²¹ “Well then, who are you?” they asked. “Are you Elijah?”

“No,” he replied.

“Are you the Prophet we are expecting?”^[a]

“No.”

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

¹⁴ And if you are willing to accept what I say, he is Elijah, the one the prophets said would come.^[a]

True and False Prophets

¹⁵ Moses continued, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your fellow Israelites. You must listen to him. ¹⁶ For this is what you yourselves requested of the Lord your God when you were assembled at Mount Sinai.^[a] You said, ‘Don’t let us hear the voice of the Lord our God anymore or see this blazing fire, for we will die.’

¹⁷ “Then the Lord said to me, ‘What they have said is right. ¹⁸ I will raise up a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites. I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell the people everything I command him.

²⁵ asked him, “If you aren’t the Messiah or Elijah or the Prophet, what right do you have to baptize?”

¹⁴ “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”

Division and Unbelief

⁴⁰ When the crowds heard him say this, some of them declared, “Surely this man is the Prophet we’ve been expecting.”^[a]

¹⁰ Then his disciples asked him, “Why do the teachers of religious law insist that Elijah must return before the Messiah comes?^[a]”

¹¹ Jesus replied, “Elijah is indeed coming first to get everything ready. ¹² But I tell you, Elijah has already come, but he wasn’t recognized, and they chose to abuse him. And in the same way they will also make the Son of Man suffer.”

¹⁷ He will be a man with the spirit and power of Elijah. He will prepare the people for the coming of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children,^[a] and he will cause those who are rebellious to accept the wisdom of the godly.”

⁹ Were you looking for a prophet? Yes, and he is more than a prophet. ¹⁰ John is the man to whom the Scriptures refer when they say,

¹¹ “I tell you the truth, of all who have ever lived, none is greater than John the Baptist. Yet even the least person in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he is!