23. Jesus replied, "If I speak wrongly, testify about what was wrong. But if I speak correctly, why do you strike me?"
24. Then Annas sent him, bound, to Caiaphas the high priest.
25. Meanwhile, Simon Peter was still standing with the guards, warming himself. They asked, "Aren’t you one of his disciples?" Peter denied it, saying, "I’m not."
26. A servant of the high priest, a relative of the one whose ear Peter had cut off, said to him, "Didn’t I see you in the garden with him?"
27. Peter denied it again, and immediately a rooster crowed.
28. The Jewish leaders led Jesus from Caiaphas to the Roman governor’s palace. It was early in the morning. So that they could eat the Passover, the Jewish leaders wouldn’t enter the palace; entering the palace would have made them ritually impure.
29. So Pilate went out to them and asked, "What charge do you bring against this man?"
30. They answered, "If he had done nothing wrong, we wouldn’t have handed him over to you."
31. Pilate responded, "Take him yourselves and judge him according to your Law." The Jewish leaders replied, "The Law doesn’t allow us to kill anyone." (
32. This was so that Jesus’ word might be fulfilled when he indicated how he was going to die.)
33. Pilate went back into the palace. He summoned Jesus and asked, "Are you the king of the Jews?"
34. Jesus answered, "Do you say this on your own or have others spoken to you about me?"