Luke 3:1-10

Evangelical Heritage Version

John the Baptist Prepares the Way

3 In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar—while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene— ² during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. ³ He went into the whole region around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁴ Just as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet:

⁷ So John kept saying to the crowds who came out to be baptized by him, “You offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸ Therefore produce fruits in keeping with repentance! Do not even think of saying to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ because I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones. ⁹ Even now the ax is ready to strike^[c] the root of the trees. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is going to be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

¹⁰ The crowds began to ask him, “What should we do then?”