At that moment for the second time a Cock crowed. Then Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, "Before the cock crows twice, you will disown me three times!" And when he remembered that, he burst into tears.

As soon as it was daylight, the high priests held a consultation with the elders and scribes; and the whole council, after binding Jesus, took Him away and turned Him over to Pilate.

Then Pilate asked Him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" He answered, "Yes."

And the high priests kept piling up accusations against Him.

Then again Pilate asked Him, "Have you no answer to make? Just see how many charges they are making against you!"

For he knew that the high priests out of envy had turned Him over to him.

But the high priests stirred up the crowd to get him to set Barabbas free for them instead.

They shouted back, "Crucify Him!"

Then Pilate again asked, "Why, what has He done that is wrong?" But they shouted at the top of their voices, "Crucify Him!"

So, as Pilate wanted to satisfy the crowd, he set Barabbas free for them, but after having Jesus flogged, he turned Him over to be crucified.

Then the soldiers led Him away to a place inside the court yard, that is, of the governor's palace, and they called the whole battalion together.

And they dressed Him in a purple robe and made a crown of thorns and crowned Him with it,

and they began to shout at Him, "All hail, you king of the Jews!"

And they kept hitting Him on the head with a stick, and kept spitting on Him, and on bending knees they kept doing Him homage.

When they had finished making sport of Him, they took off the purple robe and put His own clothes on Him. Then they led Him out of the city to crucify Him.

And they led Him to Golgotha, which means, the Place of the Skull.

They offered Him wine flavored with myrrh, but He would not take it.

Then they crucified Him and divided among them His clothes, by drawing lots for them to see which piece each of them should have.

It was nine o'clock in the morning when they crucified Him.

And the notice of the charge against Him read, "The king of the Jews."

They crucified two robbers along with Him, one at His right and one at His left.

And the passers-by kept hissing at Him, shaking their heads and saying, "Aha! You are the man who would tear down the temple and build another in three days!

The high priests too made sport of Him to one another with the scribes, and kept saying, "He saved others but He cannot save Himself!

Let the Christ, the king of Israel, come down now from the cross, so that we may see it and believe!" Even the men who were crucified with Him made sport of Him.

So one man ran and soaked a sponge in vinegar and put it on a stick and held it up to Him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah does come to take Him down!"

And when the captain who stood facing him saw that He expired in this way, he said, "This man was surely God's Son!"

who used to accompany Him when He was in Galilee, besides several other women who had come up to Jerusalem with Him.

Pilate wondered whether He was dead yet, and calling the captain to him asked whether He was already dead;

but when he found out from the captain that He was, he gave him permission to take His body.

So he bought a linen sheet, then took Him down from the cross, wrapped Him in the linen sheet, and laid Him in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock, and rolled a boulder up to the doorway of the tomb.

When the Sabbath had ended, Mary of Magdala, Mary, James's mother, and Salome bought spices to go and anoint Him.

But he said to them, "You must not be so astounded; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified. He has risen; He is not here. See! Here is the spot where they laid Him.

But you go and tell His disciples and Peter, 'He is going back to Galilee to meet you; you will see Him there, just as He told you.'"

Later on He appeared to the Eleven themselves while they were at table, and reproved them for their lack of faith and their stubbornness, because they had not believed those who had seen Him after He had been raised from the dead.

In the meantime, an angel of the Lord appeared to him, standing at the right of the altar of incense.

When Zechariah saw him, he was agitated, even overwhelmed with fear.

But the angel said to him, "Do not be afraid, Zechariah, because your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you must name him John.

He will go before Him in the spirit and the power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the upright, to make ready for the Lord a people perfectly prepared."

The angel answered him, "I am Gabriel; I stand in the very presence of God. I have been sent to talk with you and to tell you this good news.

Listen! You will become pregnant and bear a son, and you must name Him Jesus.

He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give Him the throne of His forefather David,

He shows His mercy from age to age to those who fear him.

On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they tried to name him Zechariah, after his father.

So they began to make signs to his father to find out what he might wish him to be named.

and all who heard them kept them in their hearts, and said, "What then is this child to be?" for the hand of the Lord was with him.

to grant us deliverance from the dreaded hand of our foes, so that we could serve Him

to register with Mary who was engaged to be married to him and who was an expectant mother.

and she bore her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him up and laid Him in a manger, for there was no room for them at the inn.

"Glory to God in highest heaven! And peace on earth to men who please him."

When He was eight days old and it was time to circumcise Him, He was named Jesus, the name given by the angel before Mary had conceived Him.

Now when the period of their purification ended, in accordance with the law of Moses, they took Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord, to do as it is written in the law of the Lord,

It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not die without seeing the Lord's Messiah.

