The Year of the Lord's Favor

(Matthew 2:19-23; Matthew 13:53-58; Mark 6:1-6; Luke 2:39-40; Luke 4:16-30)

1THE spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me: he hath sent me to preach to the meek, to heal the contrite of heart, and to preach a release to the captives, and deliverance to them that are shut up.

2To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God: to comfort all that mourn:

3To appoint to the mourners of Sion, and to give them a crown for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of grief: and they shall be called in it the mighty ones of justice, the planting of the Lord to glorify him.

4And they shall build the places that have been waste from of old, and shall raise up ancient ruins, and shall repair the desolate cities, that were destroyed for generation and generation.

5And strangers shall stand and shall feed your flocks: and the sons of strangers shall be your husbandmen, and the dressers of your vines.

6But you shall be called the priests of the Lord: to you it shall be said: Ye ministers of our God: you shall eat the riches of the Gentiles, and you shall pride yourselves in their glory.

7For your double confusion and shame, they shall praise their part: therefore shall they receive double in their land, everlasting joy shall be unto them.

8For I am the Lord that love judgment, and hate robbery in a holocaust: and I will make their work in truth, and I will make a perpetual covenant with them.

9And they shall know their seed among the Gentiles, and their offspring in the midst of peoples: all that shall see them, shall know them, that these are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.

10I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, and my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation: and with the robe of justice he hath covered me, as a bridegroom decked with a crown, and as a bride adorned with her jewels.

11For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth her seed to shoot forth: so shall the Lord God make justice to spring forth, and praise before all the nations.