Region east of the Jordan, between the Jabbok and Arnon rivers, governed by Herod Antipas in tetrarchic times alongside Galilee. The Greek term Peraia means the country beyond, from peran, across; the region was so named because it lay across the Jordan from the principal centers of Jewish life in Judea and Galilee. The phrase beyond Jordan in the Gospels (Greek peran tou Iordanou) often refers to Perea (Matthew 4:25; 19:1; Mark 3:8; 10:1; John 1:28; 3:26; 10:40). The Lord Jesus conducted significant ministry in Perea, particularly toward the end of His earthly ministry: the so-called Perean ministry documented in Luke 9:51–19:27 and corresponding portions of Matthew and Mark, in which He taught the multitudes, healed the sick, gave many of His most-famous parables (the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Rich Man and Lazarus, the Pharisee and the Publican), and prepared His disciples for the final journey to Jerusalem. Bethabara / Bethany-beyond-Jordan (John 1:28; 10:40), the site of John the Baptist's later ministry and Jesus's earlier baptism, was in Perea. Machaerus, the fortress where John the Baptist was imprisoned and beheaded by Herod Antipas, was also in Perea. The patriarchal-Reformed reader receives Perea as the substantive late-ministry field of Christ's labor: the region beyond Jordan, the field of the great parables, the place where Christ deliberately prepared His disciples for the climactic Jerusalem journey.