"Shall I crucify your king?" asked Pilate.
The chief priests of the Jews, who hated Caesar, answered,
"We have no king except Caesar!"
Pilate was too weak to hold out any longer. He was beginning to wonder what Caesar would say if he heard that Pilate refused to crucify a man who claimed to be king of the Jews.
"Take him," Pilate said. "Take him, and crucify him."
But before the crucifixion came the scourging. Jesus was bound and beaten with long leather thongs which had cruel pieces of glass and lead fastened to them so that they would hurt all the more. When that was over, and his back was covered with cuts and bruises, the Roman soldiers who had scourged him wanted some more sport. They dressed Jesus in a purple robe. They made a wreath, like the one that the Roman emperor wore—only this one was made of thorns, which stuck into Jesus' head so that the blood ran down his face. Some of the soldiers spat on him; others made fun of him, bowing down and saying,
"Hail, king of the Jews!"
Then the soldiers stripped the purple clothes off Jesus, and put his own clothes back on him, and led him outside the city to be crucified. He was too worn out to carry his own cross, as those who were to be crucified usually did, so the soldiers forced a man of Cyrene named Simon to carry it for him.
