and John with him. Along the way he says he is so sad he could die and tells them to keep watch and then walks off by himself and prays. He asks God to grant him a reprieve from what he is about to undergo. "'Abba, Father,' he said, 'everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.'" (36) He mentioned the cup he had to drink in Mark 10:39. Jesus, after his three predictions of his Passion in Mark 8:31, 9:31, and 10:33-34, now says that he wants to live, but then tells God to do whatever God wants, submitting to God's will. Jesus shows total confidence in God, first seeming to say that God can change his plans even at this point if he wishes, and secondly that whatever God decides is the right decision. (Kilgallen 270) He goes back and finds the three asleep and asks them why they could not even stay awake an hour and tells them to pray to avoid "temptation". Temptation might be tempted to fall asleep. In Matthew 6:13 during the Sermon on the Mount he speaks of the temptation of evil, which might be what he is referring to here. He goes back and asks God the same thing, then returns to find them asleep again. They wake up, say nothing, and Jesus leaves for a third time and returns and tells them to get up because the "hour has come" for him to be betrayed. The number three occurs a significant number of times here. Jesus travels with three disciples, and leaves and prays three times. He has predicted all this will occur three times. Some have seen the occurrence of three a divine symbol, others a sign of Mark's narrative ability. The use of three is perhaps indicative of an oral source for Mark, as three is a common feature of orally transmitted stories, such as jokes (So Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha walk into a bar...). (Brown 145) Matthew has him leave and return three times but Luke seems to say he only went away once, and that he was visited by an angel and his sweat became "...like drops of blood...", perhaps a symptom of hematidrosis. Judas arrives along with a crowd sent by the priests, teachers, and elders. Who exactly this crowd is Mark does not say,