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JESUS AND JOHN THE BAPTIST.
How the Heroic Friend of Jesus Was Basely Murdered, and How the Two Men Had Loved Each Other.
(Before Jesus began his preaching, a man named John had begun to tell the people that God would soon send them a great prophet. He himself seemed to the people to be like one of the old prophets. His dress and his way of living were simple, and he spoke as though God were speaking through him. How he preached, and how he baptized Jesus, telling his disciples that this was the man of whose coming he had been speaking, has all been told in a previous chapter. After the baptism John watched the career of Jesus with great interest. Before long John was seized and cast into prison. He became despondent, and began to doubt if Jesus was indeed the one of whom he was sent to tell. He sent messengers to Jesus, and Jesus sent back a comforting and reassuring message to the prisoner. Jesus loved John and spoke in the highest terms of his work and character. This chapter tells of the relations between the two men after Jesus' baptism, and how John met at last a shameful death.)
John Acknowledges the Leadership of Jesus.
After these things came Jesus and his disciples into the land of Judaea; and there he tarried with them, and baptized. And John also was baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there: and they came, and were baptized. For John was not yet cast into prison.
There arose therefore a questioning on the part of John's disciples with a Jew about purifying. And they came unto John, and said to him, "Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond Jordan, to whom thou hast borne witness, behold, the same baptizeth, and all men come to him."
John answered and said, "A man can receive nothing, except it have been given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, 'I am not the Christ, but, that I am sent before him.' He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease."
Imprisoned, John Begins to Lose Faith.
For a time he continued to preach good tidings unto the people; but Herod, being reproved by him for Herodias his brother's wife, and for all the evil things which Herod had done, added yet this above all, that he shut up John in prison.
And the disciples of John told him in prison of the works of Jesus. And John calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to the Lord, saying, "Art thou he that cometh, or look we for another?"