Jesus answered the officer calmly and quietly:
"If I have said anything evil, tell what the evil is; but if I have spoken the truth, why do you strike me?"
While Annas and his men were thus showing their hate toward Jesus, who stood bound and alone among his enemies, Peter was still in the court-yard warming himself at the fire. A woman, who was a serving-maid in the house, looked at Peter sharply, and finally said to him:
"You were one of those men with this Jesus of Nazareth!"
Peter was afraid to tell the truth, and he answered her:
"Woman, I do not know the man; and I do not know what you are talking about."
And to get away from her, he went out into the porch of the house. There another woman-servant saw him and said: "This man was one of those with Jesus!"
And Peter swore with an oath that he did not know Jesus at all. Soon a man came by, who was of kin to Malchus, whose ear Peter had cut off. He looked at Peter, and heard him speak, and said:
"You are surely one of this man's disciples; for your speech shows that you came from Galilee."
Then Peter began again to curse and to swear, declaring that he did not know the man.