Then they brought Jesus out on the steps of the palace. His face was stained with blood; on his head was the wreath of thorns; and on his shoulders was the scarlet cloak. And Pilate said to the crowd: "See, here is the man!" But if Pilate hoped that the sight of Jesus, so woeful and sad, would arouse the pity of the people, he soon found himself mistaken. Led by the chief priests and their officers, they cried out with loud voices: "To the cross with him! Let him be crucified!" To be crucified was to be fastened with nails on a cross, which was then stood up, and left standing until the suffering man was dead. This was what the crowd of Jews before Pilate's palace called upon him to do with Jesus who had done no harm, but only good! Pilate answered them: "You can take him and crucify him, if you choose. I will have nothing to do with it; for I can not find that he has done anything wicked." The rulers of the Jews answered Pilate: "But we have a law; and by our law he must die, because he has made himself out to be the Son of God!" When Pilate heard that, he was still more afraid, for there seemed to him something strange in this man Jesus. He did not know what to do. He went inside the palace and took Jesus with him. "Where do you come from?" said Pilate to Jesus. Jesus gave him no answer. Pilate said to him: "You will not speak to me? Don't you know that it is in my power either to set you free, or to send you to the cross, just as I please?" "You would have no power over me," answered Jesus, "if it had not been given you from one who is above. God gave you that power to use for the right and not for the wrong. There is one man whose sin is greater than yours; and that is the high priest who brought me to you!" Jesus meant to have Pilate understand that he was only a weak man, yielding to the will of the high priest, and that he as the governor should have a mind of his own and do only what was right in God's sight. All this made Pilate the more anxious not to put Jesus to death, but to set him free. But the rulers of the Jews shouted aloud to him: "If you set this man free, who has called himself a king, you are no friend to Cæsar, the emperor at Rome! Anyone who calls himself a king sets himself above the emperor who is over us all!" [Illustration: Pilate washed his hands, and holding them out, called to the people: "My hands are clean from this good man's blood! This is your doing, not mine!"] Pilate knew that Cæsar the emperor was very jealous and would be very angry if he knew that any man was trying to make himself a king. Very unwillingly, Pilate made up his mind that it would be safer for himself to let Jesus be put to death, rather than to make the emperor at Rome his enemy. So Pilate again took his seat upon the throne, and had Jesus brought before him. It was now the time of sunrise, six o'clock in the morning. Pilate said to the Jews: "Here is your king!"