59. When the baby was eight days old, they all came for the circumcision ceremony. They wanted to name him Zechariah, after his father.
60. But Elizabeth said, “No! His name is John!”
61. “What?” they exclaimed. “There is no one in all your family by that name.”
62. So they used gestures to ask the baby’s father what he wanted to name him.
63. He motioned for a writing tablet, and to everyone’s surprise he wrote, “His name is John.”
64. Instantly Zechariah could speak again, and he began praising God.
65. Awe fell upon the whole neighborhood, and the news of what had happened spread throughout the Judean hills.