1Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived.
2Mary was the one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. Her brother Lazarus was sick.
3So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
4When Jesus heard this, he said, “This sickness will not end in death. Instead, it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
5Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
6So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed two more days where he was.
7Then after this, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”
8His disciples said to him, “Teacher, the Jewish leaders there just tried to stone you. Are you going there again?”
9Jesus answered, “Aren’t there twelve hours in a day? If someone walks during the daytime, they won’t stumble, because they see the light of this world.
10But if someone walks at night, they stumble, because there is no light in them.”
11After Jesus said these things, he then told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.”
12So the disciples said, "Lord, if he is just sleeping, he will get well."
13Jesus was talking about Lazarus's death, but his disciples thought he meant Lazarus was just sleeping naturally.
14So then Jesus told them clearly, "Lazarus is dead."
15And for your sake, I am glad I wasn't there, so that you may believe. But let's go to him now."
16Then Thomas, who was also called Didymus, said to the other disciples, "Let's go too, so we can die with him."
17When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.
18Bethany was close to Jerusalem, about two miles away.
19Many Jewish people had come to comfort Martha and Mary about their brother.
20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.
21Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."
22But even now, I know that whatever you ask God for, God will give you."
23Jesus told her, "Your brother will rise again."
24Martha replied, "I know he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."
25Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even if they die.
26And whoever lives and believes in me will never truly die. Do you believe this?"
27She said to him, "Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
28After saying this, she went back and secretly called her sister Mary, telling her, "The Teacher is here and is asking for you."
29When Mary heard this, she quickly got up and went to him.
30Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.
31When the Jewish people who were in the house comforting Mary saw her get up quickly and leave, they followed her, thinking, "She's going to the tomb to cry there."
32So when Mary came to 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 also weeping, a deep anger stirred within him, and he was troubled.
34He asked, "Where have you laid him?" They told him, "Lord, come and see."
35Jesus cried.
36So the Jews said, "See how much he loved him!"
37But some of them said, "This man opened the eyes of the blind. Couldn't he have also kept this man from dying?"
38Jesus again felt a deep anger within himself as he came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against its entrance.
39Jesus said, "Take away the stone." Martha, the dead man's sister, said to him, "Lord, by now there will be a bad smell, because he has been dead for four days."
40Jesus said to her, "Didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see God's glory?"
41So they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. Jesus looked up to heaven and said, "Father, I thank you that you heard me.
42I know that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the crowd standing here, so they may believe that you sent me."
43After he said this, he cried out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"
44The man who had been dead came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of cloth, and his face covered with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Untie him and let him go."
45Therefore, many of the Jews who had come to Mary and saw what Jesus 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 a meeting of the Council. They said, "What are we doing? This man is performing many miraculous signs.
48If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation."
49But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, "You don't understand anything,
50nor do you realize that it is better for you if one man dies for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed."
51He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation,
52and not only for the nation of Israel, but also to bring together all of God's children who were scattered everywhere.
53So from that day on, they planned to kill him.
54Because of this, Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jewish people. Instead, he left and went to an area near the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim, and stayed there with his disciples.
55The Jewish Passover was approaching. Many people went up from the countryside to Jerusalem before the Passover to ritually purify themselves.
56They looked for Jesus and asked each other, as they stood in the temple, "What do you think? Will he come to the feast at all?"
57Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, they should report it so they could arrest him.