As we drew near to Bethany, we noted many hundreds of travellers on the road, the most part on foot, but many on asses and camels; for rich as well as poor were journeying to the new prophet. A full score of Scribes went past us in the space of an hour; there were also some soldiers going to Machærus; here and there was a tax‐gatherer; and Baruch took note of certain that were sinners, outcasts from the synagogue of Capernaum. We had now been journeying for a day and a half; and toward the end of the second day, we began to see the valley of Jordan right over against us. Going down a little further, we perceived that there was a great multitude gathered together near the bank of the river; and presently we could clearly discern the prophet himself.
Around him stood men in white garments awaiting purification; at a somewhat greater distance, the mixed multitude hearkening to his words. John himself, wearing no tunic, but clad only in a rough mantle of camel’s hair with a girdle of untanned leather, was sitting upon a rock, and thence he was speaking to the people in a clear voice, whereof the sound (though not as yet the meaning) was borne up even to our ears. For a while we stood still, with one consent, marvelling at the sight; for there had not been a prophet in Israel for four hundred years and more; but presently, riding down with all speed, we came into the valley, and joined ourselves to the multitude: and, albeit, we could not come very nigh to John, for the press, yet was there such a stillness among all the assembly, that we very soon understood whatsoever he said.
He had been speaking (this I learned afterwards from one of the bystanders) concerning the old wars and troubles which the Lord had sent on Israel; how, according to the saying of the Prophet Isaiah, the Lord had brought the Assyrian against the land as an axe, whereby He had cut down our chosen nobles and princes, even as a woodman felleth the choicest trees. Also how, in the days of the Prophet Jeremiah, the Lord had sent the blast of His wrath upon the people, and had winnowed away the unstable and faithless into captivity, even as a winnower fanneth the chaff from the wheat. The same things were at hand even now, he said: “Now also the axe is laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire.”