1 PROMPTLY at dawn the high priests, after holding a consultation with the elders and the scribes and the whole council, bound Jesus and led him away and delivered him over to Pilate.

2 Pilate asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" He answered him, "I am."

3 The high priests went on making many charges against him.

4 Pilate again asked him, "Have you no answer? See how many charges they are making against you."

5 But Jesus no longer answered anything, so that Pilate wondered.

6 It was customary that at every feast he should release some one prisoner at their request.

7 There was a man called Barabbas in chains among those insurrectionaries who in the insurrection had committed murder.

8 The crowd advanced and began asking him to do as he was accustomed to do for them.

9 Pilate answered them, "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?"

10 For he knew that it was on account of envy that the high priests had handed him over.

11 But the high priests incited the crowd to have him rather set free Barabbas for them.

12 Pilate again asked, "What, then, shall I do with him whom you call the King of the Jews?"

13 They again shouted, "Crucify him!"

14 But Pilate said to them, "What has he done that was wrong?" But they shouted violently, "Crucify him!"

15 Then Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, set free Barabbas for them and after scourging Jesus handed him over to be crucified.

16 The soldiers led him away inside the courtyard of the castle and called together the whole battalion.

17 Then they dressed him in purple and put on him a crown of thorns which they had twisted together,

18 and they began to salute him, "Hail, King of the Jews!"

19 They kept striking him on the head with a reed and spitting on him, and bending their knees they did homage to him.

20 After making sport of him, they took off the purple and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

21 They impressed a man who was passing by, Simon, a Cyrenian, who was coming in from the country the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.

22 So they brought him to the place Golgotha, which means Skull Place.

23 They gave him wine flavored with myrrh, but he did not take it.

24 Then they crucified him. They divided his clothes, casting lots what part each should take.

25 It was nine in the morning when they crucified him.

26 The statement of his crime was written up over him: THE KING OF THE JEWS

27 With him were crucified also two robbers, one on his right and one on his left.

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29 The people who passed by scoffed at him, shaking their heads and saying, "Ha, you who can pull down the Temple and build it up in three days,

30 save yourself by coining down from the cross."

31 In the same way the high priests, jesting with one another, and the scribes said, "He saved others; himself he cannot save.

32 Let the Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross so that we may see and believe." Even the men who were crucified along with him reviled him.

33 At noon darkness fell on all the land and continued until three o'clock.

34 At three Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" \'97 which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

35 Some of the bystanders, when they heard this, said, "See, he is calling Elijah."

36 One ran and filled a sponge with sour wine and put it on a reed and gave him a drink, saying, "Let him be. Let us see whether Elijah comes to take him down."

37 But Jesus uttered a loud cry and ceased to breathe.

38 Then the curtain in the Temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

39 When the Centurion who was standing facing him saw that he expired in this way, he exclaimed, "Truly this man was a son of God!"

40 There were also some women looking on from a distance. Among them were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James the Little and Joses, and Salome,

41 who when he was in Galilee used to follow him and wait on him, and there were many others who had come up with him to Jerusalem.

42 It was now late in the afternoon and, since it was Preparation Day, that is the day before the Sabbath,

43 Joseph of Arimathaea, a councilor of high standing, who himself was looking for the kingdom of God, took courage to go in to Pilate and ask for the body of Jesus.

44 Pilate wondered whether he was already dead, but he called in the Centurion and asked him whether Jesus had been long dead.

45 Upon learning this from the Centurion, he granted the body to Joseph.

46 Joseph bought a linen sheet and took him down and swathed him in it and laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out in the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.

47 Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were looking on to see where Jesus was laid.