John 1:21-31

“Then who are you?” they inquired. “Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.”

So they said to him, “Who are you? We need an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet: “I am a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”

Then the Pharisees who had been sent

asked him, “Why then do you baptize, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

“I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands One you do not know.

He is the One who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

All this happened at Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

This is He of whom I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.’

I myself did not know Him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that He might be revealed to Israel.”