Those who hate me for no reason outnumber the hairs on my head. Those who want to destroy me are mighty. They have no reason to be my enemies. I am forced to pay back what I did not steal.
He was despised and rejected by people. He was a man of sorrows, familiar with suffering. He was despised like one from whom people turn their faces, and we didn’t consider him to be worth anything.
While Pilate was judging the case, his wife sent him a message. It said, “Leave that innocent man alone. I’ve been very upset today because of a dream I had about him.”
An army officer and those watching Jesus with him saw the earthquake and the other things happening. They were terrified and said, “Certainly, this was the Son of God!”
When the chief priests and the guards saw Jesus, they shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Pilate told them, “You take him and crucify him. I don’t find this man guilty of anything.”
But when they recognized that Alexander was a Jew, everyone started to shout in unison, “Artemis of the Ephesians is great!” They kept doing this for about two hours.
We need a chief priest who is holy, innocent, pure, set apart from sinners, and who holds the honored position—the one next to God the Father on the heavenly throne.