Daily Readings - 23/12/2025

^3:1 Look, I am going to send my messenger to prepare a way before me. And the Lord you are seeking will suddenly enter his Temple; and the angel of the covenant whom you are longing for, yes, he is coming, says Yahweh Sabaoth.

^3:2 Who will be able to resist the day of his coming? Who will remain standing when he appears? For he is like the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ alkali.

^3:3 He will take his seat as refiner and purifier; he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and then they will make the offering to Yahweh as it should be made.

^3:4 The offering of Judah and Jerusalem will then be welcomed by Yahweh as in former days, as in the years of old.

^3:23 Know that I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before my day comes, that great and terrible day.

^3:24 He shall turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the hearts of children towards their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a curse.

^25:1 To you, Yahweh, I lift up my soul,

^25:2 O my God.

^25:3 No, those who hope in you are never shamed, shame awaits disappointed traitors.

^25:4 Yahweh, make your ways known to me, teach me your paths.

^25:5 set me in the way of your truth, and teach me, for you are the God who saves me.

^25:6 Remember your kindness, Yahweh, your love, that you showed long ago.

^25:8 Yahweh is so good, so upright, he teaches the way to sinners;

^25:9 in all that is right he guides the humble, and instructs the poor in his way

^25:10 All Yahweh’s paths are love and truth for those who keep his covenant and his decrees.

^25:11 For the sake of your name, Yahweh, forgive my guilt, for it is great.

^25:12 Everyone who fears Yahweh will be taught the course a man should choose;

^25:13 his soul will live in prosperity, his children have the land for their own.

^25:14 The close secret of Yahweh belongs to them who fear him, his covenant also, to bring them knowledge.

^25:15 My eyes are always on Yahweh, for he releases my feet from the net.

^25:16 Turn to me, take pity on me, alone and wretched as I am!

^25:17 Relive the distress of my heart, free me from my sufferings.

^25:18 See my misery and pain, forgive all my sins!

^25:19 See how my enemies multiply, and how violent their hatred has grown.

^25:20 Watch over my soul, rescue me; let me not be shamed: I take shelter in you.

^25:21 Let innocence and integrity be my protection, since my hope is in you, Yahweh. Redeem Israel, God, from all his troubles.

^1:57 Meanwhile the time came for Elizabeth to have her child, and she gave birth to a son;

^1:58 and when her neighbours and relations heard that the Lord had shown her so great a kindness, they shared her joy.

^1:59 Now on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child; they were going to call[*j] him Zechariah after his father,

^1:60 but his mother spoke up. ‘No,’ she said ‘he is to be called John.’

^1:61 They said to her, ‘But no one in your family has that name’,

^1:62 and made signs to his father to find out what he wanted him called.

^1:63 The father asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, ‘His name is John’. And they were all astonished.

^1:64 At that instant his power of speech returned and he spoke and praised God.

^1:65 All their neighbours were filled with awe and the whole affair was talked about throughout the hill country of Judaea.

^1:66 All those who heard of it treasured it in their hearts. ‘What will this child turn out to be?’ they wondered. And indeed the hand of the Lord was with him.