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.