Luke 3:1-6

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

1 In the fifteenth year of the reign of ¹Tiberius Caesar, ²Pontius Pilate ³being governor of Judea, and ⁴Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,

2 during ⁵the high priesthood of Annas and ⁶Caiaphas, ⁷the word of God came to ⁸John the son of Zechariah in ⁹the wilderness.

3 And he went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming ¹⁰a baptism of repentance ¹¹for the forgiveness of sins.

4 As it is written in ¹²the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, ¹³"The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ¹⁴'Prepare the way of the Lord,^[a] make his paths straight.

5 ¹⁵Every valley shall be filled, ¹⁶and every mountain and hill shall be made low, ¹⁷and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways,

6 ¹⁸and all flesh shall see ¹⁹the salvation of God.'"

Cross References

• 1. [Luke 2:1]
• 2. See Matthew 27:2
• 3. Luke 2:2
• 4. ver. 19; Luke 8:3; Luke 9:7, 9; Luke 13:31; Luke 23:7; Matthew 14:1; Acts 4:27; Acts 13:1; [Mark 6:14]
• 5. John 18:13, 24; Acts 4:6
• 6. See Matthew 26:3
• 7. For ver. 2-17, see Matthew 3:1-12; Mark 1:2-8
• 8. John 1:6, 7
• 9. Luke 1:80; Joshua 15:61; [Judges 1:16]
• 10. Acts 2:38
• 11. Matthew 26:28; [Luke 1:77]
• 12. Luke 4:17; [Acts 8:28]
• 13. John 1:23; Cited from Isaiah 40:3-5
• 14. Luke 1:76
• 15. [Isaiah 57:14]
• 16. Isaiah 49:11; Zechariah 4:7
• 17. Isaiah 42:16; Isaiah 45:2
• 18. Isaiah 52:10; [Psalms 98:2, 3]
• 19. Luke 2:30; Acts 28:28; [Luke 1:69, 71, 77; Titus 2:11]

Footnotes

• [a]. Or crying, Prepare in the wilderness the way of the Lord