²¹ And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.”^(A)

⁵ See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.^(A)

A New Prophet Like Moses

¹⁵ “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet.^{[a](A) 16} This is what you requested of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’^{(B) 17} Then the Lord replied to me, ‘They are right in what they have said.^{(C) 18} I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet,^[b] who shall speak to them everything that I command.^(D)

¹⁴ and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come.^(A)

²⁵ They asked him, “Why, then, are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah,^[a] nor Elijah, nor the prophet?”

¹⁰ And the disciples asked him, “Why, then, do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?”^{(A) 11} He replied, “Elijah is indeed coming and will restore all things,^{(B) 12} but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but they did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of Man is about to suffer at their hands.”^(C)

¹⁴ And they said, “Some say John the Baptist but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”^(A)

Division among the People

⁴⁰ When they heard these words, some in the crowd said, “This is really the prophet.”

¹⁷ With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”^(A)

⁹ What, then, did you go out to see? A prophet?^[a] Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.^{(A) 10} This is the one about whom it is written,

¹¹ “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.