1 Seeing that many did take in hand to set in order a narration of the matters that have been fully assured among us,

² as they did deliver to us, who from the beginning became eye-witnesses, and officers of the Word, --

³ it seemed good also to me, having followed from the first after all things exactly, to write to thee in order, most noble Theophilus,

⁴ that thou mayest know the certainty of the things wherein thou wast instructed.

⁵ There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judea, a certain priest, by name Zacharias, of the course of Abijah, and his wife of the daughters of Aaron, and her name Elisabeth;

3 And in the fifteenth year of the government of Tiberius Caesar -- Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother, tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene --

² Annas and Caiaphas being chief priests -- there came a word of God unto John the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness,