Read the Gospels in 40 Days

19 Pilate then took Yeshua and had him flogged. ² The soldiers twisted thorn-branches into a crown and placed it on his head, put a purple robe on him, ³ and went up to him, saying over and over, “Hail, ‘king of the Jews’!” and hitting him in the face.

⁴ Pilate went outside once more and said to the crowd, “Look, I’m bringing him out to you to get you to understand that I find no case against him.” ⁵ So Yeshua came out, wearing the thorn-branch crown and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Look at the man!” ⁶ When the head cohanim and the Temple guards saw him they shouted, “Put him to death on the stake! Put him to death on the stake!” Pilate said to them, “You take him out yourselves and put him to death on the stake, because I don’t find any case against him.” ⁷ The Judeans answered him, “We have a law; according to that law, he ought to be put to death, because he made himself out to be the Son of God.” ⁸ On hearing this, Pilate became even more frightened.

⁹ He went back into the headquarters and asked Yeshua, “Where are you from?” But Yeshua didn’t answer. ¹⁰ So Pilate said to him, “You refuse to speak to me? Don’t you understand that it is in my power either to set you free or to have you executed on the stake?” ¹¹ Yeshua answered, “You would have no power over me if it hadn’t been given to you from above; this is why the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.” ¹² On hearing this, Pilate tried to find a way to set him free; but the Judeans shouted, “If you set this man free, it means you’re not a ‘Friend of the Emperor’! Everyone who claims to be a king is opposing the Emperor!” ¹³ When Pilate heard what they were saying, he brought Yeshua outside and sat down on the judge’s seat in the place called The Pavement (in Aramaic, Gabta); ¹⁴ it was about noon on Preparation Day for Pesach. He said to the Judeans, “Here’s your king!” ¹⁵ They shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Put him to death on the stake!” Pilate said to them, “You want me to execute your king on a stake?” The head cohanim answered, “We have no king but the Emperor.” ¹⁶ Then Pilate handed Yeshua over to them to have him put to death on the stake.

So they took charge of Yeshua. ¹⁷ Carrying the stake himself he went out to the place called Skull (in Aramaic, Gulgolta). ¹⁸ There they nailed him to the stake along with two others, one on either side, with Yeshua in the middle. ¹⁹ Pilate also had a notice written and posted on the stake; it read,

YESHUA FROM NATZERET

THE KING OF THE JEWS

²⁰ Many of the Judeans read this notice, because the place where Yeshua was put on the stake was close to the city; and it had been written in Hebrew, in Latin and in Greek. ²¹ The Judeans’ head cohanim therefore said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but ‘He said, “I am King of the Jews.”’” ²² Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

²³ When the soldiers had nailed Yeshua to the stake, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier, with the under-robe left over. Now the under-robe was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom; ²⁴ so they said to one another, “We shouldn’t tear it in pieces; let’s draw for it.” This happened in order to fulfill the words from the Tanakh,

This is why the soldiers did these things.

²⁵ Nearby Yeshua’s execution stake stood his mother, his mother’s sister Miryam the wife of K’lofah, and Miryam from Magdala. ²⁶ When Yeshua saw his mother and the talmid whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, “Mother, this is your son.” ²⁷ Then he said to the talmid, “This is your mother.” And from that time on, the talmid took her into his own home.

²⁸ After this, knowing that all things had accomplished their purpose, Yeshua, in order to fulfill the words of the Tanakh, said, “I’m thirsty.” ²⁹ A jar full of cheap sour wine was there; so they soaked a sponge in the wine, coated it with oregano leaves and held it up to his mouth. ³⁰ After Yeshua had taken the wine, he said, “It is accomplished!” And, letting his head droop, he delivered up his spirit.

