Luke 3:1-6

John the Baptist Begins His Ministry

1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, [when] Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Iturea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene,

2 in the time of the high priest Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the wilderness.

3 And he went into all the surrounding region of the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,

4 as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight!

5 Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be leveled, and the crooked will become straight, and the rough road [will become] smooth,

6 and all flesh will see the salvation of God.'"

Footnotes

• [a] Or "the emperor Tiberius"
• [b] *Here "[will become]" is an implied repetition of the verb earlier in the verse
• [c] A quotation from Isa 40:3-5