Jesus Sentenced and Beaten
John 19Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted thorns into a crown and put it on his head, and dressed him in a purple garment. They kept saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and they slapped him in the face repeatedly.
Then Pilate came out again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to y’all so that y’all will know that I find no basis for a charge against him.”
Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment. Pilate said to them, “Look, the man!”
When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”
Pilate said to them, “Y’all take him and y’all crucify him. I find no basis for a charge against him.”
The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and by our law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”
When Pilate heard this statement, he was more afraid. He went back into the Praetorium and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, “You aren’t speaking to me? Don’t you know that I have the power to release you and the power to crucify you?”
Jesus answered, “You would have no power at all against me unless it were given to you from above. Therefore the one who delivered me to you has greater sin.”
At this, Pilate tried to release him, but the Jews cried out, saying, “If you release this man, you aren’t Caesar’s friend! Everyone who makes himself a king speaks against Caesar!”
When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called “The Stone Pavement” (which in Hebrew is “Gabbatha”). Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, at about noon.
He said to the Jews, “Look! Y’all’s King!”
They cried out, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”
Pilate said to them, “Should I crucify y’all’s King?”
The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar!”
The Crucifixion
Finally he handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led him away. He went out, bearing his cross, to the place called “The Place of a Skull” (which in Hebrew is “Golgotha”). There they crucified him with two others, one on either side and Jesus in the middle. Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. It read, “jesus of nazareth, the king of the jews.” Many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but instead, ‘He claimed, “I am King of the Jews.”’”
Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and made four parts, one for each soldier. They also took the tunic, which was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it to decide whose it will be.” This happened the Scripture would be fulfilled, which says,
“They parted my garments among them. They cast lots for my clothing.”+Psa 22:18Therefore the soldiers did these things.
Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing there, he said to his mother, “Woman, look, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Look, your mother!” From that hour the disciple took her to his own home.
The Death of Jesus
After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had now been finished in fulfillment of Scripture, said, “I am thirsty!” A jar full of vinegar was there, so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on a branch of hyssop, and held it up to his mouth. When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, “It is finished!” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Preparing the Body of Jesus
It was the Preparation Day, and then the next day was a special Sabbath. Because the Jews didn’t want the bodies left on the cross on the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have their legs might broken and that they might be taken down. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man and of the other who was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, they saw that he was already dead, so they didn’t break his legs. However, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.
The person who saw this has testified, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, so that y’all may believe. For these things happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled, “Not a bone of his will be broken.”+Exo 12:20 Again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they pierced.”+Zech 12:10
The Burial of Jesus
Later, Joseph of Arimathaea, a disciple of Jesus (but secretly for fear of the Jewish leaders), asked of Pilate if he could take Jesus’s body. Pilate gave him permission, so he came and took away his body. Nicodemus, who had first come to Jesus at night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. So they took Jesus’s body, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices according to the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden. In the garden was a new tomb in which no one had ever been laid. Then, because it was of the Jewish Day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.