1 So Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2 The soldiers weaved a victorᰱs crown out of thorns and placed it on Jesus‘ head. They threw a purple cloak around him, 3 and then kept approaching him and saying “Greetings, king of the Judeans!” And they slapped him in the face.
4 Pilate came out again and said to them, “Look, I’m taking him outside to you so you may know for sure that I have found no grounds for a charge against him.” 5 Then Jesus came outside, wearing the thorny victorᰱs crown and the purple cloak, and Pilate said, “Look at him!”
6 When the high priests and slaves saw him they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”
But Pilate said, “You crucify him! I have found no reason to do so.”
7 The Judeans replied, “We have a law, and according to that law he must be executed, because he equated himself with God.”
8 This frightened Pilate, 8 9 so he returned to the compound and asked Jesus, “Where do you come from?” But Jesus did not answer. 10 So Pilate said, “You won’t talk to me? Don’t you realize that I have the authority to either release you or have you crucified?”
11 But Jesus replied, “You’d have no authority at all unless it had been given to you from above. However, the one turning me over to you has the greater sin.”
12 From then on Pilate looked for a way to release him. But the Judeans shouted, “If you ever release him you will no longer be a Friend of Caesar, because anyone claiming to be a king is challenging Caesar’s throne!”
13 When Pilate heard this he led Jesus outside and then sat down on the seat known as the Stone Pavement (known locally as Gabbatha). 14 It was still the Preparation of the Passover, almost noon, and he said to the Judeans, “Look at your king!”
15 But they shouted, “Lift him up! Lift him up! Crucify him!”
Pilate asked them, “Shall I crucify your king?”
But they responded, “We have no king but Caesar!”
Jesus is crucified
16 Finally Pilate handed Jesus over to them to be crucified, and they took him away. 17 Carrying his own cross, he went to the place called The Skull (or in the vernacular, Golgotha), 18 where they crucified him between two others. 19 And Pilate made a notice that was placed on the cross, which read, “Jesus, from Nazareth, the King of the Judeans.” 20 Many Judeans read this notice, because the location where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.
21 Then the high priests of the Judeans went to Pilate and complained about the notice. “You should not write ‘the king of the Judeans’, but ‘he said he was the king of the Judeans’.” 22 But Pilate retorted, “What I have written, I have written!”22
23 When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, one for each soldier. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. 24 So they said to each other, “Let’s not split this but gamble to see who gets it.” This was in fulfillment of the scripture, “They divided my clothes among themselves and gambled for my tunic.” The soldiers actually did these things.
25 Standing beside Jesus’ cross were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdela. 26 Seeing his mother there, along with the disciple he loved, he said to her, “Dear woman, this is your son;” 27 and to him, “This is your mother.” And from that time on, the disciple took her into his own home.27
Jesus dies
28 After this, having seen that everything was paid in full, Jesus said “I’m thirsty” to fulfill what was written. 29 Now there was a jar nearby that was filled with vinegar. They soaked a sponge with the vinegar and attached it to a hyssop branch, then lifted it to his mouth. 29 30 After he took it, Jesus said “It has been paid in full!” Then he bowed his head and gave up the spirit.
31 Since it was the Preparation, the Judeans did not want the bodies to remain on the crosses on this special Sabbath. So they asked Pilate for permission to break the victims’ legs so they could be taken away. 31 32 So the soldiers broke the legs of one of the victims crucified with Jesus, and then the other. 33 But when they came to Jesus they saw that he was already dead, so they did not break his legs.
34 But one of the soldiers punctured him in the ribs with a spear, and immediately out came blood and water. 34 35 The one giving this testimony is an eyewitness and affirms that this is the truth. And he knows he’s telling the truth so that you all can believe. 36 For these things happened to fulfill the scripture, “Not one of his bones will be crushed,” 37 and in a different scripture, “they will gaze upon the one they pierced.”
Jesus is buried
38 Now after all of this, Joseph from Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. (He was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly, because he feared the Judeans.) Pilate granted his request and Joseph took it down. 39 Nicodemas, the one who interviewed Jesus one night early on, brought along a mixture of myrrh and aloe weighing about seventy-five pounds. 40 So they took Jesus’ body and wrapped it in bandages with the aromatic spices, in accordance with Judean burial custom.
41 Now in the place of crucifixion was a garden, and in the garden was a new tomb that no one had yet used. 42 Since it was the Judeans’ Preparation Day and the tomb was nearby, they placed Jesus there.
- 8 Pilate was afraid because the Pharisees were trapping him with technicalities. He could not release anyone who was breaking Roman law by challenging the throne of Caesar.
- 22 At this point the Judeans had no more leverage on Pilate.
- 27 Evidently Jesus’ legal father had died, and as the oldest son he had the responsibility to look after his mother.
- 29 The vinegar was a common mixture used to ease pain.
- 31 It is believed that the victim’s breathing muscles were numb after having their arms stretched out for hours, so for each exhale they would have to push themselves up with their legs, an extremely painful action since their feet were nailed to a small platform on the upright portion of the cross. By breaking the victim’s legs they would bring quick death through suffocation.
- 34 Roman soldiers charged with executing someone were to be executed themselves if the victims survived. Since Jesus was dead sooner than expected, they had to make absolutely sure he was dead, which was proved by what came out when they speared him. It indicated that the heart had ruptured. So in fact Jesus stopped his own heart; he did not die either of crucifixion or suffocation, nor of the spearing.