2nd Sunday of Advent

1Take off the garment of your mourning and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. 2Put on the robe of the righteousness from God. Set on your head a diadem of the glory of the Everlasting. 3For God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven. 4For your name will be called by God forever “Righteous Peace, Godly Glory”. 5Arise, O Jerusalem, and stand upon the height. Look around you toward the east and see your children gathered from the going down of the sun to its rising at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them. 6For they went from you on foot, being led away by their enemies, but God brings them in to you carried on high with glory, on a royal throne. 7For God has appointed that every high mountain and the everlasting hills should be made low, and the valleys filled up to make the ground level, that Israel may go safely in the glory of God. 8Moreover the woods and every sweet smelling tree have shaded Israel by the commandment of God. 9For God will lead Israel with joy in the light of his glory with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.

1When the LORD brought back those who returned to Zion,

we were like those who dream.

2Then our mouth was filled with laughter,

and our tongue with singing.

Then they said among the nations,

“The LORD has done great things for them.”

3The LORD has done great things for us,

and we are glad.

4Restore our fortunes again, LORD,

like the streams in the Negev.

5Those who sow in tears will reap in joy.

6He who goes out weeping, carrying seed for sowing,

will certainly come again with joy, carrying his sheaves.

4always in every request of mine on behalf of you all, making my requests with joy, 5for your partnership in furtherance of the Good News from the first day until now; 6being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.

…

8For God is my witness, how I long after all of you in the tender mercies of Christ Jesus. 9This I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment, 10so that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense to the day of Christ, 11being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

1Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, 2during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. 3He came into all the region around the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for remission of sins.

4As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness,

‘Make ready the way of the Lord.

Make his paths straight.

5Every valley will be filled.

Every mountain and hill will be brought low.

The crooked will become straight,

and the rough ways smooth.

6All flesh will see God’s salvation.’”