THE PLOT TO KILL JESUS

45 Therefore, many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what he did believed in him.ae 46 But some of them went to the Phariseesaf and told them what Jesus had done.

47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrinag and were saying, “What are we going to do since this man is doing many signs? 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romansa will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

49 One of them, Caiaphas,b who was high priestc that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all! 50 You’re not considering that it is to yourA advantage that one man should die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.”d 51 He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was going to diee for the nation, 52 and not for the nation only, but also to unite the scattered childrenf of God. 53 So from that day on they plotted to kill him.g 54 Jesus therefore no longer walked openlyh among the Jews but departed from there to the countryside near the wilderness,i to a town called Ephraim, and he stayed there with the disciples.

55 Now the Jewish Passoverj was near, and many went up to Jerusalemk from the country to purify themselves before the Passover. 56 They were looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple,l “What do you think? He won’t come to the festival,m will he?” 57 The chief priestsn and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, he should report it so that they could arrest him.