Matthew 3:3 is the third verse of the third chapter of the Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew

The Gospel According to Matthew is one of the four canonical gospels, one of the three synoptic gospels, and the first book of the New Testament. It tells of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth...

 in the New Testament

New Testament

The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....

. The verse occurs in the section introducing John the Baptist

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...

. This verse links him to messianic prophecies.

In the King James Version of the Bible the text reads:

For this is he that was spoken

of by the prophet Esaias, saying,

The voice of one crying in the

wilderness, Prepare ye the way of

the Lord, make his paths straight.

The World English Bible

World English Bible

The World English Bible is a public domain translation of the Bible that is currently in draft form. Work on the World English Bible began in 1997 and was known as the American Standard Version 1997...

 translates the passage as:

For this is he who was spoken of by Isaiah the prophet,

saying, "The voice of one crying in the

wilderness, make ready the way of the

Lord. Make his paths straight."

The quote in question comes from Isaiah 40:3. It originally was part of the description of the escape from the Babylonian Captivity

Babylonian captivity

The Babylonian captivity was the period in Jewish history during which the Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon—conventionally 587–538 BCE....

. This same verse is quoted in Mark 1:3 and Luke 3:4. In Mark it is preceded by two other Old Testament quotes, nut Matthew moves these to 11:10. All three use the Septuagint version of Isaiah with one slight rewording. Where Isaiah has "make straight paths for God" becomes "make straight paths for him". This change keeps the description of Jesus as lord, but makes sure not to describe him as Yahweh

Yahweh

Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...

, and important fact for the doctrine of the Trinity

Trinity

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons : the Father, the Son , and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial . Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being...

.

The author of Matthew does not introduce this quote with his standard "so it might be fulfilled" construction. Gundry

Robert H. Gundry

Robert Horton Gundry is a Biblical scholar. He received a B.A. and a B.D. degree from the Los Angeles Baptist College and Seminary, and his Ph.D. from Manchester University in Manchester, England in 1961 and has taught for several decades at Westmont College in California...

argues that this was because while a figure like John the Baptist could complete a prophecy, only Jesus could fulfill them.

Hill notes that there are two main ways of punctuating this verse, which give somewhat different meanings. Traditionally the start of the quote was left as one phrase reading "the voice of one crying in the wilderness..." Based on the original Hebrew most modern scholars feel it should be two phrases reading "the voice of one crying: "In the wilderness..." This second punctuation makes the link between John the Baptist and Isaiah somewhat less direct.