⁴ This 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.^{[a] 5} People 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. ⁶ His clothes were woven from camel’s hair and he wore a leather belt; locusts and wild honey were his food.