The Coming Day of Judgment

3 “Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,” says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

⁵ “Look, I am sending you the prophet Elijah before the great and dreadful day of the Lord arrives.

² just as the prophet Isaiah had written:

⁴ Paul said, “John’s baptism called for repentance from sin. But John himself told the people to believe in the one who would come later, meaning Jesus.”

²⁶ Were you looking for a prophet? Yes, and he is more than a prophet. ²⁷ John is the man to whom the Scriptures refer when they say,

²⁸ I tell you, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of God is greater than he is!”

⁷ “The words of a priest’s lips should preserve knowledge of God, and people should go to him for instruction, for the priest is the messenger of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

⁶ God sent a man, John the Baptist,^{[a] 7} to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony.