Mark 1:3-5

Living Bible

³“This messenger will live out in the barren wilderness,” Isaiah said,^[a] “and will proclaim that everyone must straighten out his life to be ready for the Lord’s arrival.”

⁴This messenger was John the Baptist. He lived in the wilderness and taught that all should be baptized as a public announcement of their decision to turn their backs on sin, so that God could forgive them.^[b] ⁵People from Jerusalem and from all over Judea traveled out into the Judean wastelands to see and hear John, and when they confessed their sins, he baptized them in the Jordan River.

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Footnotes

Mark 1:3 Isaiah said. Some ancient manuscripts read, “the prophets said.” This quotation, unrecorded in the book of Isaiah, appears in Malachi 3:1. be ready for the Lord’s arrival, literally, “make ready the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.”
Mark 1:4 so that God could forgive them, literally, “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.”