So under the Spirit's guidance he went into the temple, and when the parents brought the child Jesus there to do for Him as the custom of the law required,

Symeon also took Him in his arms and blessed God, and said:

And His father and mother kept wondering at the things spoken by Symeon about Him.

And the child continued to grow and gain in strength; He continued to increase in wisdom, and the spiritual blessing of God was on Him.

They supposed that He was somewhere in the caravan, and so they traveled a whole day before they began to make an anxious search for Him among His relatives and acquaintances.

As they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem in anxious search for Him.

And after three days they finally found Him in the temple sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.

Now everyone who was listening to Him was showing astonishment at His intelligence and at His answers.

When His parents saw Him, they were utterly amazed, and yet His mother said to Him, "My child, why did you treat us so? Just see how your father and I, in agony of mind, have been searching for you!"

as it is written in the sermon-book of the prophet Isaiah: "Here is a voice of one shouting in the desert, 'Get the road ready for the Lord, make the paths straight for Him.

So he used to say to the crowds that continued to come out there to be baptized by him: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to escape from the wrath that is coming?

So the crowds were asking him this question, "What then ought we to do?"

He answered them, "The man who has two shirts must share with him who has none, and the man who has food must do the same."

Then even the tax-collectors came to be baptized, and said to him, "Teacher, what ought we to do?"

Then some soldiers too were asking him, "What ought we too to do?" So he said to them, "Never extort money from anyone, never make a false accusation, and always be satisfied with your wages."

But Herod the governor, because he was repeatedly reproved by him for Herodias his brother's wife, and for all the wicked deeds that Herod had done,

and the Holy Spirit came down upon Him in bodily form as a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, "You are my Son, my Beloved! In you I am delighted!"

Then the devil said to Him, "If you are God's Son, order this stone to turn to a loaf of bread."

But Jesus answered him, "The Scripture says, 'Not on bread alone does man live.'"

Then he took Him up and in a second of time he showed Him all the kingdoms of the world.

And the devil said to Him, "I will give you all this power and all their splendor, for it has been turned over to me, and I give it to anyone I please.

But Jesus answered him, "The Scripture says, 'You must worship the Lord your God, and serve Him alone.'"

Then he took Him to Jerusalem, and had Him stand on the tip-top turret of the temple, and said to Him, "If you are God's Son, throw yourself down from here,

And Jesus answered him, "It has been said, 'You must not try the Lord your God.'"

After the devil had finished every sort of temptation, he left Him till another time.

Then Jesus in the power of the Spirit returned to Galilee, and news of Him spread all over the surrounding country.

The roll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him, and He unrolled it and found the place where it was written:

Then He rolled up the roll and gave it back to the attendant and took His seat. Now the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were gazing at Him.

So they all began to speak well of Him and to wonder at the gracious words that fell from His lips, and yet they continued to say, "Is He not Joseph's son?"

and they rose up and drove Him out of town and took Him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, to hurl Him down the cliff.

But Jesus reproved him, saying "Be quiet! Get out of him at once!" So the demon threw the man down in the midst of them and came out of him without doing him any harm.

And so news of Him continued to spread to every place in the surrounding region.

Then He rose to leave the synagogue, and He went to Simon's house. And Simon's mother-in-law was in the grip of a burning fever; so they asked Him about her.

As the sun was setting, all who had friends sick with various diseases brought them to Him. Then He continued to lay His hands upon them one by one and cured them.

As day broke He left the house and went to a lonely spot, and the crowds continued to look for Him; they overtook Him, and tried to keep Him from leaving them.

Once as the crowd was pressing against Him to hear the message of God, He found Himself standing on the shore of Lake Gennesaret.

So He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to push out a little from the shore. Then He sat down and continued to teach the crowds from the boat.

For at the haul of fish that they had made, bewildering amazement had seized him and all his men,

So after they had brought the boats to land, they left everything and followed Him.

Now while He was in one of the towns, a man covered with leprosy saw Jesus and fell on his face and begged Him, saying, "Lord, if you choose to, you can cure me."

So He reached out His hand and touched him, saying, "I do choose to; be cured." And at once the leprosy left him.

Then He warned him not to tell anybody, but rather He said, "Go, show yourself to the priest, and, to prove it to the people, make the offering for your purification, just as Moses prescribed."

But the news about Him continued to spread, and great crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be cured of their diseases.

One day as He was teaching, there were some Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Him to cure people.

Now some men were carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were trying to get him in and lay him before Jesus.

And as they could not find a way because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his pallet through the tiles, among the people right in front of Jesus.

But to show you that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth" -- turning to the man who was paralyzed, He said to him, "Get up, pick up your pallet, and go home."

After this He went out and saw a tax-collector named Levi in his seat at the tax-collector's desk, and He said to him, "Follow me."