The Crown of Thorns

¹Pilate then took Jesus and ^[a]scourged Him. ² And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on His head, and put a purple robe on Him; ³ and they began to come up to Him and say, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and to give Him slaps in the face. ⁴ Pilate came out again and *said to them, “Behold, I am bringing Him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in Him.” ⁵ Jesus then came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate *said to them, “Behold, the Man!” ⁶ So when the chief priests and the officers saw Him, they cried out saying, “Crucify, crucify!” Pilate *said to them, “Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him.” ⁷ The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God.”

⁸ Therefore when Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid; ⁹ and he entered into the ^[b]Praetorium again and *said to Jesus, “Where are You from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. ¹⁰ So Pilate *said to Him, “You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?” ¹¹ Jesus answered, “You would have no authority ^[c]over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” ¹² As a result of this Pilate ^[d]made efforts to release Him, but the Jews cried out saying, “If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king ^[e]opposes Caesar.”

¹³ Therefore when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called ^[f]The Pavement, but in ^[g]Hebrew, Gabbatha. ¹⁴ Now it was the day of preparation for the Passover; it was about the ^[h]sixth hour. And he *said to the Jews, “Behold, your King!” ¹⁵ So they cried out, “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 but Caesar.”

The Crucifixion

¹⁶ So he then handed Him over to them to be crucified.

¹⁷ They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, ^[i]bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in ^[j]Hebrew, Golgotha. ¹⁸ There they crucified Him, and with Him two other men, one on either side, and Jesus in between. ¹⁹ Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It was written, “JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” ²⁰ Therefore many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in ^[k]Hebrew, Latin and in Greek. ²¹ So the chief priests of the Jews were saying to Pilate, “Do not 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 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the ^[l]tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven ^[m]in one piece. ²⁴ So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be”; this was to fulfill the Scripture: “They divided My outer garments among them, and for My clothing they cast ^[n]lots.” ²⁵ Therefore the soldiers did these things.

But standing by the cross of Jesus were His mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶ When Jesus then saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He *said to His mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” ²⁷ Then He *said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” From that hour the disciple took her into his own household.

²⁸ After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, *said, “I am thirsty.” ²⁹ A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth. ³⁰ Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.

Care of the Body of Jesus

³¹ Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (^[o]for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. ³² So the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with Him; ³³ but coming to Jesus, when they saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. ³⁴ But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out. ³⁵ And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe. ³⁶ For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, “Not a bone of Him shall be ^[p]broken.” ³⁷ And again another Scripture says, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.”

³⁸ After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted permission. So he came and took away His body. ³⁹ Nicodemus, who had first come to Him by night, also came, bringing a ^[q]mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred ^[r]pounds weight. ⁴⁰ So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen wrappings with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. ⁴¹ Now in the place where He was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. ⁴² Therefore because of the Jewish day of preparation, since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.