John 19:31-33

Contemporary English Version

A Spear Is Stuck in Jesus' Side

³¹The next day would be both a Sabbath and the Passover. It was a special day for the Jewish people,^[a] and they did not want the bodies to stay on the crosses during this day. So they asked Pilate to break the men's legs^[b] and take their bodies down. ³²The soldiers first broke the legs of the other two men who were nailed there. ³³But when they came to Jesus, they saw he was already dead, and they did not break his legs.

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Footnotes

19.31 a special day for the Jewish people: Passover could be any day of the week. But according to the Gospel of John, Passover was on a Sabbath in the year that Jesus was nailed to a cross.
19.31 break the men's legs: This was the way that the Romans sometimes speeded up the death of a person who had been nailed to a cross.