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The Jewish leaders wanted to kill Jesus
1-2 Every year Jewish people went to Jerusalem for a special ceremony where they ate flat damper for a week. On the first day of that ceremony, they always ate a special dinner called Passover.
It was 2 days before that ceremony was going to start, and the bosses of the Jewish ceremonies and the law teachers met together to work out a way to grab Jesus and kill him. But they wanted to grab him when nobody was looking. So those leaders said to each other, “Everybody likes Jesus, so we have to wait a bit. We can’t grab him while there are lots of people here for the ceremony. They will get angry with us, and we will have a very big fight.”
A woman put special perfume on Jesus’s head
3 At the time, Jesus was at the town called Bethany. A man lived there that used to have a skin sickness, but then he got better. His name was Simon. Jesus went to Simon’s house, and he was eating dinner there.
A woman came into the house with some special perfume in a pretty bottle. That perfume smelled really good and it cost a lot of money. She opened the bottle and poured the perfume on Jesus’s head.
4 Some of the people there said to each other, “Why did she waste that perfume?
5 Why didn’t she sell it and get a lot of money, and give that money to poor people?” And they said angry words to her too.
6 But Jesus said to them, “Leave her alone. Don’t make trouble for her. She did something really good to me.
7 You will always have poor people with you, and you can give them money whenever you want to. But I will not be here with you much longer.
8 I will die soon, and people will bury my body. This woman poured the perfume on me to get my body ready. She did a good thing.
9 Listen. People will go everywhere in the world to tell people God’s story, and they will remember this woman and they will tell people about her too, and about the good thing she did today.”
Judas Iscariot turned against Jesus
10 Judas Iscariot was one of the 12 men that Jesus picked out to be his special workers. But at this time he turned against Jesus, and he went to the bosses of the Jewish ceremonies, and he said, “I can help you catch Jesus.”
11 They heard him say that, and they were very happy. They promised to pay him money. So he waited for a good time to help them catch Jesus.
Jesus and his followers ate the Passover dinner
12 The day came for people to kill a young sheep to cook it and eat it. That was the start of the ceremony time called Passover. They ate flat damper at that time too, and they remembered the time, long ago, when their grand-fathers were in Egypt, and God’s angel messenger passed over them, and didn’t kill any of them.
On that day, some of Jesus’s followers went up to him, and they asked him, “Where do you want us all to eat this dinner? We can go and get it ready.”
13 Jesus said, “All right, you 2 go over there into Jerusalem city, and after you get there you will meet a man. He will be carrying a big jug of water. Follow him, and he will go into a house.
14 You talk to the boss over that house. You tell him, ‘Our teacher wants you to show us the room you have for visitors. He wants to eat the Passover dinner there with his followers.’
15 Then that boss will take you upstairs to a big room that he’s got set up and ready. You can get the dinner ready for us there.”
16 Those 2 men left him and went into Jerusalem. Everything happened just like Jesus told them. So they got the food ready for that special Passover dinner.
17 When the sun went down, Jesus and his special workers went to that house to eat the Passover dinner.
18 While they were eating, Jesus said to them, “Listen, one of you men, that is eating with me here right now, will turn against me and help the people that want to kill me.”
19 His 12 special workers were sad, and each of them said to him, “Were you talking about me? No, not me. I will not do that.”
20 Jesus said, “It is one of you that is eating food with me right now.
21 I’m God’s special man from heaven, and I have to die, just like God says in his book. But the man that helps my enemies to catch me, he will get really bad trouble from God. He will wish he was never born.”
22 After that, while they were still eating their dinner, Jesus picked up some damper and thanked God for it, then he broke it into bits and gave it to his special workers. He said, “This damper is my body. Take a bit and eat it.”
23 Then he picked up the cup of wine and said thank you to God for it, and he gave it to them, and they passed it around, and each of them drank a little bit of wine.
24 He told them, “This wine is my blood. I will die and pour out my blood for a lot of people. It’s like this, God has agreed to save people, and I will die so he can do that. My blood will come out, and it is like I’m using my blood to sign God’s new agreement with people, to say that they are not guilty of the bad things they did.
25 Listen, I will not drink any wine again until the day that I sit down with God and all his family, and he will show everyone that he is the biggest boss. Then I will drink a new sort of wine with you.”
26 After Jesus said that, they all sang a song to God, and then they went out of that house to go to the hill called Olive Trees Hill.
Jesus talked straight to Peter
27 They walked along the road, and Jesus talked to his followers. He said, “All you mob will run away and leave me. A long time ago, God got one of his men to write about this in his book. He wrote,
‘God will knock down the man that looks after the sheep,
and all his sheep will run away.’
He wrote those words about me. I will die, like he wrote about that man, and you will all run away.
28 But after that, God will make me alive again. Then I will go ahead of you to Galilee country, and I will wait for you there.”
29 Peter said, “Maybe all the others will run away, but not me. No way.”
30 But Jesus said to him, “Listen to me, Peter. Tonight you will tell people that you don’t know me. You will say that 3 times, and then a chook will yell out 2 times, just like it always does before the sun comes up.”
31 But Peter talked really strong to Jesus. He said, “No. People might try to force me to say that. They might even tell me that they will kill me, but I will never say that I don’t know you.”
All the other followers said the same thing.
Jesus prayed in the place called Gethsemane
32 Jesus and his followers got to the place called Gethsemane. He said to them, “I want you to sit here and wait for me. I’m going to pray to God.”
33 He asked Peter, James and John to go with him, and they walked away from the others. Then Jesus started to get really sad and upset.
