Knox Bible

1

At day-break, all the chief priests and elders of the people laid their plans for putting Jesus to death,

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and they led him away in bonds, and gave him up to the governor, Pontius Pilate.

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And now Judas, his betrayer, was full of remorse at seeing him condemned, so that he brought back to the chief priests and elders their thirty pieces of silver;

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I have sinned, he told them, in betraying the blood of an innocent man. What is that to us? they said. It concerns thee only.

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Whereupon he left them, throwing down the pieces of silver there in the temple, and went and hanged himself.

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The chief priests, thus recovering the money, said, It must not be put in the treasury, since it is the price of blood;

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and after consultation, they used it to buy the potter’s field, as a burial place for strangers;

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it is upon that account that the field has been called Haceldama, the field of blood, to this day.✻

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And so the word was fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet Jeremy, when he said, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of one who was appraised, for men of the race of Israel appraised him,

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and bestowed them upon the potter’s field, as the Lord had bidden me.✻

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But Jesus stood before the governor. And the governor asked him, Art thou the king of the Jews? Jesus told him, Thy own lips have said it.

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And when the chief priests and elders brought their accusation against him, he made no answer.

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Then Pilate said to him, Dost thou not hear all the testimony they bring against thee?

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But Jesus would not answer any of their charges, so that the governor was full of astonishment.

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At the festival, the governor used to grant to the multitude the liberty of any one prisoner they should choose;

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and there was one notable prisoner then in custody, whose name was Barabbas;

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so, when they gathered about him, Pilate asked them, Whom shall I release? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?

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He knew well that they had only given him up out of malice;

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and even as he sat on the judgement-seat, his wife had sent him a message, Do not meddle with this innocent man; I dreamed to-day that I suffered much on his account.

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But the chief priests and elders had persuaded the multitude to ask for Barabbas and have Jesus put to death;

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and so, when the governor openly asked them, Which of the two would you have me release? they said, Barabbas.

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Pilate said to them, What am I to do, then, with Jesus, who is called Christ? They said, Let him be crucified.

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And when the governor said, Why, what wrong has he done? they cried louder than ever, Let him be crucified.

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And so, finding that his good offices went for nothing, and the uproar only became worse, Pilate sent for water and washed his hands in full sight of the multitude, saying as he did so, I have no part in the death of this innocent man; it concerns you only.

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And the whole people answered, His blood be upon us, and upon our children.

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And with that he released Barabbas as they asked; Jesus he scourged, and gave him up to be crucified.✻

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After this, the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the palace, and gathered the whole of their company about him.

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First they stripped him, and arrayed him in a scarlet cloak;

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then they put on his head a crown which they had woven out of thorns, and a rod in his right hand, and mocked him by kneeling down before him, and saying, Hail, king of the Jews.

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And they spat upon him, and took the rod from him and beat him over the head with it.

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At last they had done with mockery; stripping him of the scarlet cloak, they put his own garments on him, and led him away to be crucified.

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As for his cross, they forced a man of Cyrene, Simon by name, whom they met on their way out, to carry it;

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and so they reached a place called Golgotha, that is, the place named after a skull.

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Here they offered him a draught of wine, mixed with gall, which he tasted, but would not drink,

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and then crucified him, dividing his garments among them by casting lots. The prophecy must be fulfilled, They divide my spoils among them, cast lots for my garments.✻

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There, then, they sat, keeping guard over him.

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Over his head they set a written proclamation of his offence, This is Jesus, the king of the Jews;

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and with him they crucified two thieves, one on his right and one on his left.

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The passers-by blasphemed against him, tossing their heads;

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Come now, they said, thou who wouldst destroy the temple and build it up in three days, rescue thyself; come down from that cross, if thou art the Son of God.

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The chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him in the same way.

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He saved others, they said, he cannot save himself. If he is the king of Israel, he has but to come down from the cross, here and now, and we will believe in him.

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He trusted in God; let God, if he favours him, succour him now; he told us, I am the Son of God.✻

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Even the thieves who were crucified with him uttered the same taunts.

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From the sixth hour onwards there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour;✻

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and about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lamma sabachthani? that is, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?✻

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Hearing this, some of those who stood by said, He is calling upon Elias:

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and thereupon one of them ran to fetch a sponge, which he filled with vinegar and fixed upon a rod, and offered to let him drink;

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the rest said, Wait, let us see whether Elias is to come and save him.

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Then Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit.

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And all at once, the veil of the temple was torn this way and that from the top to the bottom, and the earth shook, and the rocks parted asunder;

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and the graves were opened, and many bodies arose out of them, bodies of holy men gone to their rest:

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who, after his rising again, left their graves and went into the holy city, where they were seen by many.

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So that the centurion and those who kept guard over Jesus with him, when they perceived the earthquake and all that befell, were overcome with fear; No doubt, they said, but this was the Son of God.

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Many women stood watching from far off; they had followed Jesus from Galilee, to minister to him;

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among them were Mary Magdalen, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

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And now it was evening, and a man came forward, by name Joseph, a rich man from Arimathea, who followed Jesus as a disciple like the rest;

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he it was who approached Pilate, and asked to have the body of Jesus; whereupon Pilate ordered that the body should be given up.

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Joseph took possession of the body, and wrapped it in a clean winding-sheet;

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then he buried it in a new grave, which he had fashioned for himself out of the rock, and left it there, rolling a great stone against the grave-door.

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When he had gone, there were two who sat on there opposite the tomb, Mary Magdalen and the other Mary with her.✻

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Next day, the next after the day of preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered in Pilate’s presence,

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and said, Sir, we have recalled it to memory that this deceiver, while he yet lived, said, I am to rise again after three days.

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Give orders, then, that his tomb shall be securely guarded until the third day; or perhaps his disciples will come and steal him away. If they should then say to the people, He has risen from the dead, this last deceit will be more dangerous than the old.

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Pilate said to them, You have guards; away with you, make it secure as you best know how.

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And they went and made the tomb secure, putting a seal on the stone and setting a guard over it.