The Death of Lazarus
1There was a man who was ill: Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2This Mary — whose brother Lazarus was ill — was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and dried his feet with her hair. 3So the sisters sent word to him: “Lord, the one you love is ill.” 4When Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness will not end in death. It is for the glory of God, so that through it the Son of God may be glorified.” 5Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. 6Yet when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed where he was two days longer. 7Only then did he say to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.” 8The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, just now the Jews were trying to stone you — and you are going back there?” 9Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? Whoever walks in the daytime does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10But whoever walks at night stumbles, because there is no light in him.” 11He said this, and then he added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to wake him.” 12The disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.” 13Jesus had been speaking of his death, but they thought he meant ordinary sleep. 14So then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died, 15and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.” 16Then Thomas (the Twin) said to his fellow disciples, “Let us go too — and die with him.”
The Raising of Lazarus
17When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been four days in the tomb. 18Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia away, 19and many of the Jews had come out to Martha and Mary to console them over their brother. 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him; Mary stayed sitting in the house. 21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22Yet even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” 23Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24Martha said to him, “I know he will rise again — in the resurrection, on the last day.” 25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27“Yes, Lord,” she said. “I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.” 28After saying this, she went off and called her sister Mary aside. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and he is asking for you.” 29The moment Mary heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Jesus had not yet entered the village; he was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31The Jews who were with Mary in the house, consoling her, saw how quickly she got up and left, and they followed her, thinking she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her weeping too, he was moved to the depths of his spirit and shaken, 34and he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said, “Lord, come and see.” 35Jesus wept. 36The Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37But some of them said, “He opened the eyes of the blind man. Could he not have kept this man from dying?” 38Then Jesus, once more deeply moved within, came to the tomb. It was a cave, with a stone lying against it. 39“Take away the stone,” Jesus said. Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to him, “Lord, by now there will be a smell — it is the fourth day.” 40Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” 41So they took away the stone. Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you for hearing me. 42I knew that you always hear me; but I said it for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43And with that, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Untie him, and let him go.”
The Plot Against Jesus
45Many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen what he did, believed in him. 46But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47So the chief priests and the Pharisees called the council together. “What are we doing?” they said. “This man performs many signs. 48If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him — and the Romans will come and sweep away both our place and our nation.” 49But one of them, Caiaphas, who was the high priest that year, said to them, “You understand nothing. 50You do not even see that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” 51He did not say this on his own. As the high priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus was going to die for the nation — 52and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the scattered children of God. 53From that day on, they were resolved to kill him. 54So Jesus no longer moved about openly among the Jews. He withdrew to the region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with the disciples. 55The Passover of the Jews was near, and many people went up from the countryside to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. 56They kept looking for Jesus, and as they stood in the temple they said to one another, “What do you think? Surely he won’t come to the festival?” 57Meanwhile 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.
