Jesus Is Taken to Pilate^(A)

27 Early in the morning all the chief priests and the elders made their plans against Jesus to put him to death. ² They put him in chains, led him off, and handed him over to Pilate, the Roman governor.

Pilate Questions Jesus^(A)

¹¹ Jesus stood before the Roman governor, who questioned him. “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked.

“So you say,” answered Jesus. ¹² But he said nothing in response to the accusations of the chief priests and elders.

¹³ So Pilate said to him, “Don't you hear all these things they accuse you of?”

¹⁴ But Jesus refused to answer a single word, with the result that the Governor was greatly surprised.

Jesus before Pilate^(A)

23 The whole group rose up and took Jesus before Pilate, ² where they began to accuse him: “We caught this man misleading our people, telling them not to pay taxes to the Emperor and claiming that he himself is the Messiah, a king.”

³ Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

“So you say,” answered Jesus.

⁴ Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no reason to condemn this man.”

⁵ But they insisted even more strongly, “With his teaching he is starting a riot among the people all through Judea. He began in Galilee and now has come here.”

Jesus before Pilate^(A)

²⁸ Early in the morning Jesus was taken from Caiaphas' house to the governor's palace. The Jewish authorities did not go inside the palace, for they wanted to keep themselves ritually clean, in order to be able to eat the Passover meal. ²⁹ So Pilate went outside to them and asked, “What do you accuse this man of?”

³⁰ Their answer was, “We would not have brought him to you if he had not committed a crime.”

³¹ Pilate said to them, “Then you yourselves take him and try him according to your own law.”

They replied, “We are not allowed to put anyone to death.” (^32 (B)This happened in order to make come true what Jesus had said when he indicated the kind of death he would die.)

³³ Pilate went back into the palace and called Jesus. “Are you the king of the Jews?” he asked him.

³⁴ Jesus answered, “Does this question come from you or have others told you about me?”

³⁵ Pilate replied, “Do you think I am a Jew? It was your own people and the chief priests who handed you over to me. What have you done?”

³⁶ Jesus said, “My kingdom does not belong to this world; if my kingdom belonged to this world, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish authorities. No, my kingdom does not belong here!”

³⁷ So Pilate asked him, “Are you a king, then?”

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. I was born and came into the world for this one purpose, to speak about the truth. Whoever belongs to the truth listens to me.”

³⁸ “And what is truth?” Pilate asked.

Jesus Is Sentenced to Death^(C)

Then Pilate went back outside to the people and said to them, “I cannot find any reason to condemn him.