Matthew 28:1-17

¹On Sunday morning Mary Magdalene, and another woman called Mary, they got up really early and went to look at the cave that had Jesus’s body.

²Suddenly there was a big earthquake. One of God’s angel messengers came down from heaven, and he rolled the big stone away from the cave, and he sat on top of it.

³His face was bright and shiny, like lightning. His clothes were really white, like snow.

⁴The soldiers that were guarding the cave were really frightened. They fell down on the ground like dead men, and they couldn’t move.

⁵Then the angel said to the women, “Don’t be afraid. I know that you are looking for Jesus, the one they killed on a cross.

⁶But Jesus is not here. God made him alive again, just like he told you. Come over here and see the place where he was lying.

⁷Now you have to go quickly to his followers. Tell them, ‘Jesus is alive again, and he is going to Galilee country ahead of you mob. You have to go and see him there.’ That is my message for you.”

⁸Then the women ran away from that cave. They were really frightened, but they were really happy too. They were running to the other followers of Jesus, to tell them the angel’s message.

⁹But Jesus met them and called out, “Hello.” They came up to Jesus, and showed him strong respect. They even got down and held on to his feet.

¹⁰Then Jesus said, “Don’t be frightened. Go and tell my other followers to go back to Galilee country, and they will see me there.”

¹¹While the women were going away, some of the soldier guards went into the city and told the bosses of the Jewish ceremonies everything that happened at the cave.

¹²Then those men called a meeting of the Jewish leaders. They all agreed to give the soldiers a lot of money to get them to tell a lie.

¹³They told the soldiers, “You have to tell everyone, ‘The followers of Jesus came in the night, while we were asleep, and they stole his body.’

¹⁴If anyone tells Pilate about this, we’ll talk to him and tell him you didn’t do anything wrong, so you will not get any trouble.”

¹⁵The soldiers took the money, and they told everyone that lie, like the leaders told them to say. So a lot of Jewish people heard that story, and some of them still tell that lie to other people.

¹⁶The women told Jesus’s message to his 11 close followers. Then those men remembered that Jesus told them to meet him on a mountain in Galilee, so they went there.

¹⁷They saw Jesus there and they felt really happy, and they showed him strong respect. But some of them were thinking, “Is this really Jesus? I don’t know.”