New Testament in a Year

Pilate Questions Jesus^(A)

15 Early in the morning the chief priests immediately came to a decision with the leaders and the experts in Moses’ Teachings. The whole Jewish council decided to tie Jesus up, lead him away, and hand him over to Pilate.

² Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

“Yes, I am,” Jesus answered him.

³ The chief priests were accusing him of many things.

⁴ So Pilate asked him again, “Don’t you have any answer? Look how many accusations they’re bringing against you!”

⁵ But Jesus no longer answered anything, so Pilate was surprised.

The Crowd Rejects Jesus^(B)

⁶ At every Passover festival, Pilate would free one prisoner whom the people asked for. ⁷ There was a man named Barabbas in prison. He was with some rebels who had committed murder during a riot. ⁸ The crowd asked Pilate to do for them what he always did. ⁹ Pilate answered them, “Do you want me to free the king of the Jews for you?” ¹⁰ Pilate knew that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him because they were jealous.

¹¹ The chief priests stirred up the crowd so that Pilate would free Barabbas for them instead.

¹² So Pilate again asked them, “Then what should I do with the king of the Jews?”

¹³ “Crucify him!” they shouted back.

¹⁴ Pilate said to them, “Why? What has he done wrong?”

But they shouted even louder, “Crucify him!”

¹⁵ Pilate wanted to satisfy the people, so he freed Barabbas for them. But he had Jesus whipped and handed over to be crucified.

The Soldiers Make Fun of Jesus^(C)

¹⁶ The soldiers led Jesus into the courtyard of the palace and called together the whole troop. ¹⁷ They dressed him in purple, twisted some thorns into a crown, and placed it on his head. ¹⁸ Then they began to greet him, “Long live the king of the Jews!” ¹⁹ They kept hitting him on the head with a stick, spitting on him, and kneeling in front of him with false humility.

The Crucifixion^(D)

²⁰ After the soldiers finished making fun of Jesus, they took off the purple cape and put his own clothes back on him. Then they led him out to crucify him. ²¹ A man named Simon from the city of Cyrene was coming ⌞into Jerusalem⌟ from his home in the country. He was the father of Alexander and Rufus. As he was about to pass by, the soldiers forced him to carry Jesus’ cross.

²² They took Jesus to Golgotha (which means “the place of the skull”). ²³ They tried to give him wine mixed with a drug called myrrh, but he wouldn’t take it. ²⁴ Next they crucified him. Then they divided his clothes among themselves by throwing dice to see what each one would get. ²⁵ It was nine in the morning when they crucified him.