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    A voice proclaims:[a]
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord!
    Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!(A)

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Footnotes

  1. 40:3–5 A description of the return of the exiles from Babylon to Jerusalem (Zion). The language used here figuratively describes the way the exiles will take. The Lord leads them, so their way lies straight across the wilderness rather than along the well-watered routes usually followed from Mesopotamia to Israel. Mt 3:3 and gospel parallels adapt these verses to the witness of John the Baptizer to Jesus.

23 He said:

“I am ‘the voice of one crying out in the desert,(A)
“Make straight the way of the Lord,”’[a]

as Isaiah the prophet said.”

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Footnotes

  1. 1:23 This is a repunctuation and reinterpretation (as in the synoptic gospels and Septuagint) of the Hebrew text of Is 40:3 which reads, “A voice cries out: In the desert prepare the way of the Lord.”