‘You are my witnesses’ – this is the Lord’s declaration – ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. No god was formed before me, and there will be none after me.
But I have told you these things so that when their time comes you will remember that I told them to you. I didn’t tell you these things from the beginning, because I was with you.
therefore I declared to you long ago. I announced it to you before it occurred, so you could not claim, “My idol caused them; my carved image and cast idol control them.”
‘See, I am going to send my messenger, and he will clear the way before me. Then the Lord you seek will suddenly come to his temple, the Messenger of the covenant you delight in #– #see, he is coming,’ says the Lord of Armies.
(John testified concerning him and exclaimed, ‘This was the one of whom I said, “The one coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.” ’)
So Jesus said to them, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own. But just as the Father taught me, I say these things.