Commentary on the Gospel of

George Butterfield-Creighton University School of Law

I gave my back to those who beat me,

my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;

My face I did not shield

from buffets and spitting.

For your sake I bear insult,

and shame covers my face.

I have become an outcast to my brothers,

a stranger to my mother’s sons,

because zeal for your house consumes me,

and the insults of those who blaspheme you fall upon me.

Insult has broken my heart, and I am weak,

I looked for sympathy, but there was none;

for consolers, not one could I find.

Rather they put gall in my food,

and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

 

One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said,

“What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?”

They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.

 

When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve. And while they were eating, he said, 

“Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another,

“Surely it is not I, Lord?”

He said in reply,

“He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me.

 

The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him,

but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.

It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”

Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply,

“Surely it is not I, Rabbi?”

He answered, “You have said so.”

 

I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.

He is near who upholds my right….

See, the Lord God is my help;

who will prove me wrong?

 

The Lord God is my help,

therefore I am not disgraced;

I will praise the name of God in song,

and I will glorify him with thanksgiving:

 

“See, you lowly ones, and be glad;

you who seek God, may your hearts revive!

 

For the Lord hears the poor,

and his own who are in bonds he spurns not.”

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