²⁴ Jesus answered them, “I will ask you just one question, and if you give me an answer, I will tell you what right I have to do these things. ²⁵ Where did John's right to baptize come from: was it from God or from human beings?”

They started to argue among themselves, “What shall we say? If we answer, ‘From God,’ he will say to us, ‘Why, then, did you not believe John?’ ²⁶ But if we say, ‘From human beings,’ we are afraid of what the people might do, because they are all convinced that John was a prophet.”