In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still a youth, he began to seek after the God of David his father. Then in his twelfth year he began to purify Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the asherahs, and the carved and molten images.
for he will be great in the sight of [the] Lord. He will drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will be filled with the holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb,
All who heard these things took them to heart, saying, “What, then, will this child be?” For surely the hand of the Lord was with him. The Canticle of Zechariah.