Pontius

That day Herod and Pilate became friends with each other; previously they had been enemies.

Pilate summoned the head cohanim, the leaders and the people,

Pilate appealed to them again, because he wanted to release Yeshua.

Pilate decided to grant their demand;

This man approached Pilate and asked for Yeshua’s body.

So Pilate went outside to them and said, “What charge are you bringing against this man?”

Pilate said to them, “You take him and judge him according to your own law.” The Judeans replied, “We don’t have the legal power to put anyone to death.”

So Pilate went back into the headquarters, called Yeshua and said to him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

Pilate replied, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and head cohanim have handed you over to me; what have you done?”

“So then,” Pilate said to him, “You are a king, after all.” Yeshua answered, “You say I am a king. The reason I have been born, the reason I have come into the world, is to bear witness to the truth. Every one who belongs to the truth listens to me.”

Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” Having said this, Pilate went outside again to the Judeans and told them, “I don’t find any case against him.

Pilate then took Yeshua and had him flogged.

Pilate went outside once more and said to the crowd, “Look, I’m bringing him out to you to get you to understand that I find no case against him.”

So Yeshua came out, wearing the thorn-branch crown and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Look at the man!”

When the head cohanim and the Temple guards saw him they shouted, “Put him to death on the stake! Put him to death on the stake!” Pilate said to them, “You take him out yourselves and put him to death on the stake, because I don’t find any case against him.”

On hearing this, Pilate became even more frightened.

So Pilate said to him, “You refuse to speak to me? Don’t you understand that it is in my power either to set you free or to have you executed on the stake?”

On hearing this, Pilate tried to find a way to set him free; but the Judeans shouted, “If you set this man free, it means you’re not a ‘Friend of the Emperor’! Everyone who claims to be a king is opposing the Emperor!”

When Pilate heard what they were saying, he brought Yeshua outside and sat down on the judge’s seat in the place called The Pavement (in Aramaic, Gabta);

They shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Put him to death on the stake!” Pilate said to them, “You want me to execute your king on a stake?” The head cohanim answered, “We have no king but the Emperor.”

Pilate also had a notice written and posted on the stake; it read, YESHUA FROM NATZERET THE KING OF THE JEWS

The Judeans’ head cohanim therefore said to Pilate, “Don’t write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but ‘He said, “I am King of the Jews.”’”

Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

It was Preparation Day, and the Judeans did not want the bodies to remain on the stake on Shabbat, since it was an especially important Shabbat. So they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies removed.

After this, Yosef of Ramatayim, who was a talmid of Yeshua, but a secret one out of fear of the Judeans, asked Pilate if he could have Yeshua’s body. Pilate gave his consent, so Yosef came and took the body away.