Matthew 26:69-75

The Message

Denial in the Courtyard

⁶⁹ All this time, Peter was sitting out in the courtyard. One servant girl came up to him and said, “You were with Jesus the Galilean.”

⁷⁰ In front of everybody there, he denied it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

⁷¹ As he moved over toward the gate, someone else said to the people there, “This man was with Jesus the Nazarene.”

⁷² Again he denied it, salting his denial with an oath: “I swear, I never laid eyes on the man.”

⁷³ Shortly after that, some bystanders approached Peter. “You’ve got to be one of them. Your accent gives you away.”

^74-75 Then he got really nervous and swore. “I don’t know the man!”

Just then a rooster crowed. Peter remembered what Jesus had said: “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” He went out and cried and cried and cried.