3In those days John the Baptist came,^p preaching in the wilderness of Judea^q ²and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!”^r ³For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said:

A voice of one crying out in the wilderness:

Prepare the way for the Lord;

make his paths straight!^D^s

⁴Now John had a camel-hair garment with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵Then people from Jerusalem, all Judea, and all the vicinity of the Jordan were going out to him, ⁶and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.^t

⁷When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees^u coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?^a ⁸Therefore produce fruit^b consistent with^E repentance. ⁹And don’t presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’^c For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. ¹⁰The ax is already at the root of the trees. Therefore, every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.^d

Read in Logos

Footnotes

E fruit worthy of

Cross references

p Mk 1:3–8; Lk 3:2–17; Jn 1:6–8,19–28
q Jos 15:61; Jdg 1:16
r Dn 2:44; Mt 4:17; 6:10; 10:7; Mk 1:15; Lk 10:9; 11:20; 21:31
D Is 40:3
s Is 40:3; Lk 1:17,76; Jn 1:23
t Mt 23:37; Mk 1:5; Lk 3:3; Jn 15:22; Ac 19:18
u Mt 16:1; 22:23; 23:15; Ac 4:1; 5:17; 23:6
a Mt 12:34; 23:33; Rm 5:9; 1Th 1:10
b Mt 3:10; 12:33; 13:8,26; 21:19,34,41,43; Mk 11:14
c Lk 3:8; Jn 8:33,39; Ac 13:26; Rm 4:1
d Mt 7:19; Lk 13:7,9; Jn 15:2,6