1 Now a man was sick; it was Lazarus who lived in Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
2 It was the Mary who poured the perfume upon the Lord and wiped His feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick.
3 So the sisters sent this message to Jesus, "Lord, listen! the one you love so well is sick."
4 When Jesus received the message, He said, "This sickness is not to end in death but is to honor God, that the Son of God through it may be honored."
5 Now Jesus held in loving esteem Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
6 But when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He stayed over for two days in the place where He was.
7 After that He said to His disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."
8 The disciples said to Him, "Teacher, the Jews just now were trying to stone you, and are you going back there again?"
9 Jesus answered, "Does not the day have twelve hours? If a man travels in the daytime, he does not stumble, for he can see the light of this world;
10 but if he travels in the nighttime, he does stumble, because he has no light."
11 He said this, and after that He added, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him."
13 But Jesus had spoken about his death. However, they supposed that He was referring to falling into a natural sleep.
14 So Jesus then told them plainly: "Lazarus is dead,
15 and I am glad for your sake that I was not there so that you may come to have real faith in me. But let us go to him."
17 When Jesus reached there, He found that Lazarus had been buried for four days.
18 Now Bethany is only about two miles from Jerusalem,
19 and a goodly number of Jews had come out to see Martha and Mary, to sympathize with them over their brother.
20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed at home.
21 Then Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.
22 But even now I know that whatever you ask God for He will give you."
25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life myself. Whoever continues to believe in me will live right on even though he dies,
26 and no person who continues to live and believe in me will ever die at all. Do you believe this?"
27 She said to Him, "Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
28 On saying this she went back and called her sister Mary, whispering to her, "The Teacher is here and is asking for you."
29 As soon as she heard it, she jumped up and started to Jesus,
30 for He had not yet come into the village, but He was still at the place where Martha had met Him.
31 So the Jews who were with her in the house sympathizing with her, when they saw Mary jump up and go out, followed her, because they supposed that she was going to the grave to pour out her grief there.
32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw Him, she threw herself at His feet, and said, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
33 So when Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who had come with her weeping too, He sighed in sympathy and shook with emotion,
34 and asked, "Where have you laid him?" They answered, "Lord, come and see."
36 So the Jews said, "See how tenderly He loved him!"
37 But some of them said, "Could not this man, who made that blind man see, have kept Lazarus from dying?"
38 Now Jesus sighed again and continued to sigh as He went to the grave. It was a cave with a stone lying over the mouth of it.
39 Jesus said, "Slip the stone aside." The dead man's sister, Martha, said to Him, "Lord, by this time he is offensive, for he has been dead four days."
40 Jesus said to her, "Did I not promise you that if you would believe in me, you should see the glory of God?"
41 So they slipped the stone aside. And Jesus looked up and said, "Father, I thank you for listening to me;
42 yes, I knew that you always listen to me. But I have said this for the sake of the crowd that is standing by, that they may come to believe that you have sent me."
43 On saying this, He shouted aloud, "Lazarus, come out!"
44 Then out came the dead man, his feet and hands tied with wrappings, and his face tied up with a handkerchief. Jesus said to them, "Untie him and let him go."
45 Thus many of the Jews, who came to see Mary and who saw what Jesus had done, believed in Him;
46 but some of them went back to the Pharisees and told them what He had done.
47 So the high priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council, and began to say, "What are we to do? For this man is certainly performing many wonder-works.
48 If we let Him go on this way, everybody will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and blot out both our city and nation."
49 But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You know nothing about this;
50 you do not take into account that it is for your own welfare that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should be destroyed."
51 Now he did not say this on his own authority, but because he was high priest that year he uttered this prophecy from God, that Jesus was to die for the nation,
52 and not only for the nation, but also to unite the scattered children of God.
53 So from that day they plotted to kill Jesus.
54 It was for this reason that Jesus no more appeared in public among the Jews, but He left that part of the country and went to the district near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and stayed there with His disciples.
55 Now the Jewish Passover was approaching, and many people from the country went up to Jerusalem, to purify themselves before the Passover.
56 So they kept looking for Jesus and saying to one another, as they stood in the temple, "What do you think? Do you think He will not come to the feast at all?"
57 Now the high priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone should learn where He was, he should let it be known so that they might arrest Him.