John, the Baptizer, and his Message
And John said to the crowds that wait to be baptized by him:
“You brood of vipers I who has prompted you to seek refuge from the coming judgment? Let your lives, then, prove your repentance; and do not begin to say among yourselves ‘Abraham is our ancestor,’ for I tell you that out of these very stones God is able to raise descendants for Abraham! Already, indeed, the axe is lying at the root of the trees. Therefore every tree that fails to bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
“What are we to do then?” the people asked.
“Let the man who has two coats,” answered John, “share with him who has none; and the man who has food do the same.”
Even tax-gatherers came to be baptized, and said to John:
“Teacher, what are we to do? “
“Do not collect more than you have authority to demand,” John answered. And when some soldiers on active service asked “And we—what are we to do?” he said:
“Never use violence, or exact anything by false accusation; and be content with your pay.”
Then, while the people were in suspense, and were all debating with themselves whether John could be the Christ, John, addressing them all, said:
“I, indeed, baptize you with water; but there is coming one more powerful than I, and I am not fit even to unfasten his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand, that he may clear his threshing-floor, and store the grain in his barn, but the chaff he will burn with inextinguishable fire.”
And so with many different exhortations John told his Good News to the people. But Prince Herod, being rebuked by John respecting Herodias, the wife of Herod’s brother, and for all the evil things that he had done, crowned them all by shutting John up in prison.
—Luke.