John 11

Now a man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus who was sick. So the sisters sent word to him, “Lord, look, the one you love is sick.” When Jesus heard this, he said, “This illness is not for death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed two days in the place where he was. After that he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just seeking to stone you, and are you going there again?” Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the daytime, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to wake him.” Then the disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he was speaking of rest in sleep. Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, and for your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” Then Thomas, called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us go too, so that we may die with him.” When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, while Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. Even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he dies, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord. I have believed that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” After saying this, she went and called her sister Mary, telling her privately, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him. When the Jews who were with Mary in the house comforting her saw her get up quickly and leave, they followed her, thinking she was going to the tomb to weep there. When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her weeping, he was indignant in spirit and became troubled. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” But some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the blind man’s eyes, have kept this man from dying?” Then Jesus, again indignant within himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there is a stench, for it has been four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. Jesus lifted his eyes upward and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this because of the crowd standing around, so that they may believe that you sent me.” After saying this, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him and let him go.” Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary and seen what he did believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we doing? This man is performing many signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who were scattered. So from that day on they plotted to kill him. Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went away from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim. There he stayed with the disciples. Now the Jewish Passover was near, and many went up from the countryside to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? Will he not come to the feast?” The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where he was should report it, so that they could arrest him.

Rights and attribution