Jesus Is Brought Before Pilate^(A)

²⁸ Early in the morning they [^Cthe Jewish leaders] led Jesus from Caiaphas’s house to the ·Roman governor’s palace [or governor’s headquarters; ^LPraetorium]. They would not go inside the ·palace [^LPraetorium], because they did not want to make themselves ·unclean [^Caccording to early Jewish sources a Jew who entered the house of a Gentile would become ritually unclean]; they wanted to eat the Passover meal. ²⁹ So Pilate [^CPontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea from ad 26 to 37] went outside to them and asked, “What ·charges [accusation] do you bring against this man?”

³⁰ They answered, “If he were not a ·criminal [^Levildoer], we wouldn’t have brought him to you.”

³¹ Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law.”

“But ·we are not allowed [it is not legal for us] to put anyone to death,” the Jews answered. [^CThe Jewish people had to concede the authority for capital punishment to their Roman occupiers.] ³² (This happened so that what Jesus said about how he would die [^Cby crucifixion rather than stoning] would ·come true [^Lbe fulfilled; see 12:32–33].)