Luke 22-24

Complete Jewish Bible

22 But the festival of Matzah, known as Pesach, was approaching; ² and the head cohanim and the Torah-teachers began trying to find some way to get rid of Yeshua, because they were afraid of the people.

³ At this point the Adversary went into Y’hudah from K’riot, who was one of the Twelve. ⁴ He approached the head cohanim and the Temple guard and discussed with them how he might turn Yeshua over to them. ⁵ They were pleased and offered to pay him money. ⁶ He agreed and began looking for a good opportunity to betray Yeshua without the people’s knowledge.

⁷ Then came the day of matzah, on which the Passover lamb had to be killed. ⁸ Yeshua sent Kefa and Yochanan, instructing them, “Go and prepare our Seder, so we can eat.” ⁹ They asked him, “Where do you want us to prepare it?” ¹⁰ He told them, “As you’re going into the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him into the house he enters, ¹¹ and say to its owner, ‘The Rabbi says to you, “Where is the guest room, where I am to eat the Pesach meal with my talmidim?” ’ ¹² He will show you a large room upstairs already furnished; make the preparations there.” ¹³ They went and found things just as Yeshua had told them they would be, and they prepared for the Seder.

¹⁴ When the time came, Yeshua and the emissaries reclined at the table, ¹⁵ and he said to them, “I have really wanted so much to celebrate this Seder with you before I die! ¹⁶ For I tell you, it is certain that I will not celebrate it again until it is given its full meaning in the Kingdom of God.”

¹⁷ Then, taking a cup of wine, he made the b’rakhah and said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. ¹⁸ For I tell you that from now on, I will not drink the ‘fruit of the vine’ until the Kingdom of God comes.” ¹⁹ Also, taking a piece of matzah, he made the b’rakhah, broke it, gave it to them and said, “This is my body, which is being given for you; do this in memory of me.” ²⁰ He did the same with the cup after the meal, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant, ratified by my blood, which is being poured out for you.

²¹ “But look! The person who is betraying me is here at the table with me! ²² The Son of Man is going to his death according to God’s plan, but woe to that man by whom he is being betrayed!” ²³ They began asking each other which of them could be about to do such a thing.

²⁴ An argument arose among them as to which of them should be considered the greatest. ²⁵ But Yeshua said to them, “The kings of the Goyim lord it over them; and those in authority over them are given the title, ‘Benefactor.’ ²⁶ But not so with you! On the contrary, let the greater among you become like the younger, and one who rules like one who serves. ²⁷ For who is greater? The one reclining at the table? or the one who serves? It’s the one reclining at the table, isn’t it? But I myself am among you like one who serves.

²⁸ “You are the ones who have stayed with me throughout my trials. ²⁹ Just as my Father gave me the right to rule, so I give you an appointment, ³⁰ namely, to eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom and to sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Isra’el.

³¹ “Shim‘on, Shim‘on, listen! The Adversary demanded to have you people for himself, to sift you like wheat! ³² But I prayed for you, Shim‘on, that your trust might not fail. And you, once you have turned back in repentance, strengthen your brothers!” ³³ Shim‘on said to him, “Lord, I am prepared to go with you both to prison and to death!” ³⁴ Yeshua replied, “I tell you, Kefa, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times that you know me.”

³⁵ He said to them, “When I sent you out without wallet, pack or shoes, were you ever short of anything?” “Not a thing,” they answered. ³⁶ “But now,” he said, if you have a wallet or a pack, take it; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your robe to buy one. ³⁷ For I tell you this: the passage from the Tanakh that says, ‘He was counted with transgressors,’^[a] has to be fulfilled in me; since what is happening to me has a purpose.” ³⁸ They said, “Look, Lord, there are two swords right here!” “Enough!” he replied.

³⁹ On leaving, Yeshua went as usual to the Mount of Olives; and the talmidim followed him. ⁴⁰ When he arrived, he said to them, “Pray that you won’t be put to the test.” ⁴¹ He went about a stone’s throw away from them, kneeled down and prayed, ⁴² “Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, let not my will but yours be done.” ⁴³ There appeared to him an angel from heaven giving him strength, ⁴⁴ and in great anguish he prayed more intensely, so that his sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground. ⁴⁵ On rising from prayer and coming to the talmidim, he found them sleeping because of their grief. ⁴⁶ He said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you won’t be put to the test!”

