The chapter
Simply Jesus crosses a valley into a garden, where Judas arrives with soldiers. He gives himself up and asks them to let the others go. Peter draws a sword and cuts off a man's ear. Jesus is taken to Annas, then to Caiaphas, then to Pilate, while Peter stands outside and says three times that he is not one of them. Pilate questions him, decides he has done nothing, and offers to release him. The crowd asks for Barabbas.
Context THIS GOSPEL PUTS THE CRUCIFIXION ON A DIFFERENT DAY FROM THE OTHER THREE, AND A READER SHOULD KNOW IT HERE. Verse 28 says the men bringing Jesus to Pilate would not go inside, so that they could still eat the Passover; 13:1 dated the supper before the feast; and 19:14 calls the day of the sentence the Preparation Day of the Passover. In Mark 14:12 and 16 the disciples prepare the Passover and the supper IS that meal, and Luke 22:15 has Jesus say he has wanted to eat this Passover with them. Both accounts are in this app and a reader can open all five verses. This file reports the difference and does not resolve it, because resolving it would need historians the corpus does not hold.
Verses 1-14
Simply He goes out over the Kidron into a garden he often used, which is how Judas knows where to find him. The soldiers say they are looking for Jesus of Nazareth; he says it is him, and they step back and fall to the ground. He asks twice, and makes them let the others leave. Peter cuts off the right ear of the high priest's servant, and Jesus tells him to put the sword away. They tie him up and take him to Annas.
Context Verse 1 is where the journey ordered at 14:31 finally happens, three chapters of speech later. Two details in verse 10 belong to John alone: he names the man with the sword as Peter and the man who lost the ear as Malchus. Matthew 26:51, Mark 14:47 and Luke 22:50 all leave both anonymous, so a reader comparing them will find that only here does anyone have a name. Verse 6 has no parallel anywhere else either: the arresting party falls backwards to the ground before anything else happens. The cup at verse 11 is the only cup in this Gospel and it means what is coming, not a supper.
Verses 15-27
Simply Peter and another disciple follow. The other one is known to the high priest and gets Peter through the gate, where the woman on the door asks if he is one of them, and he says he is not. Inside, Jesus is questioned about his teaching and answers that he has said everything in public, and is struck for it. Outside, Peter is asked twice more, once by a relative of the man whose ear he cut off. He denies it again, and the rooster crows.
Context The two scenes are cut into each other rather than told one after the other: questioning inside, denial outside, questioning inside, denial outside. The effect is that Jesus saying he has hidden nothing sits directly beside Peter hiding. The third question at verse 26 is the sharpest, because the man asking is a relative of Malchus and says he saw Peter in the garden, so the denial is made to someone with a reason to remember his face.
Verses 28-40
Simply They bring him to Pilate early, and stay outside so as not to be defiled. Pilate goes back and forth between them and Jesus. He asks whether Jesus is king of the Jews, and gets an answer about a kingdom that is not from this world. He asks what Jesus has done, then says he finds no case against him, and offers to release someone for the feast. They shout for Barabbas, and the text notes in four words that Barabbas was a robber.
Context Pilate's movement in and out is the shape of the whole trial: the accusers will not come in, so he has to keep going out to them, and the text makes his position physical before it makes it moral. Verse 38 gives him the line he is remembered for, what is truth, and the scene does not wait for an answer; he turns and walks out on the question. Verse 36 is the sentence the charge turns on, and it says the kingdom is not FROM here rather than not here.