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watched Him.

And they that passed by, stood beholding, and blasphemed Him, wagging their heads, and saying:
"Vah! Thou that destroyest the Temple of God, and in three days dost rebuild it: save Thyself! If
Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross!" In like manner also the chief priests, with the
scribes and ancients, mocking, said one to another: "He saved others; Himself He cannot save! If He
be Christ, the elect of God, the king of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, that we may
see and believe. He trusted in God; let Him now deliver Him if He will have Him; for He said, 'I am
the Son of God:" And the soldiers also derided Him, coming to Him, and offering Him vinegar, and
saying: "If Thou be the king of the Jews, save Thyself!"

And it was almost the sixth hour. And when the sixth hour was come, the sun was darkened, and there
was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour.

And one of those robbers who were crucified with Him, blasphemed and reviled Him with the selfsame
thing, saying: "If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us!" But the other answering, rebuked him,
saying: "Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation? And we
indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man hath done no evil." And he
said to Jesus: "Lord, remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy kingdom." And Jesus said to him:
Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with Me in paradise:'21

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus, His Mother, and His Mother's sister, Mary of Cleophas, and
Mary Magdalen. When Jesus therefore had seen His Mother and the disciple standing whom He loved,
He saith to His Mother: "Woman, behold Thy

21 In paradise: That is, in a happy state of rest ,joy, and peace everlasting. Christ was pleased,
by a special privilege, to reward the faith and confession of the penitent thief with a full
discharge of all his sins, both as to the guilt and punishment; and to introduce him immediately
after death into the happy society of the saints, whose limbo, that is, the place of their
confinement, was now made a paradise by our Lord's going thither.