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.”

³¹ “Then take him away and judge him by your own law,” Pilate told them.

“Only the Romans are permitted to execute someone,” the Jewish leaders replied.

⁴ Pilate went outside again and said to the people, “I am going to bring him out to you now, but understand clearly that I find him not guilty.”

²⁷ The people in Jerusalem and their leaders did not recognize Jesus as the one the prophets had spoken about. Instead, they condemned him, and in doing this they fulfilled the prophets’ words that are read every Sabbath. ²⁸ They found no legal reason to execute him, but they asked Pilate to have him killed anyway.

²⁹ “When they had done all that the prophecies said about him, they took him down from the cross^[a] and placed him in a tomb.

⁵² Name one prophet your ancestors didn’t persecute! They even killed the ones who predicted the coming of the Righteous One—the Messiah whom you betrayed and murdered.

¹³ For it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of all our ancestors—who has brought glory to his servant Jesus by doing this. This is the same Jesus whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate, despite Pilate’s decision to release him. ¹⁴ You rejected this holy, righteous one and instead demanded the release of a murderer. ¹⁵ You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact!

²³ But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed. With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him.

¹⁵ “Away with him,” they yelled. “Away with him! Crucify him!”

“What? Crucify your king?” Pilate asked.

“We have no king but Caesar,” the leading priests shouted back.

⁴ Pilate turned to the leading priests and to the crowd and said, “I find nothing wrong with this man!”

¹² Pilate asked them, “Then what should I do with this man you call the king of the Jews?”

¹³ They shouted back, “Crucify him!”

¹⁴ “Why?” Pilate demanded. “What crime has he committed?”

But the mob roared even louder, “Crucify him!”

¹⁵ So to pacify the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them. He ordered Jesus flogged with a lead-tipped whip, then turned him over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.