Bible Verses About Prisoners

This was so that what Yeshua had said, about how he was going to die, might be fulfilled.

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

Yeshua answered, “Are you asking this on your own, or have other people told you about me?”

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

Yeshua answered, “My kingship does not derive its authority from this world’s order of things. If it did, my men would have fought to keep me from being arrested by the Judeans. But my kingship does not come from here.”

“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.

However, you have a custom that at Passover I set one prisoner free. Do you want me to set free for you the ‘king of the Jews’?”

But they yelled back, “No, not this man but Bar-Abba!” (Bar-Abba was a revolutionary.)

But the cohen hagadol and his associates, who were members of the party of the Tz’dukim, were filled with jealousy.

They arrested the emissaries and put them in the public jail.

But during the night, an angel of Adonai opened the doors of the prison, led them out and said,

“Go, stand in the Temple court and keep telling the people all about this new life!”

After hearing that, they entered the Temple area about dawn and began to teach. Now the cohen hagadol and his associates came and called a meeting of the Sanhedrin (that is, of Isra’el’s whole assembly of elders) and sent to the jail to have them brought.

But the officers who went did not find them in the prison. So they returned and reported,

“We found the jail securely locked and the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened it, we found no one inside!”

When the captain of the Temple police and the head cohanim heard these things, they were puzzled and wondered what would happen next.

Then someone came and reported to them, “Listen! The men you ordered put in prison are standing in the Temple court, teaching the people!”

The captain and his officers went and brought them, but not with force; because they were afraid of being stoned by the people.

They conducted them to the Sanhedrin, where the cohen hagadol demanded of them,

“We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name! Look here! you have filled Yerushalayim with your teaching; moreover, you are determined to make us responsible for this man’s death!”

Kefa and the other emissaries answered, “We must obey God, not men.

The God of our fathers raised up Yeshua, whereas you men killed him by having him hanged on a stake.

God has exalted this man at his right hand as Ruler and Savior, in order to enable Isra’el to do t’shuvah and have her sins forgiven.

We are witnesses to these things; so is the Ruach HaKodesh, whom God has given to those who obey him.”