Luke 23

The Jewish leaders kept on blaming Jesus. They told Pilate, “He gets people everywhere to go wild. He started to do that in Galilee country, then in Judea country, and now he is doing it here in Jerusalem.”

When Pilate heard them say that, he asked them, “Is he from Galilee country?”

They said, “Yes, he is from Galilee.” The big boss over Galilee was called Herod, and he was visiting Jerusalem right at that time. So Pilate sent Jesus to him, to let Herod be his judge.

Herod was very happy to see Jesus. You see, a long time before that day, Herod heard about Jesus, so he always wanted to meet him. He wanted to see Jesus do something powerful.

So Herod asked him a lot of questions, but Jesus didn’t answer any of them.

The bosses of the Jewish ceremonies and the Jewish law teachers, they stood there all that time, shouting out and blaming Jesus.

Then Herod and his soldiers started laughing at Jesus and rubbishing him. They put a pretty coat on him, the sort that a big boss wears. Then they sent him back to Pilate.

You know, before that day Herod and Pilate didn’t like each other, but on that day they became friends. (We have not yet translated 23:13-26. You can read those stories in Mark 15:6-15, 21. They say that Pilate told his soldiers to nail Jesus to a cross to kill him, and those soldiers started to take Jesus to the place to do that.)

A big mob of people followed Jesus. There were a lot of women among them. They were really sad. They were crying really loud, and they were hitting themselves.

So Jesus turned around and said to them, “You women that live here in Jerusalem, don’t cry for me, but cry for yourselves, and for your kids.

Listen, soon bad things will happen to everybody. The time will come when people will say, ‘Those women that can’t have babies, and those women that don’t have to feed babies, they are the lucky ones.’

Things will be so bad that people will want to die, so they will ask the mountains to fall on top of them and kill them. And they will ask the hills to bury them.

You see, I didn’t do anything wrong and people are hurting me. But you mob do bad things, so people will hurt you a lot more.” (We have not yet translated 23:32-38. You can read those stories and messages in Mark 15:21-32. They are about how soldiers nailed Jesus and 2 criminals to crosses.) Soldiers nailed Jesus and 2 criminals to crosses|src="CN01836b.tif" size="col" copy="1996 David C. Cook" ref="23:31"

One of the criminals hanging on a cross beside Jesus was rubbishing him, and said, “You reckon you are the Christ, the special man that God promised to send to save us. All right, if you are God’s man, then save yourself, and save us too. But I reckon you can’t do it.”

But the other criminal hanging on a cross said, “Don’t talk like that. Have a bit of respect for God. Listen, they are killing the 3 of us together.

They are killing you and me because we did really bad things, but this man, Jesus, he didn’t do anything wrong.”

Then that criminal talked to Jesus. He said, “Jesus, you are going to get God’s people together into one family, and you will be their leader. When you do that, don’t forget me. I want to be there with you too.”

Jesus said, “All right. Listen, you will be with me today, in God’s good place called Paradise. That’s for sure.” (We have not yet translated 23:44—24:12. You can read those stories and messages in Mark 15:33—16:20. They are about how Jesus died, and then people buried him, but after that, he came alive again.)