He sent and had John beheaded in the prison. The execution — brief and brutal — is narrated without ceremony. The greatest figure of the old covenant era (Matthew 11:11) is killed in prison by a political ruler's rash oath and a woman's vendetta. The beheading in the prison communicates the degrading character of the death: not the execution of a criminal after a trial but the silent disposal of an inconvenient prophet.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

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