John 19

¹ Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.

² The soldiers braided a crown of thorns, put it on his head, and dressed him in a purple robe.

³ They kept coming up to him and saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they slapped him.

⁴ Pilate came out again and said to them, “Look, I’m bringing him out to you so you can know that I find no fault in him.”

⁵ Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, “Here is the man.”

⁶ When the chief priests and the guards saw him, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, because I find no fault in him.”

⁷ The Jews answered him, “We have a Law, and according to the Law he must die, because he made himself the Son of God.”

⁸ When Pilate heard this, he became even more afraid.

⁹ He went back into the Praetorium and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer.

¹⁰ So Pilate said to him, “You won’t speak to me? Don’t you know I have authority to release you, and authority to crucify you?”

¹¹ Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over me at all if it had not been given to you from above. For this reason, the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”

¹² From then on, Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews shouted, “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”

¹³ When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, in Hebrew, Gabbatha.

¹⁴ It was the day of Preparation for the Passover, about noon. And he said to the Jews, “Here is your king.”

¹⁵ They shouted, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king except Caesar.”

¹⁶ Then he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus.

¹⁷ Carrying his own cross, Jesus went out to the place called the Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.

¹⁸ There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on each side, with Jesus in the middle.

¹⁹ Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read: “Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.”

²⁰ Many of the Jews read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city. It was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.

²¹ Then the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Don’t write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that he said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’”

²² Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

²³ When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, and also took his tunic. The tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

²⁴ So they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be.” This was to fulfill the Scripture: “They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my garment they cast lots.” That is what the soldiers did.

²⁵ Standing by Jesus’ cross were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.”

²⁷ Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour on, the disciple took her into his own home.

²⁸ After this, Jesus, knowing that everything had now been completed, said, to fulfill the Scripture, “I am thirsty.”

²⁹ A jar full of sour wine was there. So they soaked a sponge in the sour wine, put it on a hyssop stalk, and brought it to his mouth.

³⁰ When Jesus had taken the sour wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

³¹ It was the day of Preparation. So that the bodies would not remain on the cross during the Sabbath—for that Sabbath was a special day—the Jews asked Pilate to have their legs broken and have them taken down.

³² So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who had been crucified with him.

³³ But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they did not break his legs.

³⁴ Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.

³⁵ The one who saw this has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, so that you too may believe.

³⁶ These things happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.”

³⁷ And another Scripture says, “They will look at the one they pierced.”

³⁸ After this, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus but kept it secret for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take Jesus’ body. Pilate allowed it, so he went and took the body.

³⁹ Nicodemus also came—the man who had first gone to Jesus at night—bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about a hundred pounds.

⁴⁰ They took Jesus’ body and wrapped it in linen cloths with the spices, as was the Jewish custom for burial.

⁴¹ There was a garden at the place where he was crucified, and in the garden a new tomb where no one had ever been laid.

⁴² So they laid Jesus there, because of the Jews’ day of Preparation and because the tomb was nearby.

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