[The first seventeen verses of Matthew consists of Jesus' family tree

[[@Bible:Matt 27]]Chapter 27

[[@Bible:Matt 27:3]]3. When Judas, who had squealed on him, realized that Jesus had been condemned, he broke down and took the thirty silvers back to the archbishop and elders, and said, "I’ve done wrong; I’ve ratted on an innocent man." They replied, "What’s that to us? You tend to it." And he slammed the money down in the church and left, and hanged himself. The church officers picked up the money, but felt it wouldn’t be proper to put it in the church treasury, since it was tainted with blood. So they passed a motion to buy the Potter place with it, as a cemetery for outsiders. That’s why to this day that field is called "The Blood Plot." And this gave meaning to something Jeremiah the prophet said, "And they took the thirty silvers, the price they felt was a fair price for a man from Georgia, and used them for the Potter place, as the Lord instructed me."

[[@Bible:Matt 27:11]]11. Jesus now appeared before the governor. "Are you the Head of the Church?" the governor inquired. "You are right," replied Jesus. But when the church officers tried to hang something on him, he made no defense. Pilate then said to him "Are you admitting their charges against you?" But Jesus did not defend himself on a single count, which greatly surprised the governor.

[[@Bible:Matt 27:15]]15. Now each year at the annual convention the governor had a practice of pardoning some prisoner the people demanded. Right then there was a very famous prisoner in jail named Jesus Daddy-boy.¹²  So when they assembled, Pi1ate asked them, "Who shall I pardon for you—Jesus Daddy-boy or Jesus the Father’s Anointed?" (Pilate detected that they had arrested Jesus out of pure meanness.)

[[@Bible:Matt 27:19]]19. While the trial was going on, Pilate’s wife sent word to him: "Don’t get tangled up with that honest man, because I had a horrible nightmare about him last night."

[[@Bible:Matt 27:20]]20. Well, the leaders of the council pressured the mob to ask for Daddy-boy to be released and Jesus to be condemned. So when the governor asked them, "Which of the two do you want me to pardon for you?" they shouted, "Daddy-boy!"

[[@Bible:Matt 27:24]]24. When Pilate saw that be wasn’t getting anywhere, but that a big stir was brewing, he got some water and washed off his hands publicly. "I am clearing myself of this man’s blood," be said; "you yourselves are responsible." The whole crowd answered back, "His blood will be on us and on our children!" Then Pilate pardoned Daddy-boy, and he had Jesus beaten and turned over to them to string up.

[[@Bible:Matt 27:27]]27. The governor’s troopers then took Jesus into the barracks and passed the word around among all the boys. They stripped him naked, dressed him up in a black clerical robe, and made a dog collar out of burlap. They put a Bible in his hand, came by and shook hands with him and wisecracked, "Good morning, Reverend, Leader of the Faithful." And they spit on him, and took the Bible and clobbered him over the head with it. When they got through deviling him, they took off the clerical garb and put his own clothes back on him, and led him away to string him up. On the way they found an outsider named Simon, and they made him tote Jesus’ cross.

[[@Bible:Matt 27:33]]33. Well, they got to a place called "Skull." They offered him a drink of wine mixed with a drug, but when he tasted it, he wouldn’t drink it.

[[@Bible:Matt 27:45]]45. From noon till three a darkness settled over the whole place. About three o’clock Jesus groaned loudly: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" which means, "O my God, O my God, why have you left me here?"

[[@Bible:Matt 27:50]]50. Jesus again gave a loud cry. Then he died.

[[@Bible:Matt 27:54]]54. Now when the captain and his buddies who were keeping an eye on Jesus saw the earthquake and the happenings, they were scared out of their wits. "No doubt about it," they said, "this guy really was God’s Man."

[[@Bible:Matt 27:55]]55. Some distance away a number of ladies, who had followed Jesus from Alabama to wait on him, were watching it all. Among them were Mary, "that girl from Magdala," and Mary, the mother of Jim and Joe, and the mother of the Zebedee boys.

[[@Bible:Matt 27:57]]57. Late that afternoon a well-to-do man arrived, a Jesus convert named Joseph, from the white suburb of Sylvan Hills. He went to Pilate and requested Jesus’ body; then Pilate ordered it to be granted. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean sheet, put it in his new burial vault, which he had cut out of a rock, rolled a huge stone over the entrance, and left. Mary, "that girl from Magdala," and the other Mary were sitting there opposite the vault.

[[@Bible:Matt 27:62]]62. On the next day, Saturday, the church leaders met with Pilate and said, "Sir, we just happened to remember that while that crook was alive he said, ‘In three days I’ll be raised.’ Give the order, then, for the vault to be guarded through the third day, to keep his followers from coming and stealing him and then telling the people, ‘lie was raised from the dead.’ That trick would be worse than any previous ones." Pilate told them, "Okay, you may have a guard. Go and make it as secure as you know how." They left and put an official seal on the stone, and secured the grave with a guard.