Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion
John 18:1/19:42
Jesus Arrested.
1When he had said this, Jesus went out with his disciples across the Kidron valley to where there was a garden, into which he and his disciples entered.
2Judas his betrayer also knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples.
3So Judas got a band of soldiers and guards from the chief priests and the Pharisees and went there with lanterns, torches, and weapons.
4Jesus, knowing everything that was going to happen to him, went out and said to them, “Whom are you looking for?”
5They answered him, “Jesus the Nazorean.” He said to them, “I AM.” Judas his betrayer was also with them.
6When he said to them, “I AM,” they turned away and fell to the ground.
7So he again asked them, “Whom are you looking for?” They said, “Jesus the Nazorean.”
8Jesus answered, “I told you that I AM. So if you are looking for me, let these men go.”
9 This was to fulfill what he had said, “I have not lost any of those you gave me.”
10Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it, struck the high priest’s slave, and cut off his right ear. The slave’s name was Malchus.
11Jesus said to Peter, “Put your sword into its scabbard. Shall I not drink the cup that the Father gave me?”
12 So the band of soldiers, the tribune, and the Jewish guards seized Jesus, bound him,
13and brought him to Annas first. He was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.
14It was Caiaphas who had counseled the Jews that it was better that one man should die rather than the people.
Peter’s First Denial.
15Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Now the other disciple was known to the high priest, and he entered the courtyard of the high priest with Jesus.
16But Peter stood at the gate outside. So the other disciple, the acquaintance of the high priest, went out and spoke to the gatekeeper and brought Peter in.
17Then the maid who was the gatekeeper said to Peter, “You are not one of this man’s disciples, are you?” He said, “I am not.”
18Now the slaves and the guards were standing around a charcoal fire that they had made, because it was cold, and were warming themselves. Peter was also standing there keeping warm.
The Inquiry before Annas.
19The high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and about his doctrine.
20Jesus answered him, “I have spoken publicly to the world. I have always taught in a synagogue or in the temple area where all the Jews gather, and in secret I have said nothing.
21Why ask me? Ask those who heard me what I said to them. They know what I said.”
22When he had said this, one of the temple guards standing there struck Jesus and said, “Is this the way you answer the high priest?”
23Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify to the wrong; but if I have spoken rightly, why do you strike me?”
24Then Annas sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest.
Peter Denies Jesus Again.
25Now Simon Peter was standing there keeping warm. And they said to him, “You are not one of his disciples, are you?” He denied it and said, “I am not.”
26One of the slaves of the high priest, a relative of the one whose ear Peter had cut off, said, “Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?”
27Again Peter denied it. And immediately the cock crowed.
The Trial before Pilate.
28 Then they brought Jesus from Caiaphas to the praetorium. It was morning. And they themselves did not enter the praetorium, in order not to be defiled so that they could eat the Passover.
29So Pilate came out to them and said, “What charge do you bring [against] this man?”
30They answered and said to him, “If he were not a criminal, we would not have handed him over to you.”
31At this, Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves, and judge him according to your law.” The Jews answered him, “We do not have the right to execute anyone,”
32 in order that the word of Jesus might be fulfilled that he said indicating the kind of death he would die.
33So Pilate went back into the praetorium and summoned Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
34Jesus answered, “Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?”
35Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests handed you over to me. What have you done?”
36Jesus answered, “My kingdom does not belong to this world. If my kingdom did belong to this world, my attendants [would] be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not here.”
37So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.”
38Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
When he had said this, he again went out to the Jews and said to them, “I find no guilt in him.
39But you have a custom that I release one prisoner to you at Passover. Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”
40They cried out again, “Not this one but Barabbas!” Now Barabbas was a revolutionary.
1 Then Pilate took Jesus and had him scourged.
2And the soldiers wove a crown out of thorns and placed it on his head, and clothed him in a purple cloak,
3and they came to him and said, “Hail, King of the Jews!” And they struck him repeatedly.
4Once more Pilate went out and said to them, “Look, I am bringing him out to you, so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.”
5So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple cloak. And he said to them, “Behold, the man!”
6When the chief priests and the guards saw him they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him. I find no guilt in him.”
7 The Jews answered, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”
8Now when Pilate heard this statement, he became even more afraid,
9and went back into the praetorium and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” Jesus did not answer him.
10So Pilate said to him, “Do you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have power to release you and I have power to crucify you?”
11Jesus answered [him], “You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above. For this reason the one who handed me over to you has the greater sin.”
12Consequently, Pilate tried to release him; but the Jews cried out, “If you release him, you are not a Friend of Caesar. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.”
13When Pilate heard these words he brought Jesus out and seated him on the judge’s bench in the place called Stone Pavement, in Hebrew, Gabbatha.
14It was preparation day for Passover, and it was about noon. And he said to the Jews, “Behold, your king!”
15They cried out, “Take him away, take him away! Crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your king?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.”
16Then he handed him over to them to be crucified.
The Crucifixion of Jesus.
So they took Jesus,
17 and carrying the cross himself he went out to what is called the Place of the Skull, in Hebrew, Golgotha.
18There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle.
19 Pilate also had an inscription written and put on the cross. It read, “Jesus the Nazorean, the King of the Jews.”
20Now many of the Jews read this inscription, 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 that he said, ‘I am the King of the Jews.’”
22Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”
23 When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four shares, a share for each soldier. They also took his tunic, but the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top down.
24So they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it will be,” in order that the passage of scripture might be fulfilled [that says]:
“They divided my garments among them,
and for my vesture they cast lots.”
This is what the soldiers did.
25 Standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdala.
26When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son.”
27Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.
28 After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.”
29There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth.
30 When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit.
The Blood and Water.
31Now since it was preparation day, in order that the bodies might not remain on the cross on the sabbath, for the sabbath day of that week was a solemn one, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs be broken and they be taken down.
32So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and then of the other one who was crucified with Jesus.
33But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs,
34 but one soldier thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out.
35An eyewitness has testified, and his testimony is true; he knows that he is speaking the truth, so that you also may [come to] believe.
36For this happened so that the scripture passage might be fulfilled:
“Not a bone of it will be broken.”
37And again another passage says:
“They will look upon him whom they have pierced.”
The Burial of Jesus.
38 After this, Joseph of Arimathea, secretly a disciple of Jesus for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate if he could remove the body of Jesus. And Pilate permitted it. So he came and took his body.
39Nicodemus, the one who had first come to him at night, also came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes weighing about one hundred pounds.
40They took the body of Jesus and bound it with burial cloths along with the spices, according to the Jewish burial custom.
41Now in the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had yet been buried.
42So they laid Jesus there because of the Jewish preparation day; for the tomb was close by.
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