18
All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.
19
Mary kept all these things to herself, holding them dear, deep within herself.
20
The sheepherders returned and let loose, glorifying and praising God for everything they had heard and seen. It turned out exactly the way they'd been told!
21
When the eighth day arrived, the day of circumcision, the child was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived.
22
Then when the days stipulated by Moses for purification were complete, they took him up to Jerusalem to offer him to God
23
as commanded in God's Law: "Every male who opens the womb shall be a holy offering to God,"
24
and also to sacrifice the "pair of doves or two young pigeons" prescribed in God's Law.
25
In Jerusalem at the time, there was a man, Simeon by name, a good man, a man who lived in the prayerful expectancy of help for Israel. And the Holy Spirit was on him.
26
The Holy Spirit had shown him that he would see the Messiah of God before he died.
27
Led by the Spirit, he entered the Temple. As the parents of the child Jesus brought him in to carry out the rituals of the Law,
28
Simeon took him into his arms and blessed God: