The Soldiers Mock Jesus

¹Then Pilate took Jesus and had Him flogged.

²The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns, set it on His head, and dressed Him in a purple robe.

³And they went up to Him again and again, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and slapping Him in the face.

⁴Once again Pilate came out and said to the Jews, “Look, I am bringing Him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against Him.”

⁵When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”

⁶As soon as the chief priests and officers saw Him, they shouted, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”“You take Him and crucify Him,” Pilate replied, “for I find no basis for a charge against Him.”

⁷“We have a law,” answered the Jews, “and according to that law He must die, because He declared Himself to be the Son of God.”

⁸When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid,

⁹and he went back into the Praetorium. “Where are You from?” he asked.But Jesus gave no answer.

¹⁰So Pilate said to Him, “Do You refuse to speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You and authority to crucify You?”

¹¹Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed Me over to you is guilty of greater sin.”

¹²From then on, Pilate tried to release Him, but the Jews kept shouting, “If you release this man, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who declares himself a king is defying Caesar.”

¹³When Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat on the judgment seat at a place called the Stone Pavement, which in Hebrewis Gabbatha.

¹⁴It was the day of Preparation for the Passover, about the sixth hour.And Pilate said to the Jews, “Here is your King!”

¹⁵At this, they shouted, “Away with Him! Away with Him! Crucify Him!”“Shall I crucify your King?” Pilate asked.“We have no king but Caesar,” replied the chief priests.

The Crucifixion

¹⁶Then Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified, and the soldiers took Him away.

¹⁷Carrying His own cross, He went out to The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha.

¹⁸There they crucified Him, and with Him two others, one on each side, with Jesus in the middle.

¹⁹Pilate also had a notice posted on the cross. It read:JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.

²⁰Many of the Jews read this sign, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.

²¹So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but only that He said, ‘I am the King of the Jews.’”

²²Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

²³When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided His garments into four parts, one for each soldier, with the tunic remaining. It was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

²⁴So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it. Instead, let us cast lots to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill the Scripture:“They divided My garments among them,and cast lots for My clothing.”So that is what the soldiers did.

²⁵Near the cross of Jesus stood His mother and her sister, as well as Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene.

²⁶When Jesus saw His mother and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, He said to His mother, “Woman, here is your son.”

²⁷Then He said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” So from that hour, this disciple took her into his home.

The Death of Jesus

²⁸After this, knowing that everything had now been accomplished, and to fulfill the Scripture, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”

²⁹A jar of sour winewas sitting there. So they soaked a sponge in the wine, put it on a stalk of hyssop, and lifted it to His mouth.

³⁰When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished.” And bowing His head, He yielded up His spirit.

Jesus’ Side Is Pierced

³¹It was the day of Preparation, and the next day was a High Sabbath. In order that the bodies would not remain on the cross during the Sabbath, the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies removed.

³²So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and those of the other.

³³But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs.

³⁴Instead, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water flowed out.

³⁵The one who saw it has testified to this, and his testimony is true. He knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.

³⁶Now these things happened so that the Scripture would be fulfilled: “Not one of His bones will be broken.”

³⁷And, as another Scripture says: “They will look on the One they have pierced.”

The Burial of Jesus

³⁸Afterward, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus (but secretly for fear of the Jews), asked Pilate to let him remove the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission, so he came and removed His body.

³⁹Nicodemus, who had previously come to Jesus at night, also brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.

⁴⁰So they took the body of Jesus and wrapped it in linen cloths with the spices, according to the Jewish burial custom.

⁴¹Now there was a garden in the place where Jesus was crucified, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid.

⁴²And because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and the tomb was nearby, they placed Jesus there.

The Death of Lazarus

¹At this time a man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

²(Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was to anoint the Lord with perfume and wipe His feetwith her hair.)

³So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one You love is sick.”

⁴When Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

⁵Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

⁶So on hearing that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was for two days,

⁷and then He said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

⁸“Rabbi,” they replied, “the Jews just tried to stone You, and You are going back there?”

⁹Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? If anyone walks in the daytime, he will not stumble, because he sees by the light of this world.

¹⁰But if anyone walks at night, he will stumble, because he has no light.”

¹¹After He had said this, He told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.”

¹²His disciples replied, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will get better.”

¹³They thought that Jesus was talking about actual sleep, but He was speaking about the death of Lazarus.

¹⁴So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead,

¹⁵and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

¹⁶Then Thomas called Didymussaid to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.”

Jesus Comforts Martha and Mary

¹⁷When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already spent four days in the tomb.

¹⁸Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, a little less than two milesaway,

¹⁹and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them in the loss of their brother.

²⁰So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed at home.

²¹Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.

²²But even now I know that God will give You whatever You ask of Him.”

²³“Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her.

²⁴Martha replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

²⁵Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.

²⁶And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

²⁷“Yes, Lord,” she answered, “I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

²⁸After Martha had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside to tell her, “The Teacher is here and is asking for you.”

²⁹And when Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him.

³⁰Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met Him.

³¹When the Jews who were in the house consoling Mary saw how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

³²When Mary came to Jesus and saw Him, she fell at His feet and said, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”

³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spiritand troubled.

³⁴“Where have you put him?” He asked.“Come and see, Lord,” they answered.

³⁵Jesus wept.

³⁶Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!”

³⁷But some of them asked, “Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept Lazarus from dying?”

Jesus Raises Lazarus

³⁸Jesus, once again deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

³⁹“Take away the stone,” Jesus said.“Lord, by now he stinks,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man. “It has already been four days.”

⁴⁰Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

⁴¹So they took away the stone. Then Jesus lifted His eyes upward and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.

⁴²I knew that You always hear Me, but I say this for the benefit of the people standing here, so they may believe that You sent Me.”

⁴³After Jesus had said this, He called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

⁴⁴The man who had been dead came out with his hands and feet bound in strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a cloth.“Unwrap him and let him go,” Jesus told them.

The Plot to Kill Jesus

⁴⁵Therefore many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him.

⁴⁶But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

⁴⁷Then the chief priests and Pharisees convened the Sanhedrinand said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs.

⁴⁸If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

⁴⁹But one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!

⁵⁰You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

⁵¹Caiaphas did not say this on his own. Instead, as high priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation,

⁵²and not only for the nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to gather them together into one.

⁵³So from that day on they plotted to kill Him.

⁵⁴As a result, Jesus no longer went about publicly among the Jews, but He withdrew to a town called Ephraim in an area near the wilderness. And He stayed there with the disciples.

⁵⁵Now the Jewish Passover was near, and many people went up from the country to Jerusalem to purify themselves before the Passover.

⁵⁶They kept looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple courts,“What do you think? Will He come to the feast at all?”

⁵⁷But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where He was must report it, so that they could arrest Him.

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman

¹When Jesus realized that the Pharisees were aware Hewas gaining and baptizing more disciples than John

²(although it was not Jesus who baptized, but His disciples),

³He left Judea and returned to Galilee.

⁴Now He had to pass through Samaria.

⁵So He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph.

⁶Since Jacob’s well was there, Jesus, weary from His journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.

⁷When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Give Me a drink.”

⁸(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹“You are a Jew,” said the woman. “How can You ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

¹⁰Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God and who is asking you for a drink, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

¹¹“Sir,” the woman replied, “You have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where then will You get this living water?

¹²Are You greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock?”

¹³Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again.

¹⁴But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a fount of water springing up to eternal life.”

¹⁵The woman said to Him, “Sir, give me this water so that I will not get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

¹⁶Jesus told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”

¹⁷“I have no husband,” the woman replied.Jesus said to her, “You are correct to say that you have no husband.

¹⁸In fact, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. You have spoken truthfully.”

¹⁹“Sir,” the woman said, “I see that You are a prophet.

²⁰Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews say that the place where one must worship is in Jerusalem.”

²¹“Believe Me, woman,” Jesus replied, “a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.

²²You worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.

²³But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him.

²⁴God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

²⁵The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”

²⁶Jesus answered, “I who speak to you am He.”

The Disciples Return and Marvel

²⁷Just then His disciples returned and were surprised that He was speaking with a woman. But no one asked Him, “What do You want from her?” or “Why are You talking with her?”

²⁸Then the woman left her water jar, went back into the town, and said to the people,

²⁹“Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”

³⁰So they left the town and made their way toward Jesus.

³¹Meanwhile the disciples urged Him, “Rabbi, eat something.”

³²But He told them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”

³³So the disciples asked one another, “Could someone have brought Him food?”

³⁴Jesus explained, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work.

³⁵Do you not say, ‘There are still four months until the harvest’? I tell you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are ripefor harvest.

³⁶Already the reaper draws his wages and gathers a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may rejoice together.

³⁷For in this case the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true.

³⁸I sent you to reap what you have not worked for; others have done the hard work, and now you have taken up their labor.”

Many Samaritans Believe

³⁹Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in Jesus because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”

⁴⁰So when the Samaritans came to Him, they asked Him to stay with them, and He stayed two days.

⁴¹And many more believed because of His message.

⁴²They said to the woman, “We now believe not only because of your words; we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man truly is the Savior of the world.”

Jesus Heals the Official’s Son

⁴³After two days, Jesus left for Galilee.

⁴⁴Now He Himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.

⁴⁵Yet when He arrived, the Galileans welcomed Him. They had seen all the great things He had done in Jerusalem at the feast, for they had gone there as well.

⁴⁶So once again He came to Cana in Galilee, where He had turned the water into wine. And there was a royal official whose son lay sick at Capernaum.

⁴⁷When he heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went and begged Him to come down and heal his son, who was about to die.

⁴⁸Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe.”

⁴⁹“Sir,” the official said, “come down before my child dies.”

⁵⁰“Go,” said Jesus. “Your son will live.”The man took Jesus at His word and departed.

⁵¹And while he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was alive.

⁵²So he inquired as to the hour when his son had recovered, and they told him, “The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour.”

⁵³Then the father realized that this was the very hour in which Jesus had told him, “Your son will live.” And he and all his household believed.

⁵⁴This was now the second sign that Jesus performed after coming from Judea into Galilee.

The Psalm of the Cross

¹My God, my God,why have You forsaken me?Why are You so far from saving me,so far from my words of groaning?

²I cry out by day, O my God,but You do not answer,and by night,but I have no rest.

³Yet You are holy,enthroned on the praises of Israel.

⁴In You our fathers trusted;they trusted and You delivered them.

⁵They cried out to You and were set free;they trusted in You and were not disappointed.

⁶But I am a worm and not a man,scorned by men and despised by the people.

⁷All who see me mock me;they sneer and shake their heads:

⁸“He trusts in the LORD,let the LORD deliver him;let the LORD rescue him,since He delights in him.”

⁹Yet You brought me forth from the womb;You made me secure at my mother’s breast.

¹⁰From birth I was cast upon You;from my mother’s womb You have been my God.

¹¹Be not far from me,for trouble is nearand there is no one to help.

¹²Many bulls surround me;strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

¹³They open their jaws against melike lions that roar and maul.

¹⁴I am poured out like water,and all my bones are disjointed.My heart is like wax;it melts away within me.

¹⁵My strengthis dried up like a potsherd,and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.You lay me in the dust of death.

¹⁶For dogs surround me;a band of evil men encircles me;they have pierced my hands and feet.

¹⁷I can count all my bones;they stare and gloat over me.

¹⁸They divide my garments among themand cast lots for my clothing.

¹⁹But You, O LORD, be not far off;O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

²⁰Deliver my soul from the sword,my precious life from the power of wild dogs.

²¹Save me from the mouth of the lion;at the horns of the wild oxen You have answered me!

²²I will proclaim Your name to my brothers;I will praise You in the assembly.

²³You who fear the LORD, praise Him!All descendants of Jacob, honor Him!All offspring of Israel, revere Him!

²⁴For He has not despised or detestedthe torment of the afflicted.He has not hidden His face from him,but has attended to his cry for help.

²⁵My praise for You resounds in the great assembly;I will fulfill my vows before those who fear You.

²⁶The poor will eat and be satisfied;those who seek the LORD will praise Him.May your hearts live forever!

²⁷All the ends of the earthwill remember and turn to the LORD.All the families of the nationswill bow down before Him.

²⁸For dominion belongs to the LORDand He rules over the nations.

²⁹All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;all who go down to the dust will kneel before Him—even those unable to preserve their lives.

³⁰Posterity will serve Him;they will declare the Lord to a new generation.

³¹They will come and proclaim His righteousnessto a people yet unborn—all that He has done.