Good News Translation rather radically restructures this verse. For a literal rendering see Revised Standard Version.

The Jewish authorities is best understood as a reference to the chief priests of verse 21.

The request of the Jewish authorities must be in the form of direct address in some languages, for example, “Then the Jewish authorities asked Pilate, ‘Allow us to break the legs of the men who have been put to death and then to take down their bodies from the crosses.’ ” Note that in speaking of the removal of the men from their crosses, it may be necessary in some languages to speak of “taking down their bodies from the crosses.” There may even be a technical term for the body of a dead person, for example, “their corpses.”

The legs of the men who had been crucified is literally “their legs,” but a literal translation could sound as if the Jews were asking Pilate to break their own legs (note Revised Standard Version “the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken”). Other translations avoid this ambiguity by changing the possessive pronoun “their” to “the” before “legs” (for example, Moffatt “in order to prevent the bodies remaining on the cross during the sabbath … the Jews asked Pilate to have the legs broken…”). Breaking the legs of criminals with a heavy mallet was originally also a form of capital punishment. Generally only the legs were broken, but sometimes other limbs were broken as well. Although this was in itself a cruel form of capital punishment, when done to a person who was being crucified, it was looked upon as a merciful act, since it ended more quickly the agony of a lingering death on the cross.

And take their bodies down from the crosses is more literally “and that they be taken away.” According to Greek syntax, the subject of the verb “be taken away” is “their legs,” though it is obvious that John is referring to the bodies of the men. (Compare Moffatt “the legs broken and the bodies removed”; compare New English Bible, Jerusalem Bible.)

They did this because it was Friday is literally, “since it was (the day of) preparation.” The noun “preparation” is the same one used in verse 14 in the phrase the day before the Passover (literally “the preparation of the Passover”). When used without a qualifier, this word always refers to the day of preparation before the Jewish Sabbath, that is, to the period from 6 P.M. on Thursday to 6 P.M. on Friday, when the Sabbath day begins. It is possible to translate: “It was Friday, the day of preparation for the Sabbath day, and the Jews did not want the bodies to stay on the crosses on the Sabbath day.”

Since the coming Sabbath was especially holy is more literally “for the day of that Sabbath was great.” According to John, in the year of the crucifixion the Passover fell on a Sabbath day, which made the day especially holy. Jerusalem Bible translates “since that Sabbath was the day of special solemnity”; Goodspeed “for that Sabbath was an especially important one”; Phillips “for that was a particularly important Sabbath”; and Barclay “for that Sabbath was a specially great day.”

Following the wording of Good News Translation, with the two changes suggested above, one may reorder the sentence to read “It was Friday, the day of preparation for the Sabbath, and the Jews did not want the bodies to stay on the crosses on the Sabbath day, since the coming Sabbath was especially holy. So they asked Pilate to allow them to break the legs of the men who had been put to death and to take their bodies down from the crosses.”

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on the Gospel of John. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1980. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .