1 When it was daybreak, all the chief priests and the elders over the people met and formed a plot against Jesus, planning to have him put to death. 2 They tied Jesus up and then led him away and handed him over to Pilate the governor.

3 When Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that Jesus had been condemned, he regretted what he had done and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. 4 “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood,” he said to them.

“What is that to us?” they replied. “You see to it yourself!”

5 Throwing the pieces of silver into the sanctuary, Judas left; and he went off and hanged himself.

6 The chief priests picked up the silver pieces and said, “It is forbidden for us to put them into the temple treasury, since it is blood money.” 7 Well, after meeting and agreeing on a plan, they used the money to buy the Potter’s Field, so that it could be used as a burial place for foreigners. 8 (That is why that field has been called the “Field of Blood” to this day.) 9 Then was fulfilled what was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet: And they took “the thirty pieces of silver,” the “price at which” some of the people of Israel had “priced” him, 10 and they gave them for “the field” of “the potter,” “as the LORD commanded me.”+

11 Jesus, meanwhile, stood before the governor. “Are you the King of the Jews?” the governor asked him.

“The words have come out of your own mouth,” Jesus said.

12 As he was being accused by the chief priests and elders, he didn’t say anything in his own defense. 13 Then Pilate said to him, “Surely you hear, don’t you, all these accusations they are bringing against you?” 14 But Jesus didn’t answer him concerning even one charge, to the great astonishment of the governor.

15 Now each year at the Passover Festival, the governor would release to the crowd one prisoner, whomever they chose. 16 Well, they were holding in custody at that time a notorious prisoner named Jesus Barabbas. 17 So when they had gathered, Pilate asked them, “Who do ᵖyou want me to release to you? Jesus Barabbas, or Jesus who is called the Messiah?” 18 (He knew, you see, that it was out of envy that the Jewish leaders had handed Jesus over to him.)

19 While Pilate was sitting on the judgment seat, his wife sent a message to him. “Please leave that innocent man alone,” she said, “for I suffered many, many things last night in a dream because of him.” 20 The chief priests and the elders, however, persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas, and to have Jesus put to death.

21 “Whom do ᵖyou want me to release to you of these two men?” the governor asked them in reply.

“Barabbas!” they answered.

22 “What then should I do with Jesus, who is called the Messiah?” Pilate asked them.

“Crucify him!” they all said.

23 “Why?” Pilate asked. “What crime has he committed?”

But they began shouting even more insistently, “Crucify him!”

24 When Pilate saw that he was getting nowhere, but that instead a riot was about to break out, he took some water and washed off his hands in front of the crowd. “I am in no way responsible for this man’s blood!” he said. “You see to it yourselves!”

25 “The responsibility for his blood will be on us and on our children,” answered all the people.

26 Then Pilate released to them Barabbas. Jesus, however, he had flogged and then handed over to be crucified.

27 Then the governor’s soldiers, having brought Jesus with them into the governor’s headquarters, gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. 28 And when they had stripped him of his clothes, they placed this around him: A scarlet military cloak. 29 Making a victor’s crown out of branches with thorns, they put it on his head. They also put a staff in his right hand. Then as they knelt down before him, they mocked him. “Hail, King of the Jews!” they said. 30 And as they spat on him, they took the staff and struck him over and over again on the head. 31 When they had finished mocking him, they stripped him of the military cloak and put him back into his own clothes. Then they led him away to crucify him.

32 As they were going out, they happened upon a man from Cyrene named Simon. This man they forced to carry Jesus’ cross. 33 When they came to a place called Golgotha (which means this—“ Skull Place”), 34 they offered Jesus some wine mixed with bitter gall to drink, yet when he tasted it, he refused to drink it. 35 When the soldiers had crucified him, they divided up his garments among themselves by casting lots. 36 Then they sat down and kept guard over him there. 37 And they placed above his head the charge against him, which read: “This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.” 38 At that time two insurrectionists were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left.

39 Those who were passing by kept hurling insults at Jesus, shaking their heads in scorn 40 and saying, “You who were going to tear down the sanctuary and rebuild it in only three days—save yourself! If you really are God’s Son, then come down from the cross!” 41 In the same way, the chief priests, too, were mocking him, along with the Torah-experts and elders. They kept saying, 42 “He saved others, but he can’t save himself! So the King of Israel is what he is, is it? Well then, let him come down now from the cross, and we’ll put our faith in him. 43 He trusts in God, does he? Well then, let God rescue him now if he delights in him. After all, he did say, ‘I am the Son of God.’” 44 In the same way, even the insurrectionists who were crucified with him were heaping insults on him.

45 Now from noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over the whole land. 46 At about three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”, which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”+

47 Some of those standing there, when they heard this, began saying, “This man is calling for Elijah!” 48 Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge; when he had soaked it with sour wine and placed it on a stick, he offered Jesus a drink. 49 The others, meanwhile, were saying, “Wait! Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

50 Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and gave up his spirit. 51 Then something remarkable happened: The curtain hanging in front of the Holy of Holies in the sanctuary was torn in two from top to bottom; the ground shook and the rocks were split apart 52 and the tombs were opened. (In fact, the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life, 53 and, having come out of the tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many people.)

54 The Roman officer and those who were guarding Jesus with him, when they saw the earthquake and everything else that happened, were absolutely terrified. “Truly this man was the very Son of God!” they exclaimed.

55 Now there were also many women there, looking on from a distance; they had accompanied Jesus from Galilee, providing for his needs. 56 Among them were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.

57 When it was evening, there came a rich man from the town of Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself also become a disciple of Jesus. 58 This man went to Pilate and asked if he could have care of Jesus’ body. Then Pilate ordered that it be given to him. 59 After he took the body, Joseph wrapped it in a clean linen shroud 60 and placed it in the tomb originally purposed for himself, which had, at his behest, just recently been cut into some bedrock. And after rolling a large stone across the entrance into the tomb, he left. 61 But Mary Magdalene and the other Mary stayed there, sitting across from the tomb.

62 On the next day, the day after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate 63 and said, “Sir, we remembered how that deceiver said while he was still alive, ‘After three days I will be raised to life.’ 64 Therefore, we request that you issue an order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples might come and steal his body and say to the people, ‘He has been raised from the dead.’ This latter deception would be worse than the earlier one.”

65 “Take a guard of soldiers,” Pilate said to them. “Go and make the tomb as secure as ᵖyou know how.”

66 So they went and secured the tomb by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guards.