1 In those days John the Baptist\u00a0came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea<\/p>\n
2\u00a0and saying, \u201cRepent, for the kingdom of heaven\u00a0has come near.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
\u201cA voice of one calling in the wilderness,
\n\u2018Prepare the way for the Lord,
\nmake straight paths for him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
4\u00a0John\u2019s\u00a0clothes were made of camel\u2019s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist.\u00a0His food was locusts\u00a0and wild honey.<\/p>\n
5\u00a0People went out to him from Jerusalem and all Judea and the whole region of the Jordan.<\/p>\n
6\u00a0Confessing their sins, they were baptized\u00a0by him in the Jordan River.<\/p>\n
7\u00a0But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: \u201cYou brood of vipers!\u00a0Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?<\/p>\n
8\u00a0Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.<\/p>\n
9\u00a0And do not think you can say to yourselves, \u2018We have Abraham as our father.\u2019\u00a0I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.<\/p>\n
10\u00a0The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.<\/p>\n
11\u00a0\u201cI baptize you with\u00a0water for repentance.\u00a0But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with\u00a0the Holy Spirit\u00a0and fire.\u00a012\u00a0His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John the Baptist Prepares the Way \u00a0 (NIV) 1 In those days John the Baptist\u00a0came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2\u00a0and saying, \u201cRepent, for the kingdom of heaven\u00a0has come near.\u201d 3\u00a0This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah: \u201cA voice of one calling in the wilderness, \u2018Prepare the way for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jeddoumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jeddoumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jeddoumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jeddoumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jeddoumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=299"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jeddoumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301,"href":"http:\/\/jeddoumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299\/revisions\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jeddoumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jeddoumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jeddoumc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}