12
From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”
13
When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha).
14
It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon. “Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.
15
But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!” “Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked. “We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.
Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.
The Crucifixion of Jesus
16 So the soldiers took charge of Jesus.
17
Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).
18
There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.
19
Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.
20
Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek.
21
The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”
22
Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”