⁴⁵ The guards returned to the chief priests and Pharisees, who asked, “Why didn’t you bring him?”

⁴⁶ The guards answered, “No one has ever spoken the way he does.”

⁴⁷ The Pharisees replied, “Have you too been deceived? ⁴⁸ Have any of the leaders believed in him? Has any Pharisee? ⁴⁹ No, only this crowd, which doesn’t know the Law. And they are under God’s curse!”

⁵⁰ Nicodemus, who was one of them and had come to Jesus earlier, said, ⁵¹ “Our Law doesn’t judge someone without first hearing him and learning what he is doing, does it?”

⁵² They answered him, “You are not from Galilee too, are you? Look it up and you will see that the prophet doesn’t come from Galilee.”

Jesus’ body is buried

³⁸ After this Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate if he could take away the body of Jesus. Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one because he feared the Jewish authorities. Pilate gave him permission, so he came and took the body away. ³⁹ Nicodemus, the one who at first had come to Jesus at night, was there too. He brought a mixture of myrrh and aloe, nearly seventy-five pounds in all.^{[a] 40} Following Jewish burial customs, they took Jesus’ body and wrapped it, with the spices, in linen cloths. ⁴¹ There was a garden in the place where Jesus was crucified, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. ⁴² Because it was the Jewish Preparation Day and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus in it.