⁵ So they concluded, “Our only chance of finding grounds for accusing Daniel will be in connection with the rules of his religion.”

¹³ These men cannot prove the things they accuse me of doing.

¹⁴ “But I admit that I follow the Way, which they call a cult. I worship the God of our ancestors, and I firmly believe the Jewish law and everything written in the prophets. ¹⁵ I have the same hope in God that these men have, that he will raise both the righteous and the unrighteous. ¹⁶ Because of this, I always try to maintain a clear conscience before God and all people.

²⁰ Ask these men here what crime the Jewish high council^[a] found me guilty of, ²¹ except for the one time I shouted out, ‘I am on trial before you today because I believe in the resurrection of the dead!’”

⁸ Then Haman approached King Xerxes and said, “There is a certain race of people scattered through all the provinces of your empire who keep themselves separate from everyone else. Their laws are different from those of any other people, and they refuse to obey the laws of the king. So it is not in the king’s interest to let them live.

¹⁷ And he said to David, “You are a better man than I am, for you have repaid me good for evil.

⁶ When they saw him, the leading priests and Temple guards began shouting, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

“Take him yourselves and crucify him,” Pilate said. “I find him not guilty.”

⁷ The Jewish leaders replied, “By our law he ought to die because he called himself the Son of God.”