⁴⁷ While he was still speaking, a crowd of people arrived, with the man called Y’hudah (one of the Twelve!) leading them. He came up to Yeshua to kiss him, ⁴⁸ but Yeshua said to him, “Y’hudah, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?” ⁴⁹ When his followers saw what was going to happen, they said, “Lord, should we use our swords?” ⁵⁰ One of them struck at the slave of the cohen hagadol and cut off his right ear. ⁵¹ But Yeshua answered, “Just let me do this,” and, touching the man’s ear, he healed him.

⁵² Then Yeshua said to the head cohanim, the officers of the Temple guard and the elders who had come to seize him, “So you came out just as you would to the leader of a rebellion, with swords and clubs? ⁵³ Every day I was there with you in the Temple court, yet you didn’t arrest me. But this is your hour — the hour when darkness rules.”

⁵⁴ Having seized him, they led him away and brought him into the house of the cohen hagadol. Kefa followed at a distance; ⁵⁵ but when they had lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Kefa joined them. ⁵⁶ One of the servant girls saw him sitting in the light of the fire, stared at him and said, “This man also was with him.” ⁵⁷ But he denied it: “Lady, I don’t even know him.” ⁵⁸ A little later, someone else saw him and said, “You’re one of them too”; but Kefa said, “Man, I am not!” ⁵⁹ About an hour later, another man asserted emphatically, “There can be no doubt that this fellow was with him, because he too is from the Galil!” ⁶⁰ But Kefa said, “Man, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” And instantly, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed. ⁶¹ The Lord turned and looked straight at Kefa; and Kefa remembered what the Lord had said, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” ⁶² And he went outside and cried bitterly.

⁶³ Meanwhile, the men who were holding Yeshua made fun of him. They beat him, ⁶⁴ blindfolded him, and kept asking him, “Now, ‘prophesy’! Who hit you that time?” ⁶⁵ And they said many other insulting things to him.

⁶⁶ At daybreak, the people’s council of elders, including both head cohanim and Torah-teachers, met and led him off to their Sanhedrin, ⁶⁷ where they said, “If you are the Mashiach, tell us.” He answered, “If I tell you, you won’t believe me; ⁶⁸ and if I ask you, you won’t answer. ⁶⁹ But from now on, the Son of Man will be sitting at the right hand of HaG’vurah,”^{[b] 70} They all said, “Does this mean, then, that you are the Son of God?” And he answered them, “You say I am.” ⁷¹ They said, “Why do we need additional testimony? We have heard it ourselves from his own mouth!”

23 With that, the whole Sanhedrin got up and brought Yeshua before Pilate, ² where they started accusing him. “We found this man subverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the Emperor and claiming that he himself is the Messiah — a king!” ³ Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” And he answered him, “The words are yours.” ⁴ Pilate said to the head cohanim and the crowds, “I find no ground for a charge against this man.” ⁵ But they persisted. “He is inciting the people with his teaching throughout all Y’hudah — he started in the Galil, and now he’s here!” ⁶ On hearing this, Pilate asked if the man was from the Galil; ⁷ and when he learned that he was under Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who at that time happened to be in Yerushalayim too.

⁸ Herod was delighted to see Yeshua, because he had heard about him and for a long time had been wanting to meet him; indeed, he hoped to see him perform some miracle. ⁹ He questioned him at great length, but Yeshua made no reply. ¹⁰ However, the head cohanim and the Torah-teachers stood there, vehemently pressing their case against him. ¹¹ Herod and his soldiers treated Yeshua with contempt and made fun of him. Then, dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. ¹² That day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; previously they had been enemies.

¹³ Pilate summoned the head cohanim, the leaders and the people, ¹⁴ and said to them, “You brought this man before me on a charge of subverting the people. I examined him in your presence and did not find the man guilty of the crime you are accusing him of. ¹⁵ And neither did Herod, because he sent him back to us. Clearly, he has not done anything that merits the death penalty. ¹⁶ Therefore, what I will do is have him flogged and release him.” ^{17 [c] 18} But with one voice they shouted, “Away with this man! Give us Bar-Abba!” ¹⁹ (He was a man who had been thrown in prison for causing a riot in the city and for murder.) ²⁰ Pilate appealed to them again, because he wanted to release Yeshua. ²¹ But they yelled, “Put him to death on the stake! Put him to death on the stake!” ²² A third time he asked them, “But what has this man done wrong? I haven’t found any reason to put him to death. So I’m going to have him flogged and set free.” ²³ But they went on yelling insistently, demanding that he be executed on the stake; and their shouting prevailed. ²⁴ Pilate decided to grant their demand; ²⁵ he released the man who had been thrown in prison for insurrection and murder, the one they had asked for; and Yeshua he surrendered to their will.

²⁶ As the Roman soldiers led Yeshua away, they grabbed hold of a man from Cyrene named Shim‘on, who was on his way in from the country. They put the execution-stake on his back and made him carry it behind Yeshua. ²⁷ Large numbers of people followed, including women crying and wailing over him. ²⁸ Yeshua turned to them and said, “Daughters of Yerushalayim, don’t cry for me; cry for yourselves and your children! ²⁹ For the time is coming when people will say, ‘The childless women are the lucky ones — those whose wombs have never borne a child, whose breasts have never nursed a baby! ³⁰ Then

³¹ For if they do these things when the wood is green, what is going to happen when it’s dry?”

³² Two other men, both criminals, were led out to be executed with him. ³³ When they came to the place called The Skull, they nailed him to a stake; and they nailed the criminals to stakes, one on the right and one on the left. ³⁴ Yeshua said, “Father, forgive them; they don’t understand what they are doing.”

They divided up his clothes by throwing dice.^{[e] 35} The people stood watching, and the rulers sneered at him.^[f] “He saved others,” they said, “so if he really is the Messiah, the one chosen by God, let him save himself!” ³⁶ The soldiers too ridiculed him; they came up, offered him vinegar^{[g] 37} and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself!” ³⁸ And there was a notice over him which read,

THIS IS

THE KING OF THE JEWS

³⁹ One of the criminals hanging there hurled insults at him. “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” ⁴⁰ But the other one spoke up and rebuked the first, saying, “Have you no fear of God? You’re getting the same punishment as he is. ⁴¹ Ours is only fair; we’re getting what we deserve for what we did. But this man did nothing wrong.” ⁴² Then he said, “Yeshua, remember me when you come as King.” ⁴³ Yeshua said to him, “Yes! I promise that you will be with me today in Gan-‘Eden.”

⁴⁴ It was now about noon, and darkness covered the whole Land until three o’clock in the afternoon; ⁴⁵ the sun did not shine. Also the parokhet in the Temple was split down the middle. ⁴⁶ Crying out with a loud voice, Yeshua said, “Father! Into your hands I commit my spirit.”^[h] With these words he gave up his spirit.

⁴⁷ When the Roman officer saw what had happened, he began to praise God and said, “Surely this man was innocent!” ⁴⁸ And when all the crowds that had gathered to watch the spectacle saw the things that had occurred, they returned home beating their breasts. ⁴⁹ All his friends, including the women who had accompanied him from the Galil, had been standing at a distance; they saw it all.

⁵⁰ There was a man named Yosef, a member of the Sanhedrin. He was a good man, a tzaddik; ⁵¹ and he had not been in agreement with either the Sanhedrin’s motivation or their action. He came from the town of Ramatayim, a town of the Judeans; and he looked forward to the Kingdom of God. ⁵² This man approached Pilate and asked for Yeshua’s body. ⁵³ He took it down, wrapped it in a linen sheet, and placed it in a tomb cut into the rock, that had never been used.

⁵⁴ It was Preparation Day, and a Shabbat was about to begin. ⁵⁵ The women who had come with Yeshua from the Galil followed; they saw the tomb and how his body was placed in it. ⁵⁶ Then they went back home to prepare spices and ointments.

On Shabbat the women rested, in obedience to the commandment;

24 but the next day, while it was still very early, they took the spices they had prepared, went to the tomb, ² and found the stone rolled away from the tomb! ³ On entering, they discovered that the body of the Lord Yeshua was gone! ⁴ They were standing there, not knowing what to think about it, when suddenly two men in dazzlingly bright clothing stood next to them. ⁵ Terror-stricken, they bowed down with their faces to the ground. The two men said to them, “Why are you looking for the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here; he has been raised. Remember how he told you while he was still in the Galil, ⁷ ‘The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be executed on a stake as a criminal, but on the third day be raised again’?” ⁸ Then they remembered his words; ⁹ and, returning from the tomb, they told everything to the Eleven and to all the rest. ¹⁰ The women who told the emissaries these things were Miryam of Magdala, Yochanah, Miryam the mother of Ya‘akov, and the others in their circle.

¹¹ But the emissaries didn’t believe them; in fact, they thought that what they said was utter nonsense! ¹² However, Kefa got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping down, he saw only the burial cloths and went home wondering what had happened.

¹³ That same day, two of them were going toward a village about seven miles from Yerushalayim called Amma’us, ¹⁴ and they were talking with each other about all the things that had happened. ¹⁵ As they talked and discussed, Yeshua himself came up and walked along with them, ¹⁶ but something kept them from recognizing him. ¹⁷ He asked them, “What are you talking about with each other as you walk along?” They stopped short, their faces downcast; ¹⁸ and one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only person staying in Yerushalayim that doesn’t know the things that have been going on there the last few days?” ¹⁹ “What things?” he asked them. They said to him, “The things about Yeshua from Natzeret. He was a prophet and proved it by the things he did and said before God and all the people. ²⁰ Our head cohanim and our leaders handed him over, so that he could be sentenced to death and executed on a stake as a criminal. ²¹ And we had hoped that he would be the one to liberate Isra’el! Besides all that, today is the third day since these things happened; ²² and this morning, some of the women astounded us. They were at the tomb early ²³ and couldn’t find his body, so they came back; but they also reported that they had seen a vision of angels who say he’s alive! ²⁴ Some of our friends went to the tomb and found it exactly as the women had said, but they didn’t see him.”

²⁵ He said to them, “Foolish people! So unwilling to put your trust in everything the prophets spoke! ²⁶ Didn’t the Messiah have to die like this before entering his glory?” ²⁷ Then, starting with Moshe and all the prophets, he explained to them the things that can be found throughout the Tanakh concerning himself.

²⁸ They approached the village where they were going. He made as if he were going on farther; ²⁹ but they held him back, saying, “Stay with us, for it’s almost evening, and it’s getting dark.” So he went in to stay with them. ³⁰ As he was reclining with them at the table, he took the matzah, made the b’rakhah, broke it and handed it to them. ³¹ Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. But he became invisible to them. ³² They said to each other, “Didn’t our hearts burn inside us as he spoke to us on the road, opening up the Tanakh to us?”

³³ They got up at once, returned to Yerushalayim and found the Eleven gathered together with their friends, ³⁴ saying, “It’s true! The Lord has risen! Shim‘on saw him!” ³⁵ Then the two told what had happened on the road and how he had become known to them in the breaking of the matzah.

³⁶ They were still talking about it when — there he was, standing among them! ³⁷ Startled and terrified, they thought they were seeing a ghost. ³⁸ But he said to them, “Why are you so upset? Why are these doubts welling up inside you? ³⁹ Look at my hands and my feet — it is I, myself! Touch me and see — a ghost doesn’t have flesh and bones, as you can see I do.” ⁴⁰ As he said this, he showed them his hands and feet. ⁴¹ While they were still unable to believe it for joy and stood there dumbfounded, he said to them, “Have you something here to eat?” ⁴² They gave him a piece of broiled fish, ⁴³ which he took and ate in their presence.

⁴⁴ Yeshua said to them, “This is what I meant when I was still with you and told you that everything written about me in the Torah of Moshe, the Prophets and the Psalms had to be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds, so that they could understand the Tanakh, ⁴⁶ telling them, “Here is what it says: the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day; ⁴⁷ and in his name repentance leading to forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to people from all nations, starting with Yerushalayim. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹ Now I am sending forth upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been equipped with power from above.”

⁵⁰ He led them out toward Beit-Anyah; then, raising his hands, he said a b’rakhah over them; ⁵¹ and as he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. ⁵² They bowed in worship to him, then returned to Yerushalayim, overflowing with joy. ⁵³ And they spent all their time in the Temple courts, praising God.