1 One day, Jesus was teaching in the temple and telling the good news. So the chief priests, the teachers, and the nation's leaders
2 asked him, “What right do you have to do these things? Who gave you this authority?”
3 Jesus replied, “I want to ask you a question.
4 Who gave John the right to baptize? Was it God in heaven or merely some human being?”
5 They talked this over and said to each other, “We can't say that God gave John this right. Jesus will ask us why we didn't believe John.
6 And we can't say that it was merely some human who gave John the right to baptize. The crowd will stone us to death, because they think John was a prophet.”
7 So they told Jesus, “We don't know who gave John the right to baptize.”