Luke 1 - Plain English Version(PEV)

1-3I’m writing this for you, my good friend Thiofilus.

A lot of great things happened here, and the people that saw those things happen told everyone what they saw, and a lot of people wrote down those stories that they heard. After that, I read those stories, and I talked to the people that saw those things, and I checked up on everything they said, right from the start. So now I am carefully sorting out those stories, and I am writing them in this book for you.

4You already heard some of this, but I want you to know the right story, and I want you to be sure about it.

An angel messenger told an old man and his wife that they were going to have a baby

5When Herod was the big boss over Judea country, there was a man there that was called Zekariah. He was one of the men that looked after the Jewish ceremonies. There were different groups that did the Jewish ceremonies for the people at different times. He was in the group called the Abijah mob. His wife belonged to a family of Jewish ceremony people too. Her name was Elizabeth.

18Zekariah said to the angel, “But that’s hard for me to believe. I am an old man, and my wife is old too. We are too old now to have a baby. How can I be sure that your message is true?”

19The angel said, “Look, I am Gabriel. I am always close to God, and I do special jobs for him. And he sent me to tell you this good message.

28Gabriel came to Mary and said, “Hello, Mary. God loves you and is good to you. He is here with you now, and he will do something good for you.”

29This worried Mary. She thought, “What’s he talking about?”

30Gabriel said, “Don’t be frightened, Mary. God is really happy with you.

31Listen. You will soon have a baby boy, and you will call him Jesus.

34Mary said, “But I’m not married. I’ve never slept with a man, like a wife sleeps with her husband. How will I get a baby?”

35Gabriel said, “The Holy Spirit will come to you, and God’s power will come over you and give you a baby. Your baby will be really special, and people will say he is God’s son.

36And you know your cousin Elizabeth? Everyone reckoned she is too old to have a baby, but now she is carrying a baby inside her. She has been carrying that baby for the last 6 months, and soon she will have a son.

37You see, God can do anything. Nothing is too hard for him.”

38Mary said, “All right, I will do whatever God wants. I want everything to happen just like you said.”

Then Gabriel left her.

Mary visited Elizabeth

39Soon after that, Mary got ready, and she went south quickly to a town in the hilly part of the country called Judea.

40Zekariah and Elizabeth lived in that town. Mary went to their house, and she went in and said to Elizabeth, “Hello cousin.”

41As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary say those words, she felt her baby jump inside her. And the Holy Spirit came into her,

42and she talked really loud. She said to Mary, “God is really good to you, and he is making you happy. He is being more good to you than to any other woman. And he is being really good to your baby too.

43I’m not important, but you are the mother of my leader, the man from God. It is really good of you to visit me.

44You see, as soon as I heard you say ‘hello,’ my baby inside me was so happy he jumped.

45Yes, you believed that God will do everything he told you, and so God makes you very happy.”

Mary sang this song

46Mary said,

“God is really good and really great, and I want to tell everybody about him.

47My spirit is really happy with God. I know he will save me.

48God knew that I was not important, but he picked me,

and now everyone will say that God was good to me.

49Yes, he is the really strong one, and he did great things for me.

God is properly good, better than anyone else.

50He is always good to all the people that respect him. He was good to people that respected him before, and he is good to people that respect him now, and he will be good to people that respect him later on.

51He does great things with his power, and he shows everyone that he is really strong.

Some people reckon they are smart and strong, but God makes them nothing. They are like soldiers that get frightened of the enemy and run away.

52He chucks out the big bosses and takes their power away.

But he gets people that are not important, and he makes them bosses.

53And he gives hungry people good food, and they eat until they are full.

But he doesn’t give anything to the rich people. They go away with nothing.

54He feels sorry for his own people, us Israel mob, and he helps us,

55just like he promised to Abraham, and our other grand-fathers that lived a long time ago.

He said that he will look after us for ever.”

56Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about 3 months, then she went back to her own home.

John the Baptiser was born

57Then the time came for Elizabeth to have her baby, and she had a son.

58All her family, and the people that lived near her, they all heard that she had a baby, and they knew that God felt sorry for Elizabeth, and that he was very good to her. Elizabeth was happy, and they were all happy too.

59When the baby was 8 days old, all those people went to Zekariah and Elizabeth’s place. The baby boy had to have a young man operation on that day, and they used to give a baby his name at that time. The people wanted to call him Zekariah, the same name that his father had.

77You will teach his people how God can say they are not guilty of the bad things they did,

and then God will save them.

78You see, our God feels sorry for us, so he will do that for us.

It will be like the sun coming up, bringing light from God.

79That light will shine for everybody.

Some people are like they are in the dark. They think they will die soon.

But that light will shine on everybody.

It will show us how to live in a happy and quiet way.”

80After that, baby John grew up to be a man, and God made his spirit strong. He went and lived out in the bush for years, until he started to tell the Israel people God’s messages.