Jesus showed the messengers from John the Baptizer that he was the Messiah, and he told the people that John was the man like Elijah who was to prepare the way for the Messiah.

Matthew 11:2-15

2 While John the Baptizer was in prison, he heard what Jesus, the man whom he thought was the Messiah, was doing. So he sent some of his disciples to him in order 3 to ask him, “Are you the Messiah who the prophets prophesied would come, or is it someone else that we should expect to come?” 4 After they asked Jesus that question, he answered them, “Go back and report to John what you hear me telling people and what you see me doing. 5 I am enabling blind people to see and lame people to walk. I am healing people who have leprosy. I am enabling deaf people to hear and dead people to become alive again. I am telling poor people God’s good message. 6 Also tell John that God is pleased with people who do not stop believing in me because what I do is not what they expected the Messiah to do.”

7 When John’s disciples had gone away, Jesus began to talk to the crowd of people about John. He said to them, “Think about what sort of person you went to see in the desolate area when you went there to see John. ◄You did not go there to listen to a man who constantly changed his message, like a reed that is blown {blows} back and forth in the wind [MET]!/Did you go there to listen to a man whose message changes continually like long grass that is blown {blows} back and forth in the wind changes its direction?► [MET, RHQ] 8 Then what kind of person did you go there to see [RHQ]? ◄You did not go there to see a man who was wearing expensive clothes./Did you go there to see a man who was wearing expensive clothes?► [RHQ] No! You know very well that people who wear beautiful clothes reside in kings’ palaces and not in desolate areas. 9 Then what kind of person did you go to see [RHQ]? Did you go there [RHQ] to see John because he was ◄a prophet/a person who speaks what God tells him to say►? Yes! But I will tell you that John is more important than an ordinary prophet. 10 He is the one to whom God was referring when he said to the Messiah these words that are written {about whom the prophet Malachi wrote} in the Scriptures:

Listen! I am going to send my messenger to go before you [SYN] to prepare the people [MET] for your coming.

11 Note this: Of all the people who have ever lived, God does not consider that any of them are greater than John the Baptizer. However, God considers that all those people who have let God rule their lives are greater than John, even if they are insignificant people. 12 From the time that John the Baptizer preached until now, other people have violently attacked the people who have allowed God [MTY/EUP] to rule their lives, and they have suffered (OR, people have very eagerly been asking God to take control of their lives, OR, Israelite people who have thought that I would become their king have been extremely eager to be included in my kingdom) (OR, have been violently attacked and made to suffer). 13 All this that I am saying about John is confirmed by the fact that all the men who wrote the Scriptures [MTY, SYN] foretold about God ruling people’s lives, until John the Baptizer came. 14 Even though most of you are unwilling to believe what I am saying, I will tell this truth to anyone who is willing to believe it: John is the man who is like Elijah [MET]. He is the one who one of the prophets said would come in order to prepare the people to welcome the Messiah. 15 If you want to understand this, you must think carefully [MTY] about what I have just said [MTY].”