John 18:39–19:6

It’s your custom that I pardon one prisoner at Passover. Do you want me to pardon the ‘King of the Jews’?”

⁴⁰They shouted back, “Not this one, but Barabbas!” Barabbas was a Jewish freedom fighter.

The Thorn Crown of the King

^1–319So Pilate took Jesus and had him whipped. The soldiers, having braided a crown from thorns, set it on his head, threw a purple robe over him, and approached him with, “Hail, King of the Jews!” Then they greeted him with slaps in the face.

^4–5Pilate went back out again and said to them, “I present him to you, but I want you to know that I do not find him guilty of any crime.” Just then Jesus came out wearing the thorn crown and purple robe.

Pilate announced, “Here he is: the Man.”

⁶When the high priests and police saw him, they shouted in a frenzy, “Crucify! Crucify!”

Pilate told them, “You take him. You crucify him. I find nothing wrong with him.”