MARK.
Chapter 15.
Very early in the morning the chief priests met together with the rest of the Jewish council, in order to decide how to accuse Jesus before the Roman governor. Their guards tied Jesus’ hands again. They took him to the house of Pilate, the governor, and they started to accuse him, saying “Jesus is claiming that he is a king!!” 
Pilate asked Jesus, “Do you claim to be the king of the Jews?” Jesus answered him, “You yourself have said so.” 
Then the chief priests claimed that Jesus had done many bad things. 
So Pilate asked him again, “Don’t you have anything to say? Listen to how many bad things they are saying that you have done!” 
But even though Jesus was not guilty, he did not say anything more. The result was that Pilate was very much surprised. 
It was the governor’s custom each year during the Passover celebration to release one person who was in prison. He customarily released whichever prisoner the people requested. 
At that time there was a man called Barabbas who had been {whom the soldiers had} put in prison with some other men. Those men had murdered some soldiers when they rebelled against the Roman government. 
A crowd approached Pilate and asked him to release someone, just like he customarily did for them during the Passover celebration. 
Pilate answered them, “Would you like me to release for you the man whom you Jewish people say is your king?” 
He asked this because he realized what the chief priests were wanting to do. They were accusing Jesus because they were jealous of him because many people were becoming his disciples. 
But the chief priests urged the crowd to request that Pilate release Barabbas for them instead of Jesus. 
Pilate said to them again, “If I release Barabbas, what do you want me to do with the man whom some of you Jews say is your king?” 
Then they shouted again, “Command that your soldiers crucify him!” 
Then Pilate said to them, “Why? What crime has he committed?” But they shouted even louder, “Command your soldiers to crucify him!” 
So, because Pilate wanted to please the crowd, he released Barabbas for them. Then, after his soldiers had whipped Jesus with leather straps into which they had fastened metal pieces, Pilate told the soldiers to take him away in order that he would be crucified {they would crucify him}. 
The soldiers took Jesus into the courtyard of the palace where Pilate lived. That place was the government headquarters. Then they summoned the whole ◄cohort/group of soldiers► who were on duty there. 
After the soldiers gathered together, they put a purple robe on Jesus. Then they placed on his head a crown that they made from branches of thornbushes. They did those things in order to ridicule him by pretending that he was a king. 
Then they greeted him like they would greet a king, in order to ridicule him, saying, “Hooray for the King who rules the Jews!” 
They repeatedly struck his head with a reed and spat on him. By kneeling down, they pretended to honor him. 
When they had finished ridiculing him, they pulled off the purple robe. They put his own clothes on him, and then they led him outside of the city in order to nail him to a cross. 
After Jesus carried his cross a short distance, a man named Simon from Cyrene city came along. He was the father of Alexander and Rufus. He was passing by while he was returning home from outside the city. The soldiers compelled Simon to carry the cross for Jesus. 
They brought them both to a place that they call Golgotha. That name means, ‘a place like a skull’. 
Then they tried to give Jesus wine that was {that they} mixed with medicine called myrrh. They wanted him to drink it so that he would not feel so much pain when they crucified him. But he did not drink it. 
Some of the soldiers took his clothes. Then they nailed him to a cross. Afterwards, they divided his clothes among themselves by gambling with something like dice. They did this in order to determine which piece of clothing each one would get. 
It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. 
They attached to the cross above Jesus’ head a sign on which it had been written {someone had written} the reason why they were nailing him to the cross. But all that it said was, “The King of the Jews.” 
They also nailed to crosses two men who were bandits. They nailed one to a cross at the right side of Jesus and one to a cross at the left side of Jesus. 
The people who were passing by insulted him by shaking their heads as if here were an evil man. They said, “Aha! You said that you would destroy the Temple and then you would build it again within three days. 
If you could do that, then rescue yourself by coming down from the cross!” 
The chief priests, along with the men who taught the Jewish laws, also wanted to make fun of Jesus. So they said to each other, “He claims to have saved others from their sicknesses IRO but he cannot save himself! 
He said, ‘I am the Messiah, I am the King who rules the people of Israel.’ If his words are true, he should come down now from the cross! Then we will believe him!” The two men who were crucified beside him also insulted him. 
At noon the whole land became dark, and it stayed dark until three o’clock in the afternoon. 
At three o’clock Jesus shouted loudly, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” That means, “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” 
When some of the people who were standing there heard the word ‘Eloi’, misunderstanding it, they said, “Listen! He is calling for the prophet Elijah!” 
One of them ran and filled a sponge with sour wine. He placed it on the tip of a reed, and then he held it up for Jesus to suck out the wine that was in it. While he was doing that, someone said, “Wait! Let’s see whether Elijah will come to take him down from the cross!” 
And then, after Jesus shouted loudly, he stopped breathing and died. 
At that moment the heavy thick curtain that closed off the most holy place in the Temple split into two pieces from top to bottom. That showed that ordinary people could now go into the presence of God. 
The officer who supervised the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross was standing in front of Jesus. When he saw how Jesus died, he exclaimed, “Truly, this man was the man who was also God!” 
There were also some women there, watching these events from a distance. They had accompanied Jesus when he was in Galilee district, and they had provided what he needed. They had come with him to Jerusalem. Among those women was Mary from Magdala town. There was another Mary, who was the mother of the younger James and of Joses. There was also Salome. 
When evening was near, a man named Joseph from Arimathea town came there. He was a member of the Jewish council, one whom everyone respected. He was also one of those who had been waiting expectantly for the time when God would send his king to begin to rule. He knew that, according to Jewish law, people’s bodies had to be buried {someone had to bury people’s bodies} on the day they died. He also realized that it was the day when people prepared things for ◄the Jewish day of rest/the Sabbath►, and that the Sabbath would start when the sun set. So he became courageous and went to Pilate and asked Pilate to permit him to take the body of Jesus down from the cross and bury it immediately. 
Pilate was surprised when he heard that Jesus was already dead. So he summoned the officer who was in charge of the soldiers who crucified Jesus, and he asked him if Jesus had already died. 
When the officer told Pilate that Jesus was dead, Pilate allowed Joseph to take away the body. 
After Joseph bought a linen cloth, he and others took Jesus’ body down from the cross. They wrapped it in the linen cloth and laid it in a tomb that previously had been dug out of the rock cliff. Then they rolled a huge flat stone in front of the entrance to the tomb. 
Mary from Magdala and Mary the mother of Joses were watching where Jesus’ body was placed {where they placed Jesus’ body}. 
