Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

4 Christ suffered in his body. You also must be ready to have the same trouble happen to you. When a man has suffered in his body, he has stopped doing wrong things.

² For the rest of his life on earth he will not do what people want to do. He will do what God wants him to do.

³ In the time past you did the same things as people who do not believe God. Let that be enough. You did things you should be ashamed of. You did what you wanted to do. You got drunk. You got into fights. You took part in noisy feasting with dancing. You did wrong by worshipping idols.

⁴ Those people are surprised now that you do not do the same wrong things they do. And they say wrong things about you.

⁵ They will have to explain what they are doing. They will have to talk to God about what they have done. He is ready to judge living people and dead people.

⁶ That is why the good news was also told to those who are now dead. They will be judged like men who are alive. This was done so that they could live like God in the spirit.

⁷ It is almost the time when the world will end. So be wise and watch and talk to God.

⁸ Here is something that matters very much. You must love each other very much. Love will cover up many wrong things.

⁵⁷ In the evening, a rich man came. He was Joseph from the town of Arimathea. He also believed in Jesus.

⁵⁸ He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Pilate said that it should be given to him.

⁵⁹ Joseph took the body and wrapped a clean linen cloth around it.

⁶⁰ He put the body in his own new grave which had been cut in a rock. He rolled a very big stone to close the grave. Then he went away.

⁶¹ Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there. They sat where they could see the grave.

⁶² The next day was the Sabbath day. The chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate together.

⁶³ They said, `Sir, that man fooled people. We remember what he said when he was still living. He said that he would rise after three days.

⁶⁴ So give orders that the grave must be guarded for three days. Then his disciples cannot come in the night to carry away his body, and tell people he rose from death. This last trick would be worse than the first.'

⁶⁵ Pilate said to them, `Take soldiers. Go and guard the grave as well as you can.'

⁶⁶ So they went and shut the grave tight. They put a government mark on the big stone. And the soldiers stayed to guard it. This was to make sure the grave would stay shut.

³⁸ A man named Joseph, from the town of Arimathea, was a disciple of Jesus. But he did not say so because he was afraid of the leaders of the Jews. After all this had happened, he went to Pilate. He asked him to let him take Jesus' body away. Pilate let him. So he came and took his body.

³⁹ Nicodemus also came. He was the one who had come to Jesus at night. He brought with him a heavy bag of sweet-smelling spices called myrrh and aloes. It was mixed together.

⁴⁰ They wrapped linen cloth around the body of Jesus and put the myrrh and aloes in with the cloth. That is how Jews bury a person.

⁴¹ There was a garden at the place where Jesus was nailed to the cross. In the garden was a new grave cut in the rock. No one had ever been laid in it.

⁴² They laid Jesus' body there because it was the day before the Sabbath day, and the grave was near.