Chapter 4.
Pilate therefore, leaving Jesus within the prætorium, went out to the Jews, and says to them: I find not even one fault in him. The Jews say to him: He said, I can destroy that temple, and in three days raise it again. Pilate said to them: What temple? The Jews say to him: The temple which Solomon built in forty and six years; and he says that he can destroy and build it in three days. Pilate says to them: I am innocent of the blood of this man; see ye to it. The Jews say to him: His blood be upon us, and upon our children.
And Pilate, calling the elders and priests and Levites, says to them privately: Do not do so; for in nothing, though you accuse him, do I find him deserving of death, not even about the healing and the breaking of the Sabbath. The priests and Levites and elders say: Tell us, if any one blaspheme Cæsar, is he deserving of death or not? Pilate says to them: He deserves to die. The Jews answered him: How much more is he who has blasphemed God deserving to die!
And the governor ordered the Jews to go outside of the prætorium; and calling Jesus, said to Him: What am I to do to thee? Jesus says to Pilate: As it has been given thee. Pilate says: How has it been given? Jesus says: Moses and the prophets made proclamation of my death and resurrection. And the Jews, hearing this, say to Pilate: Why do you desire any more to hear blasphemy? And Pilate said: If this speech is blasphemous, do you take him, and lead him to your synagogue, and judge him according to your law. The Jews say to Pilate: Our law holds, If a man have sinned against a man, he is worthy to receive forty less one; but he who has blasphemed against God, to be stoned.
Pilate says to them: Then judge him according to your law. The Jews say to Pilate: We wish that he be crucified. Pilate says to them: He does not deserve to be crucified.
And the governor, looking upon the people of the Jews standing round, saw very many of the Jews weeping, and said: All the multitude does not wish him to die. The elders say to Pilate: And for this reason have we come--the whole multitude--that he should die. Pilate said to the Jews: What has he done that he should die? They say: Because he said that he was the Son of God, and a king.
Chapter 5.
But one Nicodemus, a Jew, stood before the governor, and said: I entreat, mercifully allow me to say a few words. Pilate says to him: Say on. Nicodemus says: I said to the elders and the priests and the Levites, and to all the multitude of the Jews, in the synagogue, What have you to do with this man? This man does many wonders and signs, which no one of men has done or can do. Let him go, and do not devise any evil against him: if the signs which he does are of God, they will stand; but if of men, they will come to nothing. For Moses also, being sent by God into Egypt, did many signs, which God told him to do before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And the sorcerers Jamnes and Mambres were there healing, and they did, they also, the signs which Moses did, but not all; and the Egyptians deemed them as gods, Jamnes and Mambres. And since the signs which they did were not of God, they perished, both they and those who believed in them. And now let this man go, for he is not deserving of death.
The Jews say to Nicodemus: Thou hast become his disciple, and takest his part. [1960] Nicodemus says to them: Has the governor also become his disciple, and does he take his part? Has not Cæsar set him over that dignity? And the Jews were raging and gnashing with their teeth against Nicodemus. Pilate says to them: Why do you gnash with your teeth against him, when you are hearing the truth? The Jews say to Nicodemus: Mayst thou receive his truth, and a portion with him! Nicodemus says: Amen, amen, amen; may I receive it, as you have said!
[1960] Lit., makest a word for him.