⁹ Then he sent an army captain with fifty soldiers to arrest him. They found him sitting on top of a hill. The captain said to him, “Man of God, the king has commanded you to come down with us.”

³⁶ Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons.

¹³ “Go and find out where he is,” the king commanded, “so I can send troops to seize him.”

And the report came back: “Elisha is at Dothan.” ¹⁴ So one night the king of Aram sent a great army with many chariots and horses to surround the city.

¹¹ At this, the enemies of Jesus were wild with rage and began to discuss what to do with him.

Jesus Chooses the Twelve Apostles

¹² One day soon afterward Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night.

³² Let this Messiah, this King of Israel, come down from the cross so we can see it and believe him!” Even the men who were crucified with Jesus ridiculed him.

²⁹ The people passing by shouted abuse, shaking their heads in mockery. “Ha! Look at you now!” they yelled at him. “You said you were going to destroy the Temple and rebuild it in three days.

⁴¹ The leading priests, the teachers of religious law, and the elders also mocked Jesus. ⁴² “He saved others,” they scoffed, “but he can’t save himself! So he is the King of Israel, is he? Let him come down from the cross right now, and we will believe in him! ⁴³ He trusted God, so let God rescue him now if he wants him! For he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

²⁹ They wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head, and they placed a reed stick in his right hand as a scepter. Then they knelt before him in mockery and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!”

⁶⁸ jeering, “Prophesy to us, you Messiah! Who hit you that time?”

³ For Herod had arrested and imprisoned John as a favor to his wife Herodias (the former wife of Herod’s brother Philip).