Matthew 26:57-27:10

The Message

False Charges

^57-58 The gang that had seized Jesus led him before Caiaphas the Chief Priest, where the religion scholars and leaders had assembled. Peter followed at a safe distance until they got to the Chief Priest’s courtyard. Then he slipped in and mingled with the servants, watching to see how things would turn out.

^59-60 The high priests, conspiring with the Jewish Council, tried to cook up charges against Jesus in order to sentence him to death. But even though many stepped up, making up one false accusation after another, nothing was believable.

^60-61 Finally two men came forward with this: “He said, ‘I can tear down this Temple of God and after three days rebuild it.’”

⁶² The Chief Priest stood up and said, “What do you have to say to the accusation?”

⁶³ Jesus kept silent.

Then the Chief Priest said, “I command you by the authority of the living God to say if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”

⁶⁴ Jesus was curt: “You yourself said it. And that’s not all. Soon you’ll see it for yourself:

^65-66 At that, the Chief Priest lost his temper, ripping his robes, yelling, “He blasphemed! Why do we need witnesses to accuse him? You all heard him blaspheme! Are you going to stand for such blasphemy?”

They all said, “Death! That seals his death sentence.”

^67-68 Then they were spitting in his face and knocking him around. They jeered as they slapped him: “Prophesy, Messiah: Who hit you that time?”

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.

Thirty Silver Coins

27 ^1-2 In the first light of dawn, all the high priests and religious leaders met and put the finishing touches on their plot to kill Jesus. Then they tied him up and paraded him to Pilate, the governor.

^3-4 Judas, the one who betrayed him, realized that Jesus was doomed. Overcome with remorse, he gave back the thirty silver coins to the high priests, saying, “I’ve sinned. I’ve betrayed an innocent man.”

They said, “What do we care? That’s your problem!”

⁵ Judas threw the silver coins into the Temple and left. Then he went out and hung himself.

^6-10 The high priests picked up the silver pieces, but then didn’t know what to do with them. “It wouldn’t be right to give this—a payment for murder!—as an offering in the Temple.” They decided to get rid of it by buying the “Potter’s Field” and use it as a burial place for the homeless. That’s how the field got called “Murder Meadow,” a name that has stuck to this day. Then Jeremiah’s words became history:

And so they unwittingly followed the divine instructions to the letter.