Such was their answer, because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already settled among themselves that if any one should acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, he should be excluded from the synagogue.
»Blessed are you when men shall hate you and exclude you from their society and insult you, and spurn your very names as evil things, for the Son of Man's sake.«
You will be excluded from the synagogues; nay more, the time is coming when any one who has murdered one of you will suppose he is offering service to God.
After this, Joseph of Arimathaea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but for fear of the Jews a secret disciple, asked Pilate's permission to carry away the body of Jesus; and Pilate gave him leave. So he came and removed the body.
On that same first day of the week, when it was evening and, for fear of the Jews, the doors of the house where the disciples were, were locked, Jesus came and stood in their midst, and said to them, »Peace be to you!«
The Jews, however, did not believe the statement concerning him –that he had been blind and had obtained his sight– until they called his parents and asked them,
but how it is that he can now see or who has opened his eyes we do not know. Ask him himself; he is of full age; he himself will give his own account of it.«
His advice carried conviction. So they called the Apostles in, and –after flogging them– ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then let them go.
But as for cowards and the unfaithful, and the polluted, and murderers, fornicators, and those who practise magic or worship idols, and all liars–the portion allotted to them shall be in the Lake which burns with fire and sulphur. This is the Second Death.«