Lazarus Dies at Bethany
1Now a man was sick —Lazarus from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair, and it was her brother Lazarus who was sick. 3So the sisters sent a message to him: “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
4When Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness will not end in death but is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5Now Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 6So when he heard that he was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. 7Then after that, he said to the disciples, “Let’s go to Judea again.”
8“Rabbi,” the disciples told him, “just now the Jews tried to stone you, and you’re going there again?”
9“Aren’t there twelve hours in a day?” Jesus answered. “If anyone walks during the day, he doesn’t stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10But if anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him.”
11He said this, and then he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I’m on my way to wake him up.”
12Then the disciples said to him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get well.”
13Jesus, however, was speaking about his death, but they thought he was speaking about natural sleep. 14So Jesus then told them plainly, “Lazarus has died. 15I’m glad for you that I wasn’t there so that you may believe. But let’s go to him.”
16Then Thomas (called “Twin”) said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go too so that we may die with him.”
The Resurrection and the Life
17When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18Bethany was near Jerusalem (less than two miles away). 19Many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother.
20As soon as Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. 22Yet even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
23“Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her.
24Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live. 26Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27“Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who comes into the world.”
Jesus Shares the Sorrow of Death
28Having said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, saying in private, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”
29As soon as Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31The Jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw that Mary got up quickly and went out. They followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to cry there.
32As soon as Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and told him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother wouldn’t have died!”
33When Jesus saw her crying, and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled. 34“Where have you put him?” he asked.
“Lord,” they told him, “come and see.”
35Jesus wept.
36So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” 37But some of them said, “Couldn’t he who opened the blind man’s eyes also have kept this man from dying?”
The Seventh Sign: Raising Lazarus from the Dead
38Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39“Remove the stone,” Jesus said.
Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, there is already a stench because he has been dead four days.”
40Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”
41So they removed the stone. Then Jesus raised his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. 42I know that you always hear me, but because of the crowd standing here I said this, so that they may believe you sent me.” 43After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out bound hand and foot with linen strips and with his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him and let him go.”
The Plot to Kill Jesus
45Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw 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 convened the Sanhedrin and were saying, “What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs? 48If 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.”
49One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! 50You’re not considering that it is to your advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.” 51He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, 52and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God. 53So from that day on they plotted to kill him.
54Jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the Jews but departed from there to the countryside near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and he stayed there with the disciples.
55Now the Jewish Passover was near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the country to purify themselves before the Passover. 56They were looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? He won’t come to the festival, will he?” 57The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should report it so that they could arrest him.