Baruch 5: 1- 9
| 5:1 | “ ‘Take off, O Jerusalem, the garment of your sorrow and troubles, and put on your beauty and the honor of that eternal glory, which you have from God. |
| 5:2 | God will surround you with a double garment of justice, and he will set a crown on your head of everlasting honor. |
| 5:3 | For God will reveal his splendor in you to all who are under heaven. |
| 5:4 | For your name will be given to you by God for eternity: the peace of justice and the honor of piety. |
| 5:5 | Arise, O Jerusalem, and stand in exaltation, and look around towards the east, and see your sons, gathering together, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the sun, by the word of the Holy One, rejoicing in the remembrance of God. |
| 5:6 | For they went out from you on foot, led by the enemies, but the Lord will lead them to you, being carried in honor like sons of the kingdom. |
| 5:7 | For God has resolved to humble every high mountain and the longstanding cliffs, and to fill up the steep valleys in order to level the ground, so that Israel may walk diligently in the honor of God. |
| 5:8 | Yet the woods and every sweet-smelling tree have provided shade for Israel by the commandment of God. |
| 5:9 | For God will lead Israel with joy into the light of his majesty, with mercy and justice, which is from him.’ ” |
Philippians 1: 4-6, 8-11
| 1:4 | always, in all my prayers, making supplication for all of you with joy, |
| 1:5 | because of your communion in the Gospel of Christ, from the first day even until now. |
| 1:6 | I am confident of this very thing: that he who has begun this good work in you will perfect it, unto the day of Christ Jesus. |
| 1:8 | For God is my witness how, within the heart of Jesus Christ, I long for all of you. |
| 1:9 | And this I pray: that your charity may abound more and more, with knowledge and with all understanding, |
| 1:10 | so that you may be confirmed in what is better, in order that you may be sincere and without offense on the day of Christ: |
| 1:11 | filled with the fruit of justice, through Jesus Christ, in the glory and praise of God. |
Luke 3: 1-6
| 3:1 | Then, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being procurator of Judea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, |
| 3:2 | under the high priests Annas and Caiaphas: the word of the Lord came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. |
| 3:3 | And he went into the entire region of the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, |
| 3:4 | just as it has been written in the book of the sermons of the prophet Isaiah: “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight his paths. |
| 3:5 | Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low. And what is crooked shall be made straight. And the rough paths shall be made into level ways. |
| 3:6 | And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” |