1. And in the fifteenth year of the government of Tiberius Caesar--Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod tetrarch of Galilee, and Philip his brother, tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene--
2. Annas and Caiaphas being chief priests--there came a word of God unto John the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness,
3. and he came to all the region round the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of reformation--to remission of sins,
4. as it hath been written in the scroll of the words of Isaiah the prophet, saying, `A voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, straight make ye His paths;
5. every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straightness, and the rough become smooth ways;
6. and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'
7. Then said he to the multitudes coming forth to be baptised by him, `Brood of vipers! who did prompt you to flee from the coming wrath?
8. make, therefore, fruits worthy of the reformation, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have a father--Abraham; for I say to you, that God is able out of these stones to raise children to Abraham;