Matthew 27:25
Then answered all the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
Study Note
Study Note
The cry of the crowd — 'his blood be on us, and on our children' — is one of the most historically consequential verses in the New Testament, having been misused for centuries to justify antisemitic violence and collective guilt against Jewish people. Contemporary scholarship consistently notes that the verse represents Matthew's narrative theology of responsibility in the Passion narrative, not a divine curse on all Jewish people in perpetuity — an interpretation explicitly rejected by Vatican II's Nostra Aetate (1965) and mainstream Christian denominations. In Matthew's own narrative context the verse echoes the blood-responsibility formulas of 2 Samuel 1:16 and Joshua 2:19, signalling deliberate moral choice. Acts 3:17 (Peter: 'I know that through ignorance ye did it') and Romans 11's insistence on the irrevocability of Israel's call stand against any permanent curse interpretation.
Other Translations
And all the people answered and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.
and all the people answering said, `His blood <FI>is<Fi> upon us, and upon our children!'
And all the people made answer and said, Let his blood be on us, and on our children.
Cross References
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous …
So ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: for blood it defileth the land: and the land cannot …
Thine eye shall not pity him, but thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel, that it …
That innocent blood be not shed in thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and …
And the Lord shall return his blood upon his own head, who fell upon two men more righteous and better …
And also for the innocent blood that he shed: for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; which the Lord would …
Surely at the commandment of the Lord came this upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the …
Therefore thus saith the Lord God; Woe to the bloody city! I will even make the pile for fire great.
For her blood is in the midst of her; she set it upon the top of a rock; she poured …
Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed; and hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou …