JESUS CONVERSES WITH THE DOCTORS.

31

when they saw him, they were amazed and his mother said unto him, "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing."

And he said unto them, "How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.

And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. Jesus abides in And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with

God and man.

Nazareth.

CHAPTER IV.

THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS.

N

preaches in the

OW in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judæa, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiaphas being the highpriests, the word of God came unto John the Baptist, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. And he came into all the John the Baptist country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for wilderness. the remission of sins; saying, "Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand"; as it is written in the prophets, "Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee." "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.' Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?