³¹ It was Preparation Day, and the Judeans did not want the bodies to remain on the stake on Shabbat, since it was an especially important Shabbat. So they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies removed. ³² The soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been put on a stake beside Yeshua, then the legs of the other one; ³³ but when they got to Yeshua and saw that he was already dead, they didn’t break his legs. ³⁴ However, one of the soldiers stabbed his side with a spear, and at once blood and water flowed out. ³⁵ The man who saw it has testified about it, and his testimony is true. And he knows that he tells the truth, so you too can trust. ³⁶ For these things happened in order to fulfill this passage of the Tanakh:

³⁷ And again, another passage says,

³⁸ After this, Yosef of Ramatayim, who was a talmid of Yeshua, but a secret one out of fear of the Judeans, asked Pilate if he could have Yeshua’s body. Pilate gave his consent, so Yosef came and took the body away. ³⁹ Also Nakdimon, who at first had gone to see Yeshua by night, came with some seventy pounds of spices — a mixture of myrrh and aloes. ⁴⁰ They took Yeshua’s body and wrapped it up in linen sheets with the spices, in keeping with Judean burial practice. ⁴¹ In the vicinity of where he had been executed was a garden, and in the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been buried. ⁴² So, because it was Preparation Day for the Judeans, and because the tomb was close by, that is where they buried Yeshua.

20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Miryam from Magdala went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. ² So she came running to Shim‘on Kefa and the other talmid, the one Yeshua loved, and said to them, “They’ve taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they’ve put him!”

³ Then Kefa and the other talmid started for the tomb. ⁴ They both ran, but the other talmid outran Kefa and reached the tomb first. ⁵ Stooping down, he saw the linen burial-sheets lying there but did not go in. ⁶ Then, following him, Shim‘on Kefa arrived, entered the tomb and saw the burial-sheets lying there, ⁷ also the cloth that had been around his head, lying not with the sheets but in a separate place and still folded up. ⁸ Then the other talmid, who had arrived at the tomb first, also went in; he saw, and he trusted. ⁹ (They had not yet come to understand that the Tanakh teaches that the Messiah has to rise from the dead.)

¹⁰ So the talmidim returned home, ¹¹ but Miryam stood outside crying. As she cried, she bent down, peered into the tomb, ¹² and saw two angels in white sitting where the body of Yeshua had been, one at the head and one at the feet. ¹³ “Why are you crying?” they asked her. “They took my Lord,” she said to them, “and I don’t know where they have put him.”

¹⁴ As she said this, she turned around and saw Yeshua standing there, but she didn’t know it was he. ¹⁵ Yeshua said to her, “Lady, why are you crying? Whom are you looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you’re the one who carried him away, just tell me where you put him; and I’ll go and get him myself.” ¹⁶ Yeshua said to her, “Miryam!” Turning, she cried out to him in Hebrew, “Rabbani!” (that is, “Teacher!”) ¹⁷ “Stop holding onto me,” Yeshua said to her, “because I haven’t yet gone back to the Father. But go to my brothers, and tell them that I am going back to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” ¹⁸ Miryam of Magdala went to the talmidim with the news that she had seen the Lord and that he had told her this.

¹⁹ In the evening that same day, the first day of the week, when the talmidim were gathered together behind locked doors out of fear of the Judeans, Yeshua came, stood in the middle and said, “Shalom aleikhem!” ²⁰ Having greeted them, he showed them his hands and his side. The talmidim were overjoyed to see the Lord. ²¹ “Shalom aleikhem!” Yeshua repeated. “Just as the Father sent me, I myself am also sending you.” ²² Having said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Ruach HaKodesh! ²³ If you forgive someone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you hold them, they are held.”

²⁴ Now T’oma (the name means “twin”), one of the Twelve, was not with them when Yeshua came. ²⁵ When the other talmidim told him, “We have seen the Lord,” he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger into the place where the nails were and put my hand into his side, I refuse to believe it.”

²⁶ A week later his talmidim were once more in the room, and this time T’oma was with them. Although the doors were locked, Yeshua came, stood among them and said, “Shalom aleikhem!” ²⁷ Then he said to T’oma, “Put your finger here, look at my hands, take your hand and put it into my side. Don’t be lacking in trust, but have trust!” ²⁸ T’oma answered him, “My Lord and my God!” ²⁹ Yeshua said to him, “Have you trusted because you have seen me? How blessed are those who do not see, but trust anyway!”

³⁰ In the presence of the talmidim Yeshua performed many other miracles which have not been recorded in this book. ³¹ But these which have been recorded are here so that you may trust that Yeshua is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by this trust you may have life because of who he is.