The Year of the LORD’s Favor
(Luke 4:16–30)

1The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the meek, so as to heal the contrite of heart, to preach leniency to captives and release to the confined,

2and so to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vindication of our God: to console all who are mourning,

3to take up the mourners of Zion and to give them a crown in place of ashes, an oil of joy in place of mourning, a cloak of praise in place of a spirit of grief. And there, they shall be called the strong ones of justice, the planting of the Lord, unto glorification.

4And they will rebuild the deserted places of past ages, and they will raise up the ruins of antiquity, and they will repair the desolate cities, which had been dissipated for generation after generation.

5And foreigners will stand up and will pasture your flocks. And the sons of sojourners will be your farmers and the workers of your vineyards.

6But you yourselves will be called the priests of the Lord. It will be said to you, “You are the ministers of our God.” You will eat from the strength of the Gentiles, and you will pride yourself on their glory.

7Instead of your double confusion and shame, they will praise their portion. Because of this, they will possess double in their land. Everlasting joy will be for them.

8For I am the Lord, who loves judgment and who holds hatred for robbery within a burnt offering. And I will turn their work into truth, and I will forge a perpetual covenant with them.

9And they will know their offspring among the nations, and their progeny in the midst of the peoples. All who see them will recognize them: that these are the offspring whom the Lord has blessed.

10I will rejoice greatly in the Lord, and my soul will exult in my God. For he has clothed me with the vestments of salvation, and he has wrapped me in the clothing of justice, like a groom arrayed with a crown, and like a bride adorned with her jewels.

11For as the earth brings forth its seedlings and the garden produces its seeds, so will the Lord God bring forth justice and praise in the sight of all the nations.