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a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the same one who anointed the Lord with fragrant oil and wiped His feet with her hair, and now her brother Lazarus was sick. 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one You love is sick.”
4 When Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” 5 Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.
7 Then after this, He said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
8 “But Rabbi,” the disciples said, “just now the Jews tried to stone You, and yet You are going back there?”
9 Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? If anyone walks during the day, he does not stumble, because he sees by the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks during the night, he does stumble, because the light is not in him.”
11 After He had said this, He told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.”
12 The disciples said to Him, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will get better.” 13 Jesus, however, was speaking of his death, but his disciples thought He was speaking of natural sleep.
14 So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and I am glad for your sake that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
16 Then Thomas, who is called the Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.”
17 When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary remained at home.
21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now whatever You ask from God, God will give You.”
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”
24 Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, even though he dies, yet shall he live; 26 and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes Lord,” she said. “I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
28 After she said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside, and told her privately, “The Teacher is here and is asking for you.”
29 As soon as Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met Him. 31 The Jews who were with Mary in the house, comforting her, noticed that she got up quickly and left. So they followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.
32 When Mary came 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.”
33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34 “Where have you laid him?” He asked.
“Lord, come and see,” they replied.
35 Jesus wept.
36 So the Jews said, “See how He loved him!” 37 But some of them said, “Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying?”
38 Then Jesus, again deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was laid across the entrance. 39 “Take away the stone,” Jesus said.
Martha, the dead man’s sister, said to Him, “Lord, by this time there will be a terrible stench, for he has already been dead four days.”
40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. 42 I knew that You always hear Me, but I said this for the sake of the people standing here, so that they may believe that You sent Me.”
43 When He had said this, He called out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The man who had died came out, with his hands and feet bound with strips of linen and his face wrapped in a cloth.
Jesus said to them, “Unbind him and let him go.”
45 Therefore many of the Jews who had come with Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him. 46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many miraculous signs, 48 and if we let Him continue on like this, everyone will believe in Him! Then the Romans will come and remove our positions and destroy our nation.”
49 But one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realise that it is better for you to have one man die for the people, than to have the whole nation perish.”
51 He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation; 52 yet not for that nation only, but also to unite the scattered children of God and make them one. 53 So from that day on the Jewish authorities plotted to put kill Jesus.
54 Therefore Jesus no longer walked about openly among the Jews. Instead He left there and withdrew to a region out near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, where He remained with His disciples.
55 When the Passover of the Jews was near, many went up to Jerusalem from the country to purify themselves before the Passover. 56 They were looking for Jesus and as they stood in the temple area were asking among themselves, “What do you think? Will He come to the Feast or not?” 57 But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he should report it so that they might arrest Him.