22. Therefore, they said to him: "Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?"
23. He said, "I am a voice crying out in the desert, 'Make straight the way of the Lord,' just as the prophet Isaiah said."
24. And some of those who had been sent were from among the Pharisees.
25. And they questioned him and said to him, "Then why do you baptize, if you are not the Christ, and not Elijah, and not the Prophet?"
26. John answered them by saying: "I baptize with water. But in your midst stands one, whom you do not know.
27. The same is he who is to come after me, who has been placed ahead of me, the laces of whose shoes I am not worthy to loosen."
28. These things happened in Bethania, across the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
29. On the next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him, and so he said: "Behold, the Lamb of God. Behold, he who takes away the sin of the world.
30. This is the one about whom I said, 'After me arrives a man, who has been placed ahead of me, because he existed before me.'
31. And I did not know him. Yet it is for this reason that I come baptizing with water: so that he may be made manifest in Israel."
32. And John offered testimony, saying: "For I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove; and he remained upon him.
33. And I did not know him. But he who sent me to baptize with water said to me: 'He over whom you will see the Spirit descending and remaining upon him, this is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'