OEBcth - John - 19

19:1  After that, Pilate had Jesus scourged.

19:2  The soldiers made a crown with some thorns and put it on his head and threw a purple robe round him.

19:3  They kept coming up to him and saying: “Long live the king of the Jews!” and they gave him blow after blow with their hands.

19:4  Pilate again came outside, and said to the people: “Look! I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find nothing with which he can be charged.”

19:5  Then Jesus came outside, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe; and Pilate said to them: “Here is the man!”

19:6  When the chief priests and the police officers saw him, they shouted: “Crucify him! Crucify him!” “Take him yourselves and crucify him,” said Pilate. “For my part, I find nothing with which he can be charged.”

19:7  “But we,” replied the crowd, “have a law, under which he deserves death for making himself out to be the Son of God.”

19:8  When Pilate heard what they said, he became still more alarmed;

19:9  and, going into the Government house again, he said to Jesus: “Where do you come from?”

19:10  But Jesus made no reply. So Pilate said to him: “Do you refuse to speak to me? Do not you know that I have power to release you, and have power to crucify you?”

19:11  “You would have no power over me at all,”answered Jesus, “if it had not been given you from above; and, therefore, the man who betrayed me to you is guilty of the greater sin.”

19:12  This made Pilate anxious to release him; but the crowd shouted: “If you release that man, you are no friend of the Emperor! Anyone who makes himself out to be a king is setting himself against the Emperor!”

19:13  On hearing what they said, Pilate brought Jesus out, and took his seat on the Bench at a place called ‘The Stone Pavement’ — in Hebrew ‘Gabbatha.’

19:14  It was the Passover Preparation day, and about noon. Then he said to the crowd: “Here is your king!”

19:15  At that the people shouted: “Kill him! Kill him! Crucify him!” “What! Should I crucify your king?” exclaimed Pilate. “We have no king but the Emperor,” replied the chief priests;

19:16  so Pilate gave Jesus up to them to be crucified.

19:17  and he went out, carrying his cross himself, to the place which is named from a scull, or, in Hebrew, Golgotha.

19:18  There they crucified him, and two others with him — one on each side, and Jesus between them.

19:19  Pilate also had these words written and put up over the cross — ‘JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.’

19:20  These words were read by many people, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and they were written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek.

19:21  The chief priests said to Pilate: “Do not write ‘The king of the Jews’, but write what the man said — ‘I am the king of the Jews.’”

19:22  But Pilate answered: “What I have written, I have written.”

19:23  When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares — a share for each soldier — and they took the coat also. The coat had no seam, being woven in one piece from top to bottom.

19:24  So they said to one another: “Do not let us tear it, but let us cast lots for it, to see who will have it.” This was in fulfilment of the words of scripture — ‘They shared my clothes among them, And over my clothing they cast lots.’ That was what the soldiers did.

19:25  Meanwhile near the cross of Jesus were standing his mother and his mother’s sister, as well as Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary of Magdala.

19:26  When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved, standing near, he said to his mother: “There is your son.”

19:27  Then he said to that disciple: “There is your mother.”And from that very hour the disciple took her to live in his house.

19:28  Afterwards, knowing that everything was now finished, Jesus said, in fulfilment of the words of scripture: “I am thirsty.”

19:29  There was a bowl standing there full of common wine; so they put a sponge soaked in the wine on the end of a hyssop-stalk, and held it up to his mouth.

19:30  When Jesus had received the wine, he exclaimed: “All is finished!”Then, bowing his head, he resigned his spirit to God.

19:31  It was the Preparation day, and so, to prevent the bodies from remaining on the crosses during the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a great day), the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies removed.

19:32  Accordingly the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man, and then those of the other who had been crucified with Jesus;

19:33  but, on coming to him, when they saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs.

19:34  One of the soldiers, however, pierced his side with a spear, and blood and water immediately flowed from it.

19:35  This is the statement of one who actually saw it — and his statement may be relied on, and he knows that he is speaking the truth — and it is given in order that you also may be convinced.

19:36  For all this happened in fulfilment of the words of scripture — ‘Not one of its bones will be broken.’

19:37  And there is another passage which says — ‘They will look on him whom they pierced.’

19:38  After this, Joseph of Ramah, a disciple of Jesus — but a secret one, owing to his fear of the religious authorities — begged Pilate’s permission to remove the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him leave; so Joseph went and removed the body.

19:39  Nicodemus, too — the man who had formerly visited Jesus by night — came with a roll of myrrh and aloes, weighing nearly a hundred pounds.

19:40  They took the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen with the spices, according to the Jewish mode of burial.

19:41  At the place where Jesus had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a newly made tomb in which no one had ever been laid.

19:42  And so, because of its being the Preparation day, and as the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.