John 1:20-34

20He didn’t deny it but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”

21“What then?” they asked him. “Are you Elijah?” “I am not,” he said. “Are you the Prophet?” “No,” he answered.

22“Who are you, then?” they asked. “We need to give an answer to those who sent us. What can you tell us about yourself?”

23He said, “I am a voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Make straight the way of the Lord  — just as Isaiah the prophet said.”

24Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.

25So they asked him, “Why then do you baptize if you aren’t the Messiah, or Elijah, or the Prophet?”

26“I baptize with water,” John answered them. “Someone stands among you, but you don’t know him.

27He is the one coming after me, whose sandal strap I’m not worthy to untie.”

28All this happened in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

30This is the one I told you about: ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’

31I didn’t know him, but I came baptizing with water so that he might be revealed to Israel.”

32And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and he rested on him.

33I didn’t know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The one you see the Spirit descending and resting on — he is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’

34I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”