Mark 15:1-20

Mark 15:1-20

Immediately in the morning the chief priests, with the elders and scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, and bound Jesus, and carried him away, and delivered him up to Pilate.
Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”
He answered,
“So you say.”
The chief priests accused him of many things.
Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer? See how many things they testify against you!”
But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate marveled.
Now at the feast he used to release to them one prisoner, whom they asked of him.
There was one called Barabbas, bound with his fellow insurgents, men who in the insurrection had committed murder.
The multitude, crying aloud, began to ask him to do as he always did for them.
Pilate answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”
For he perceived that for envy the chief priests had delivered him up.
But the chief priests stirred up the multitude, that he should release Barabbas to them instead.
Pilate again asked them, “What then should I do to him whom you call the King of the Jews?”
They cried out again, “Crucify him!”
Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done?”
But they cried out exceedingly, “Crucify him!”
Pilate, wishing to please the multitude, released Barabbas to them, and handed over Jesus, when he had flogged him, to be crucified.
The soldiers led him away within the court, which is the Praetorium; and they called together the whole cohort.
They clothed him with purple, and weaving a crown of thorns, they put it on him.
They began to salute him, “Hail, King of the Jews!”
They struck his head with a reed, and spat on him, and bowing their knees, did homage to him.
When they had mocked him, they took the purple off him, and put his own garments on him. They led him out to crucify him.