Mark 15

¹And immediately at dawn, the chief priests, having held a council with the elders and scribes and the whole Sanhedrin, bound Jesus and led him away and handed him over to Pilate.

²Pilate questioned him: "Are you the King of the Jews?" He answered him, "You say so." ³The chief priests were accusing him of many things. ⁴Pilate questioned him again, saying, "Have you no answer? Look how many charges they are bringing against you." ⁵But Jesus made no further reply at all, so that Pilate was astonished.

⁶Now at each festival he used to release to them one prisoner, whomever they requested. ⁷There was a man called Barabbas, imprisoned with the insurrectionists who had committed murder during the uprising. ⁸The crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he customarily did for them. ⁹Pilate answered them, saying, "Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?" ¹⁰For he recognized that it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed him over. ¹¹But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release Barabbas to them instead. ¹²Pilate again responded and said to them, "Then what do you want me to do with the one you call the King of the Jews?" ¹³They shouted back, "Crucify him!" ¹⁴Pilate said to them, "Why? What crime has he committed?" But they shouted all the more, "Crucify him!"

¹⁵So Pilate, wanting to satisfy the crowd, released Barabbas to them, and after having Jesus flogged, handed him over to be crucified.

¹⁶The soldiers led him away into the courtyard—that is, the governor's residence—and they called together the whole cohort. ¹⁷They dressed him in purple and placed on him a crown they had woven from thorns. ¹⁸And they began to salute him: "Hail, King of the Jews!" ¹⁹They kept striking his head with a reed and spitting on him, and bending their knees, they kept doing obeisance to him. ²⁰When they had finished mocking him, they stripped off the purple and put his own clothes back on him. Then they led him out to crucify him.

²¹They pressed into service a passerby, Simon from Cyrene, coming in from the countryside—the father of Alexander and Rufus—to carry his cross. ²²They brought him to the place called Golgotha, which is translated "Place of a Skull." ²³They offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. ²⁴And they crucified him and divided up his garments, casting lots for them to decide who would take what. ²⁵It was the third hour when they crucified him. ²⁶The inscription of the charge against him read: THE KING OF THE JEWS. ²⁷With him they crucified two bandits, one on his right and one on his left.

²⁹Those passing by were hurling insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "Ha! You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days— ³⁰save yourself by coming down from the cross!" ³¹Likewise the chief priests, mocking him among themselves together with the scribes, said, "He saved others—himself he cannot save! ³²Let the Messiah, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross so that we may see and believe!" Even those who were crucified with him were reviling him.

³³When the sixth hour came, darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour. ³⁴At the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?"—which is translated, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" ³⁵Some of those standing nearby, when they heard it, said, "Look, he is calling for Elijah." ³⁶Someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed, and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait—let us see if Elijah comes to take him down."

³⁷But Jesus, letting out a loud cry, breathed his last. ³⁸And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. ³⁹When the centurion standing opposite him saw that he died in this way, he said, "Truly this man was God's son."

⁴⁰There were also women watching from a distance, among them Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome— ⁴¹who, when he was in Galilee, used to follow him and serve him—and many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem.

⁴²When evening had already come, since it was Preparation Day—that is, the day before the Sabbath— ⁴³Joseph of Arimathea, a prominent council member who was himself awaiting the kingdom of God, gathered his courage and went to Pilate and requested the body of Jesus. ⁴⁴Pilate was surprised that he was already dead, and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for long. ⁴⁵When he learned this from the centurion, he granted the corpse to Joseph. ⁴⁶Joseph purchased a linen cloth, took him down, wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a tomb that had been cut from rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. ⁴⁷Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses were watching where he was laid.