“In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius
Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and
his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis,
and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas
and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the
wilderness. And he went into all the region around the Jordan,
proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
As it
is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “The voice of
one crying in the wilderness: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his
paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and
hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the
rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the
salvation of God.””
