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Gospel Reading - The baptism of Jesus

²In the book written by the prophet Isaiah, God announced that he would send his Son^a to earth, and that a special messenger would arrive first to prepare the world for his coming.

³“This messenger will live out in the barren wilderness,” Isaiah said,^b “and will proclaim that everyone must straighten out his life to be ready for the Lord’s arrival.”*

⁴This messenger was John the Baptist. He lived in the wilderness and taught that all should be baptized as a public announcement of their decision to turn their backs on sin, so that God could forgive them.^{c 5}People from Jerusalem and from all over Judea traveled out into the Judean wastelands to see and hear John, and when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River. ⁶His clothes were woven from camel’s hair and he wore a leather belt; locusts and wild honey were his food. ⁷Here is a sample of his preaching:

“Someone is coming soon who is far greater than I am, so much greater that I am not even worthy to be his slave.^{d 8}I baptize you with water^e but he will baptize you with God’s Holy Spirit!”*

⁹Then one day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John there in the Jordan River. ¹⁰The moment Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heavens open and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descending on him, ¹¹and a voice from heaven said, “You are my beloved Son; you are my Delight.”

1. Implied
2. Some ancient manuscripts read, “the prophets said.” This quotation, unrecorded in the book of Isaiah, appears in Malachi 3:1. be ready for the Lord’s arrival, literally, “make ready the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.”
3. Literally, “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”
4. Literally, “whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose.”
5. with water, or “in water.” The Greek word is not clear on this controversial point. with God’s Holy Spirit, or “in God’s Holy Spirit”; the Greek is not clear.