34 And he said to them, “I feel really sad right now. I feel so sad, it’s like I’m dying. Stay here and keep on looking out for trouble.”
35 Then Jesus walked away from them a little bit and lay down on the ground.
36 He said to God, “Father, you can do anything. You can take this trouble away from me. It’s too hard for me. But you do what you want to do, not what I want.”
37 Jesus went back to his 3 followers and found them asleep. He said to Peter, “Wake up, Simon. Can’t you stay awake with me for just one hour?
38 Stay awake and pray to God so that nothing will get you to go wrong. I know that you want to do the right thing, but your body is weak and wants to sleep.”
39 Jesus left them again, and he prayed again. He kept on asking God the same thing.
40 Jesus’s 3 followers were very tired, and they just couldn’t stay awake. Then Jesus came back to them again, and they were asleep again. After they woke up, they felt shame, and they didn’t know what to say to him.
41 Jesus went away and prayed to God again. Then he came back to his 3 followers and said, “Are you still resting? You can’t sleep any more now. Look. I’m God’s special man from heaven, but those bad men will soon come and get me.
42 So get up, we have to go now. See, here is the man that is helping them catch me.”
A mob of men grabbed Jesus
43 Just before that time, the bosses of the Jewish ceremonies and the law teachers and the Jewish elders, they told a big mob of men to go with Judas to grab Jesus. Those men all had long knives and fighting sticks. Judas was one of Jesus’s 12 special workers, but he changed sides, and he took that mob of men to Gethsemane to grab Jesus. They got there while Jesus was talking to his followers.
44-45 Judas walked up to Jesus and said, “Hello teacher,” and kissed him on the cheek. He did that to show those men which man they had to grab.
46 So they grabbed Jesus.
47 One of Jesus’s followers was standing right there, and he pulled out his long knife. He cut off the ear of a man that worked for the big boss of the Jewish ceremonies.
48 Jesus said to the mob, “Why have you got all these long knives and fighting sticks? I’m not a criminal. No way.
49 I was always in God’s ceremony house, and I taught the people there every day, but you didn’t grab me then. But a long time ago, God said that you will grab me. It is in his book. So you will grab me now.”
50 Then Jesus’s followers got frightened, and they ran away and left him there.
51 There was a young man there that followed along a little bit behind Jesus. He was just wearing a sheet wrapped around him.
52 That mob of men tried to grab him, but they only grabbed the sheet. He wriggled out of it and ran away naked.
They took Jesus to court
53-54 That mob took Jesus to court at the house of the big boss of the Jewish ceremonies. All the bosses of the Jewish ceremonies, and the elders, and the law teachers, they all went to that court too.
That house had a yard with a wall around it. Peter followed a little bit behind the mob, and he followed that mob into the yard of that house, and he sat down with them near their fire.
55 All the Jewish leaders there tried to get somebody to say, “We saw Jesus do bad things,” so that they could kill him, but nobody told a strong story against him.
56 Lots of people stood up and told lies about Jesus, but they didn’t agree with each other. Their stories were all mixed up.
57 Some men stood up and told this lie.
58 They said, “We heard this man say, ‘I will knock down God’s ceremony house and build another one in 3 days. Lots of men built this one, but I will build a new one just by myself.’ ”
59 But even those men had their stories mixed up. They didn’t agree with each other.
60 The big boss of the Jewish ceremonies stood up in the meeting and said to Jesus, “All those people said that you did bad things. You heard them. What do you say?”
61 But Jesus didn’t answer him. He just kept his mouth shut.
Then that boss said, “All right, tell us this. Are you the Christ, that special man that God promised to send to save us? Are you the son of God?”
62 Jesus said, “Yes, I am. I’m God’s special man from heaven. And one day, you mob will all see me sitting there in heaven on the right-hand side of God, the powerful one. And you will also see me come back here in the clouds.”
63-64 Then that big boss of the Jewish ceremonies got so angry that he tore his clothes and said to the Jewish leaders, “Did you hear that? This man said that he is the same as God. We don’t need anyone to say anything more. We heard it ourselves. So what do you reckon, did he break our law?”
They all said, “He did. He broke our law. He’s got to die.”
65 Some of the people in that meeting spat on Jesus. They tied a rag across his eyes so that he couldn’t see, then they hit him with their hands and said, “Hey. You reckon that God gives you power to know things, so tell us, who hit you?” Then the guards grabbed Jesus and hit him.
Peter said, “I don’t know Jesus”
66-67 All this time, Peter sat next to the fire in the yard of the big boss of the Jewish ceremonies. One of the girls that worked in that house came along and saw Peter there. She looked at him and said, “I think you were with Jesus, the man from Nazareth.”
68 But Peter said, “No. I don’t know what you are talking about.” Then Peter went back to the gate of that yard. Just then a chook yelled out.
69 That girl saw Peter at the gate and started to tell the people, “This man is one of Jesus’s mob.”
70 But again Peter said, “No, I’m not.”
A little bit later those people there at that gate said to Peter, “You talk like the Galilee people talk, and Jesus is from Galilee, so you have to be one of his followers.”
71 Peter got really wild, and he said, “I’m telling you, I don’t know that man. I don’t know what you are talking about. God knows that this is true, or if not, he can kill me.”
72 Straight away, that chook yelled out again. Then Peter remembered the words Jesus said to him before, “Tonight you will tell people that you don’t know me. You will say that 3 times, and then a chook will yell out 2 times.” When Peter remembered these words, he was very sad, and he cried a lot.