the father of Hezron. Hezron became the father of Ram. ⁴Ram became the father of Amminadab. Amminadab became the father of Nahshon. Nahshon became the father of Salmon. ⁵Salmon became the father of Boaz by Rahab. Boaz became the father of Obed by Ruth. Obed became the father of Jesse. ⁶Jesse became the father of King David. David the king became the father of Solomon by her who had been Uriah’s wife. ⁷Solomon became the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam became the father of Abijah. Abijah became the father of Asa. ⁸Asa became the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat became the father of Joram. Joram became the father of Uzziah. ⁹Uzziah became the father of Jotham. Jotham became the father of Ahaz. Ahaz became the father of Hezekiah. ¹⁰Hezekiah became the father of Manasseh. Manasseh became the father of Amon. Amon became the father of Josiah. ¹¹Josiah became the father of Jechoniah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. ¹²After the exile to Babylon, Jechoniah became the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel became the father of Zerubbabel. ¹³Zerubbabel became the father of Abiud. Abiud became the father of Eliakim. Eliakim became the father of Azor. ¹⁴Azor became the father of Zadok. Zadok became the father of Achim. Achim became the father of Eliud. ¹⁵Eliud became the father of Eleazar. Eleazar became the father of Matthan. Matthan became the father of Jacob. ¹⁶Jacob became the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. ¹⁷So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the exile to Babylon fourteen generations; and from the carrying away to Babylon to the Christ, fourteen generations. ¹⁸Now the birth of Jesus Christ was like this: After his mother, Mary, was engaged to Joseph, before they came together, she was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, and not willing to make her a public example, intended to put her away secretly. ²⁰But when he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take to yourself Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. ²¹She shall give birth to a son. You shall name him Jesus, for it is he who shall save his people from their sins.” ²²Now all this has happened that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, ²³“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall give birth to a son. They shall call his name Immanuel,” which is, being interpreted, “God with us.” ²⁴Joseph arose from his sleep, and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took his wife to himself; ²⁵and didn’t know her sexually until she had given birth to her firstborn son. He named him Jesus.