Mark 15:1–21

Jesus Before Pilate

^1aAnd early in the morning the chief priests with the elders and scribes and the whole ^bSanhedrin, immediately held council; and binding Jesus, led Him away and delivered Him to Pilate.

^2aAnd Pilate questioned Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?” And He answered him and ^*said, “You yourself say it.”

³And the chief priests began to accuse Him of many things.

⁴Then Pilate was questioning Him again, saying, “You answer nothing? See how many accusations they bring against You!”

⁵But Jesus ^amade no further answer; so Pilate marveled.

^6aNow at the feast he used to release for them any one prisoner whom they requested.

⁷And the man named Barabbas had been imprisoned with the insurrectionists who had committed murder in the insurrection.

⁸And the crowd went up and began asking him to do as he had been accustomed to do for them.

⁹And Pilate answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?”

¹⁰For he was aware that the chief priests had delivered Him over because of envy.

¹¹But the chief priests stirred up the crowd ^ato ask him to release Barabbas for them instead.

¹²And answering again, Pilate was saying to them, “Then what shall I do with Him whom you call the King of the Jews?”

¹³And they shouted again, “Crucify Him!”

¹⁴But Pilate was saying to them, “Why? What evil did He do?” But they shouted all the more, “Crucify Him!”

¹⁵And wishing to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas for them, and after having Jesus ^ascourged, he delivered Him over to be crucified.

Jesus Is Mocked

^16aSo the soldiers took Him away into ^bthe ¹palace (that is, the ²Praetorium), and they ^*called together the whole Roman ^3ccohort.

¹⁷And they ^*dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they ^*put it on Him;

¹⁸and they began to greet Him, “Hail, King of the Jews!”

¹⁹And they kept beating His head with a ¹reed, and spitting on Him; and kneeling, they were bowing down before Him.

²⁰And after they had mocked Him, they took the purple robe off Him and put His own garments on Him. And they ^*led Him out to crucify Him.

^21aAnd they ^*pressed into service a passer-by coming from the countryside, Simon of Cyrene (the father of Alexander and ^bRufus), to carry His cross.