Psalm 22:22–27

²²I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
²³You who fear the Lord, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
²⁴For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him.

²⁵From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear him.
²⁶The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the Lord!
May your hearts live forever!

²⁷All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.

Old Testament Reading Proverbs 24:1–22

¹Be not envious of evil men,
nor desire to be with them,
²for their hearts devise violence,
and their lips talk of trouble.
³By wisdom a house is built,
and by understanding it is established;
⁴by knowledge the rooms are filled
with all precious and pleasant riches.
⁵A wise man is full of strength,
and a man of knowledge enhances his might,
⁶for by wise guidance you can wage your war,
and in abundance of counselors there is victory.
⁷Wisdom is too high for a fool;
in the gate he does not open his mouth.
⁸Whoever plans to do evil
will be called a schemer.
⁹The devising of folly is sin,
and the scoffer is an abomination to mankind.
¹⁰If you faint in the day of adversity,
your strength is small.
¹¹Rescue those who are being taken away to death;
hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.
¹²If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,”
does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it,
and will he not repay man according to his work?
¹³My son, eat honey, for it is good,
and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.
¹⁴Know that wisdom is such to your soul;
if you find it, there will be a future,
and your hope will not be cut off.
¹⁵Lie not in wait as a wicked man against the dwelling of the righteous;
do no violence to his home;
¹⁶for the righteous falls seven times and rises again,
but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.
¹⁷Do not rejoice when your enemy falls,
and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles,
¹⁸lest the Lord see it and be displeased,
and turn away his anger from him.
¹⁹Fret not yourself because of evildoers,
and be not envious of the wicked,
²⁰for the evil man has no future;
the lamp of the wicked will be put out.
²¹My son, fear the Lord and the king,
and do not join with those who do otherwise,
²²for disaster from them will rise suddenly,
and who knows the ruin that will come from them both?

New Testament Reading John 19:1–22

¹Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him. ²And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. ³They came up to him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” and struck him with their hands. ⁴Pilate went out again and said to them, “See, I am bringing him out to you that you may know that I find no guilt in him.” ⁵So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, “Behold the man!” ⁶When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.” ⁷The Jews answered him, “We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has made himself the Son of God.” ⁸When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. ⁹He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, “Where are you from?” But Jesus gave him no answer. ¹⁰So Pilate said to him, “You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?” ¹¹Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.”

¹²From then on Pilate sought to release him, but the Jews cried out, “If you release this man, you are not Caesar’s friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.” ¹³So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called The Stone Pavement, and in Aramaic Gabbatha. ¹⁴Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” ¹⁵They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” ¹⁶So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.

So they took Jesus, ¹⁷and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called the place of a skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. ¹⁸There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. ¹⁹Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.” ²⁰Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. ²¹So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” ²²Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”