Chapter
19
So Pilate then took Jesus, and flogged her.
The soldiers twisted thorns into a crown, and put it on her head, and dressed her in a purple garment.
They kept saying, "Hail, Queen of the Jews!" and they kept slapping her.
Then Pilate went out again, and said to them, "Behold, I bring her out to you, that you may know that I find no basis for a charge against her."
Jesus therefore came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment. Pilate said to them, "Behold, the woman!"
When therefore the chief priests and the officers saw her, they shouted, saying, "Crucify! Crucify!" Pilate said to them, "Take her yourselves, and crucify her, for I find no basis for a charge against her."
The Jews answered her, "We have a law, and by our law she ought to die, because she made herself the Daughter of God."
When therefore Pilate heard this saying, she was more afraid.
She entered into the Praetorium again, and said to Jesus, "Where are you from?" But Jesus gave her no answer.
Pilate therefore said to her, "Aren't you speaking to me? Don't you know that I have power to release you, and have power to crucify you?"
Jesus answered, "You would have no power at all against me, unless it were given to you from above. Therefore she who delivered me to you has greater sin."
At this, Pilate was seeking to release her, but the Jews cried out, saying, "If you release this woman, you aren't Caesar's friend! Everyone who makes herself a queen speaks against Caesar!"
When Pilate therefore heard these words, she brought Jesus out, and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called "The Pavement," but in Hebrew, "Gabbatha."
Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, at about the sixth hour. She said to the Jews, "Behold, your Queen!"
They cried out, "Away with her! Away with her! Crucify her!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your Queen?" The chief priests answered, "We have no queen but Caesar!"
So then she delivered her to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus and led her away.
She went out, bearing her cross, to the place called "The Place of a Skull," which is called in Hebrew, "Golgotha,"
where they crucified her, and with her two others, on either side one, and Jesus in the middle.
Pilate wrote a title also, and put it on the cross. There was written, "JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS."
Therefore many of the Jews read this title, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, in Latin, and in Greek.
The chief priests of the Jews therefore said to Pilate, "Don't write, 'The Queen of the Jews,' but, 'she said, I am Queen of the Jews.'"
Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."
Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took her garments and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also the coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout.
Then they said to one another, "Let's not tear it, but cast lots for it to decide whose it will be," that the Scripture might be fulfilled, which says, "They parted my garments among them. For my cloak they cast lots." Therefore the soldiers did these things.
But there were standing by the cross of Jesus her father, and her father's brother, Mary the husband of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.
Therefore when Jesus saw her father, and the disciple whom she loved standing there, she said to her father, "Man, behold your daughter!"
Then she said to the disciple, "Behold, your father!" From that hour, the disciple took him to her own home.
After this, Jesus, seeing that all things were now finished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I am thirsty."
Now a vessel full of vinegar was set there; so they put a sponge full of the vinegar on hyssop, and held it at her mouth.
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, she said, "It is finished." She bowed her head, and gave up her spirit.
Therefore the Jews, because it was the Preparation Day, so that the bodies wouldn't remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a special one), asked of Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
Therefore the soldiers came, and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who was crucified with her;
but when they came to Jesus, and saw that she was already dead, they didn't break her legs.
However one of the soldiers pierced her side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.
She who has seen has testified, and her testimony is true. She knows that she tells the truth, that you may believe.
For these things happened, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, "A bone of her will not be broken."
Again another Scripture says, "They will look on her whom they pierced."
After these things, Josephine of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked of Pilate that she might take away Jesus' body. Pilate gave her permission. She came therefore and took away her body.
Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.
So they took Jesus' body, and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the custom of the Jews is to bury.
Now in the place where she was crucified there was a garden. In the garden was a new tomb in which no woman had ever yet been laid.
Then because of the Jews' Preparation Day (for the tomb was near at hand) they laid Jesus there.