Bible Verses About Prisoners

This was to fulfill the word that Jesus had spoken to indicate the kind of death He was going to die.

Pilate went back into the Praetorium, summoned Jesus, and asked Him, “Are You the King of the Jews?”

“Are you saying this on your own,” Jesus asked, “or did others tell you about Me?”

“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed You over to me. What have You done?”

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world; if it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now My kingdom is not of this realm.”

“Then You are a king!” Pilate said. “You say that I am a king,” Jesus answered. “For this reason I was born and have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.”

“What is truth?” Pilate asked. And having said this, he went out again to the Jews and told them, “I find no basis for a charge against Him.

But it is your custom that I release to you one prisoner at the Passover. So then, do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?”

“Not this man,” they shouted, “but Barabbas!” (Now Barabbas was an insurrectionist.)

Then the high priest and all his associates, who belonged to the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They went out

and arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.

But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out, saying,

“Go, stand in the temple courts and tell the people the full message of this new life.”

At daybreak the apostles entered the temple courts as they had been told and began to teach the people. When the high priest and his associates arrived, they convened the Sanhedrin—the full assembly of the elders of Israel—and sent to the jail for the apostles.

But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they returned with the report:

“We found the jail securely locked, with the guards posted at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside.”

When the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests heard this account, they were perplexed as to what was happening.

Then someone came in and announced, “Look, the men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people!”

At that point, the captain went with the officers and brought the apostles—but not by force, for fear the people would stone them.

They brought them in and made them stand before the Sanhedrin, where the high priest interrogated them.

“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us responsible for this man’s blood.”

But Peter and the other apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than men.

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had killed by hanging Him on a tree.

God exalted Him to His right hand as Prince and Savior, in order to grant repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.

We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.”