Mark 1:4

1:4 In the wilderness ¹  John the baptizer ²  began preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ³ 

Mark 1:7

1:7 He proclaimed, ⁴  “One more powerful than I am is coming after me; I am not worthy ⁵  to bend down and untie the strap ⁶  of his sandals.

[1:4]  ¹ tn Or “desert.”

[1:4]  ² tn While Matthew and Luke consistently use the noun βαπτίστης (baptisths, “[the] Baptist”) to refer to John, as a kind of a title, Mark prefers the substantival participle ὁ βαπτίζων (Jo baptizwn, “the one who baptizes, the baptizer”) to describe him (only twice does he use the noun [Mark 6:25; 8:28]).

[1:4]  ³ sn A baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins was a call for preparation for the arrival of the Lord’s salvation. To participate in this baptism was a recognition of the need for God’s forgiveness with a sense that one needed to live differently as a response to it.

[1:7]  ⁴ tn Grk “proclaimed, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[1:7]  ⁵ tn Grk “of whom I am not worthy.”

[1:7]  ⁶ tn The term refers to the leather strap or thong used to bind a sandal. This is often viewed as a collective singular and translated as a plural, “the straps of his sandals,” but it may be more emphatic to retain the singular here.