²⁴ “I’m going to ask you one question, too,” replied Jesus, “and if you tell me the answer then I’ll tell you by what right I’m doing these things. ²⁵ Where did John’s baptism come from? Was it from heaven, or from this world?”

They debated this among themselves. “If we say ‘from heaven,’ ” they said, “he’s going to say to us, ‘So why didn’t you believe him?’ ²⁶ But if we say ‘from this world,’ we’ll have to watch out for the crowd, because they all reckon that John was a prophet.”