John 19

¹Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged.

²The soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head, and they threw a purple robe around him. ³They kept coming up to him and saying, "Hail, King of the Jews!"—and they struck him with their hands.

⁴Pilate came out again and said to them, "Look, I am bringing him out to you so that you may know I find no basis for a charge against him." ⁵So Jesus came out, wearing the thorn crown and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, "Look—the man!"

⁶When the chief priests and the temple guards saw him, they shouted, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "You take him and crucify him. I find no basis for a charge against him."

⁷The Judean authorities answered him, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he made himself the Son of God."

⁸When Pilate heard this statement, he became even more afraid. ⁹He went back into the praetorium and said to Jesus, "Where are you from?" But Jesus gave him no answer.

¹⁰So Pilate said to him, "You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and I have authority to crucify you?"

¹¹Jesus answered, "You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin."

¹²From that moment on, Pilate kept trying to release him. But the Judean authorities shouted, "If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar! Everyone who makes himself a king sets himself against Caesar!"

¹³When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus outside and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement—in Hebrew, Gabbatha. ¹⁴It was the day of Preparation for Passover, about the sixth hour. He said to the Judeans, "Look—your king!"

¹⁵They shouted back, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate said to them, "Should I crucify your king?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!"

¹⁶So then he handed him over to them to be crucified. They took Jesus,

¹⁷and carrying the cross for himself, he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. ¹⁸There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side, with Jesus in the middle.

¹⁹Pilate also had an inscription written and placed on the cross. It read: "Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Judeans." ²⁰Many of the Judeans read this inscription, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.

²¹So the chief priests of the Judeans said to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Judeans,' but rather 'This man said, I am King of the Judeans.'"

²²Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."

²³When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothing and divided it into four shares, one share for each soldier. They also took the tunic, but the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. ²⁴So they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see who will get it"—so that the scripture might be fulfilled that says, *They divided my garments among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.* This is what the soldiers did.

²⁵Standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Woman, look—your son." ²⁷Then he said to the disciple, "Look—your mother." And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

²⁸After this, Jesus, knowing that everything was now completed in order that the scripture might be brought to its fulfillment, said, "I thirst." ²⁹A jar full of sour wine was standing there, so they put a sponge soaked with the sour wine on a hyssop branch and brought it to his mouth. ³⁰When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is completed." And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

³¹Since it was the day of Preparation, the Judean authorities asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross during the Sabbath—for that Sabbath was a high day. ³²So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who had been crucified with him. ³³But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. ³⁴Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.

³⁵The one who saw this has testified, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he speaks the truth, so that you also may believe. ³⁶For these things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: *Not one of his bones shall be broken.* ³⁷And again another scripture says, *They shall look on the one whom they have pierced.*

³⁸After these things, Joseph from Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus but secretly because of his fear of the Judean authorities, asked Pilate if he could take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission, so he came and took his body. ³⁹Nicodemus also came—the one who had first come to him at night—bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds. ⁴⁰So they took the body of Jesus and wrapped it in linen cloths with the spices, according to the burial custom of the Judeans.

⁴¹Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. ⁴²So because it was the Judean day of Preparation, and because the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.