The Crucifixion
Plain English Version (PEV)
Mat 27:32–44
Mrk 15:21–32
- 21 The soldiers nailed his hands and feet to the cross, then they stood it up, and left him to die like that. They put up a piece of wood above his head with writing on it to say why they killed him. The writing on it said, “The big boss of the Jews.” It was 9 o’clock in the morning when they nailed Jesus to that cross. After that the soldiers gambled with each other to get his clothes.
- 22 The soldiers nailed up 2 criminals to crosses next to Jesus. One criminal was on his left-hand side and the other was on his right-hand side.
- 23 Some other people walked past Jesus and rubbished him too. They stood there and shook their heads to shame him, and said, “You reckon you can knock down God’s house and then build it again in 3 days, do you?
- 24 All right, come on, save yourself. Get off the cross and come down.”
- 25 The leaders of the Jewish ceremonies and law teachers joined in and laughed at Jesus. They said to each other, “He saved other people, but he can’t save himself.
- 26 So he thinks he is the one that God sent. He reckons he is the big boss of us Israel nation. No way. We will not believe him unless we see him come down off that cross.” The other men on the other crosses joined in too and rubbished Jesus.
- 27 In the middle of the day, about 12 o’clock, the whole country got dark, like it was night time. It stayed dark for about 3 hours, till 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
- 28 Then Jesus yelled out loud in his language, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” That means, My God, my God, why did you go away and leave me all by myself?
- 29 Some of the people standing around heard the words that Jesus said. They thought that he called out for Elijah to come to him from heaven.
- 30 One man ran and got a sponge and filled it with sour wine, and he put it on a stick and held it up to his mouth so he could suck a bit of it. That man said, “All right. Just leave him. Let us wait and see if Elijah will come and get him down.”
- 31 Jesus yelled out again, and then he died.
- 32 Over there in God’s house in Jerusalem there was a big curtain that blocked off the sacred place. At the same time when Jesus died, that curtain just ripped into 2 pieces, right down the middle from the top to the bottom.