Jesus replies that he must "be in his father's house" (). The Synoptic accounts of Jesus' baptism are all preceded by information about John the Baptist. They show John preaching penance and repentance for the remission of sins and encouraging the giving of alms to the poor () as he baptizes people in the area of the Jordan River around Perea and foretells () the arrival of someone "more powerful" than he. Later, Jesus identifies John as "the Elijah who was to come" (, ), the prophet who was expected to arrive before the "great and terrible day of the Lord"
John the Baptist own worthiness to baptize Jesus. In both Matthew and Luke, John later dispatches disciples to question Jesus about his status, asking "Are you he who is to come, or shall we look for another?" In Luke, John is a familial relative of Jesus whose birth was foretold by Gabriel. In the Gospel of John, John the Baptist himself sees the spirit descend like a dove and he explicitly preaches that Jesus is the Son of God. The Gospels vary in their depiction of John's relationship to Elijah. Matthew and Mark describe John's attire in a way reminiscent of the description