John 19

1Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2The soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and set it on his head, and they dressed him in a purple robe. 3Again and again they came up to him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him in the face. 4Pilate went outside again and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no case against him.” 5So Jesus came outside, still wearing the thorny crown and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Look, here is the man!” 6When the chief priests and the temple police saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!” Pilate told them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him. I find no case against him.” 7The Jewish leaders replied, “We have a law, and by that law he must die, because he made himself the Son of God.”

8When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid. 9He went back inside the headquarters and said to Jesus, “Where do you come from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. 10So Pilate said to him, “Are you refusing to speak to me?” Do you not know that I have authority to set you free and authority to crucify you? 11Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. That is why the one who handed me over to you carries the greater sin.” 12From then on Pilate tried to set him free, but the Jewish leaders shouted, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king is setting himself against Caesar.”

13When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus outside and took his seat on the judgment seat at the place known as the Stone Pavement, in Hebrew Gabbatha. 14It was the day of Preparation of the Passover, about noon. Pilate said to the Jewish leaders, “Look, here is your King!” 15They shouted back, “Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests replied, “We have no king but Caesar.” 16Then Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So they took charge of Jesus. 17Carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull (in Hebrew, Golgotha). 18There they crucified him, along with two others, one on each side and Jesus in the middle. 19Pilate also wrote a notice and had it placed on the cross. The wording was: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” 20Many of the Jews of Jerusalem read this notice, since the spot where Jesus was crucified was close to the city. The notice was in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. 21The chief priests of the Jews objected. “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’” they told Pilate. “Write that this man said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’” 22Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.” 23When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, one share for each soldier. They also took his tunic. The tunic was seamless, woven in a single piece from top to bottom. 24So they said to each other, “Let us not tear it. Let us cast lots for it and see who gets it.” This was so that the Scripture would be fulfilled that says, “They shared out my garments among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.” That is what the soldiers did.

25Meanwhile, near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, her sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26Jesus saw his mother there, and near her the disciple whom he loved. He said to his mother, “Woman, look, here is your son.” 27Then he said to the disciple, “Look, here is your mother.” From that time on the disciple took her into his own home.

28After this, Jesus knew that everything had now been finished. So that the Scripture would be completed, he said, “I am thirsty.” 29A jar full of sour wine stood there. So they put a sponge soaked in the sour wine on a stalk of hyssop and raised it to his lips. 30When Jesus had taken the sour wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and handed over his spirit.

31It was the day of Preparation, and the Jewish leaders did not want the bodies to stay on the crosses over the Sabbath, because that Sabbath was a day of special importance. So they asked Pilate to have the men’s legs broken and the bodies removed. 32So the soldiers came. They broke the first man’s legs, and then the legs of the other man crucified with Jesus. 33But when they reached Jesus, they saw that he had already died. So they did not break his legs. 34One of the soldiers, however, drove a spear into his side, and at once blood and water flowed out. 35The one who saw this has testified to it, and his testimony is true. He knows that what he says is true, and he has told it so that you also may believe. 36These things took place so that the Scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one bone of his will be broken.” 37And another passage of Scripture also says, “They will look at the one they pierced.”

38After this, Joseph of Arimathea, a disciple of Jesus who had kept it hidden because he feared the Jewish leaders, asked Pilate for permission to take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate granted it. So Joseph came and took his body away. 39Nicodemus came too, the man who had first come to Jesus at night. He brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about 70 pounds. 40They took Jesus’s body and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, which is how the Jews prepare a body for burial. 41There was a garden at the place where he had been crucified, and in that garden there was a new tomb where no one had ever been laid. 42The tomb was close at hand, and it was the Jewish day of Preparation, so they laid Jesus there.