After he’d said this, Pilate went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I can’t find anything that he’s guilty of. 39 But you all have a custom here that the governor can release one prisoner during the Passover. So would you like me to release the king of the Jews?”

40 But they all yelled back, “No, not this one. Release Barabbas.” (Barabbas was a robber.)

19 So Pilate took Yeshua and had him flogged. 2 Then the soldiers twisted some thorn branches together into a crown and put it on Yeshua’s head, and they dressed him in a royal purple robe. 3 They came up to him and said, “Greetings, you king of the Jews,” and then slapped him.

4 Then Pilate went back outside and said to the Jews, “Look here. I’m bringing him out to you so that you all can know that I didn’t find him guilty of anything.” 5 So they led Yeshua out wearing the thorny crown and the kingly robe, and Pilate said, “Look. Here’s the man.”

6 Now when the chief priests and their supporters saw him, they yelled out, “Execute him on a stake! Execute him on a stake!”

“Well you take him and execute him on a stake,” Pilate answered, “because I haven’t found anything that he’s guilty of.”

7 The Jews responded, “We have a law and he should be executed according to that law because he said he was the son of God.”

8 Now when Pilate heard that, he became more afraid. 9 So he went back inside the residence and asked Yeshua, “Where do you come from?”

But Yeshua didn’t answer him. 10 So Pilate said, “Why don’t you answer me? Don’t you realise that I have the authority to release you and I also have the authority to have you executed on a stake?”

11 “You have no authority over me,” Yeshua answered, “none at all, except what has been granted to you from above. Because of this, the sin of the person who handed me over to you is greater.”

12 After hearing this, Pilate wanted to release him but the Jews yelled out, “If you release that man, you’re no friend of Caesar. Everyone who claims to be a king is no friend of Caesar’s.”

13 So now Pilate, having heard all this, brought Yeshua outside again. Pilate sat down on the judge’s seat at a place called The Stone Pavement (and called Gabbatha in Hebrew). 14 It was now about noon on the day when the Passover meal is prepared, and Pilate said to the Jews, “Look. Here’s your king.”

15 They yelled back, “Take him away. Take him away. Execute him on a stake.”

Pilate asked them, “You want me to have your king executed on a stake?”

“We don’t have any king other than Caesar,” the chief priests answered.

16 So Pilate gave them his permission and handed Yeshua over to them, and they took him away to be executed on a stake.