1 Early in the morning, the Chief Priests (Jewish ceremony leaders), the lawmen, the Jewish elders and all the members of the Jewish council had a meeting. At that meeting they made up their minds to tie Jesus up and take him to the Roman leader in Jerusalem. The Roman leader's name was Pilate. 2 When they got there, Pilate started to ask Jesus some questions. He said, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

3 Then the Chief Priests said to Pilate, “This man has done a lot of bad things.”

4 So Pilate said to Jesus, “The Chief Priests are saying lots of bad things about you. Why don't you say something for yourself?”

5 But Jesus said nothing, and Pilate was really amazed.

6-8 At that time there was a man in jail called Bar-abbas (Barabbas). He was one of the men that were always fighting against the Romans to try and make them leave the Jewish country. He had killed a man in one of those fights, and that is why he was in jail.

9-10 Pilate knew that the Chief Priests were jealous of Jesus and that was why they had arrested him. So Pilate said to the crowd, “Do you want me to let the King of the Jews go free?” 11 But the Chief Priests told the crowd to ask for Bar-abbas, and so the crowd called out, “No! Not him! Give us Bar-abbas.”

12 Pilate said, “So what do you want me to do with this man you call the King of the Jews?”

13 All the people shouted, “Nail him to a cross.”

14 Pilate said, “Why? What has he done wrong?”

15 Pilate wanted to make the crowd happy and so he told his soldiers to let Bar-abbas go free from jail. Then Pilate said to his soldiers, “Take Jesus outside and flog him and then take him away and nail him up on a cross to die.”

16 The soldiers took Jesus into the yard outside where Pilate lived, and they called out to all the other soldiers to come and watch. 17 First they put a purple coat on Jesus, so that he looked like a king. Then they found some prickly sticks and made them into a headband so that it looked like a king's crown, and they pushed it onto Jesus' head. 18-19 Then they started to tease him. They got down on their knees in front of Jesus and said, “Hey, you King of the Jews. You are so great!” And they kept on hitting Jesus on the head with a stick, and they spat on him.

20 When they finished making fun of Jesus, they took off the long purple coat and put his own clothes back on him. Then they took him out of the town to nail him up on a cross.

21 On the way, they met a man called Simon from Sy-reen (Cyrene). He was the father of Alexander and Rufus, and he was coming back into town from the farm lands outside Jerusalem. The soldiers grabbed Simon and made him carry the cross for Jesus. [a] 22 The soldiers took Jesus to a place called Golgotha. In their language it means Skull Place. 23 And they tried to make Jesus drink some wine that had a drug called Merr (Myrrh) in it. But he would not drink it.

24-26 It was 9 o'clock in the morning when the soldiers nailed Jesus' hands and feet to the cross. They wrote The King of the Jews on a piece of wood and nailed it to the cross above his head. Then they gambled for Jesus' clothes.[b]

27 And there were 2 men that had broken Roman laws, so the soldiers nailed them onto crosses and put them up next to Jesus. They put one man on Jesus' left-hand side and they put the other man on Jesus' right-hand side.

29 There were people walking by and as they looked at Jesus they rubbished him. They shook their heads and said, “You think you can knock down the Temple, and then build it up again in 3 days.[c] 30 Why don't you save yourself? Go on, get down from that cross!”

31 The Chief Priests and the law teachers teased Jesus too. They said to each other, “He saved other people, but he cannot save himself. 32 If he really is the man God promised to send and if he really is the King of the Israel nation, he has to prove it. If he comes down from that cross, we will believe in him.”

33 In the middle of the day, at about 12 o'clock, the sky went dark like it was night time. And it stayed dark for about 3 hours until 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 34 At 3 o'clock Jesus called out in their language, and said, “My God, my God, why did you go away and leave me all alone?” [d]

35 Some of the people standing there heard what Jesus said, and they thought that he was calling out for Elijah to come from heaven to help him. 36 One man ran and put sour wine on a rag. Then he put the rag on a stick and held it up to Jesus' mouth for him to have a drink. And then the man said, “Ok, leave him alone now. Let's wait and see if Elijah will come and get him down from the cross.”[e]

37 Jesus called out again, and then he died.

38 Inside the Temple in Jerusalem, there was a big curtain. When Jesus died, that curtain ripped into 2 pieces, from the top of the curtain to the bottom.[f]

39 And back at the cross, the leader of those Roman soldiers was standing near Jesus. He saw the way Jesus died, and he said, “It is true. This man really was the son of God.”

42 The day that Jesus died was the day when the Jewish people got everything ready for their Sabbath rest day. That rest day started after the sun went down.

43 There was a man called Joseph who came from Ari-ma-thee-a (Arimathea). He was an important man in the Jewish council and everyone said that he was a good man. Joseph was waiting for the time when God was going to be the King over everybody in the world.

44-45 Pilate was amazed. He said, “Is that man dead already?”

46 Joseph took Jesus' body down from the cross and wrapped it in a sheet. He put Jesus' body in a cave that somebody had cut inside a stoney hill. Then he rolled a very big stone in front of the cave to block the door.

47 Mary Mag-da-lean and Mary the mother of Joses, saw where Joseph put Jesus' body.