Now it was the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, Herod was ruler of Galilee, his brother Philip was ruler of the regions of Ituraea and Trachonitus [Note: These two men were sons of Herod the Great (See Matt. 2:1) and ruled over provinces east of the Jordan River] and Lysanias was ruler of Abilene [Note: This was a province just north of the two previously mentioned ones].

He went into all the region around the Jordan River, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness,

he is like to a man, building a house, who digged, and sunk deep, and laid the foundation on a rock; and when there was a flood, the river rushed violently against that house, and was not of force to shake it, for it was founded on a rock.

But he that heareth, and doth not practice, is like a man who built his house on the earth without a foundation; against which the river rushed violently, and immediately it fell; and the crash of the fall of that house was great.