²⁸ You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah,^[a] but I have been sent ahead of him.’^(A)

²⁰ He confessed and did not deny it, but he confessed, “I am not the Messiah.”^[a](A)

²³ He said,

as the prophet Isaiah said.^(A)

The Coming Messenger

3 See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.^(A)

¹⁶ He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God.^{(A) 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.”^(B)

² As it is written in the prophet Isaiah,^[a]

¹¹ “I baptize you with^[a] water for repentance, but the one who is coming after me is more powerful than I, and I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with^[b] the Holy Spirit and fire.^{(A) 12} His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”^(B)

³ This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said,

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