John 11–12

The Death of Lazarus

11^*A man named Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, was ill. Bethany was the town where Mary and her sister Martha lived. ^2*(This Mary was the one who poured the perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was ill.) ³The sisters sent Jesus a message: “Lord, your dear friend is ill.”

⁴When Jesus heard it, he said, “The final result of this illness will not be the death of Lazarus; this has happened in order to bring glory to God, and it will be the means by which the Son of God will receive glory.”

⁵Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. ⁶Yet when he received the news that Lazarus was ill, he stayed where he was for two more days. ⁷Then he said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

⁸“Teacher,” the disciples answered, “just a short time ago the people there wanted to stone you; and are you planning to go back?”

⁹Jesus said, “A day has twelve hours, hasn’t it? So whoever walks in broad daylight does not stumble, for they see the light of this world. ¹⁰But if they walk during the night they stumble, because they have no light.” ¹¹Jesus said this and then added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up.”

¹²The disciples answered, “If he is asleep, Lord, he will get well.”

¹³Jesus meant that Lazarus had died, but they thought he meant natural sleep. ¹⁴So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, ¹⁵but for your sake I am glad that I was not with him, so that you will believe. Let us go to him.”

¹⁶Thomas (called the Twin) said to his fellow-disciples, “Let us all go with the Teacher, so that we may die with him!”

Jesus the Resurrection and the Life

¹⁷When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been buried four days before. ¹⁸Bethany was less than three kilometres from Jerusalem, ¹⁹and many Judeans had come to see Martha and Mary to comfort them over their brother’s death.

²⁰When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. ²¹Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died! ²²But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.”

²³“Your brother will rise to life,” Jesus told her.

²⁴“I know,” she replied, “that he will rise to life on the last day.”

²⁵Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; ²⁶and all those who live and believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

²⁷“Yes, Lord!” she answered. “I do believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

Jesus Weeps

²⁸After Martha said this, she went back and called her sister Mary privately. “The Teacher is here,” she told her, “and is asking for you.” ²⁹When Mary heard this, she got up and hurried out to meet him. ³⁰(Jesus had not yet arrived in the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.) ³¹The people who were in the house with Mary, comforting her, followed her when they saw her get up and hurry out. They thought that she was going to the grave to weep there.

³²Mary arrived where Jesus was, and as soon as she saw him, she fell at his feet. “Lord,” she said, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

³³Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people who were with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved. ³⁴“Where have you buried him?” he asked them.

“Come and see, Lord,” they answered.

³⁵Jesus wept. ³⁶“See how much he loved him!” the people said.

³⁷But some of them said, “He gave sight to the blind man, didn’t he? Could he not have kept Lazarus from dying?”

Lazarus Is Brought to Life

³⁸Deeply moved once more, Jesus went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone placed at the entrance. ³⁹“Take the stone away!” Jesus ordered.

Martha, the dead man’s sister, answered, “There will be a bad smell, Lord. He has been buried four days!”

⁴⁰Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believed?” ⁴¹They took the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, “I thank you, Father, that you listen to me. ⁴²I know that you always listen to me, but I say this for the sake of the people here, so that they will believe that you sent me.” ⁴³After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴He came out, his hands and feet wrapped in grave clothes, and with a cloth round his face. “Untie him,” Jesus told them, “and let him go.”

The Plot against Jesus

⁴⁵Many of the people who had come to visit Mary saw what Jesus did, and they believed in him. ⁴⁶But some of them returned to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷So the Pharisees and the chief priests met with the Council and said, “What shall we do? Look at all the miracles this man is performing! ⁴⁸If we let him go on in this way, everyone will believe in him, and the Roman authorities will take action and destroy our Temple and our nation!”

⁴⁹One of them, named Caiaphas, who was High Priest that year, said, “What fools you are! ⁵⁰Don’t you realize that it is better for you to let one man die for the people, instead of having the whole nation destroyed?” ⁵¹Actually, he did not say this of his own accord; rather, as he was High Priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus was going to die for the Jewish people, ⁵²and not only for them, but also to bring together into one body all the scattered people of God.

⁵³From that day on the Jewish authorities made plans to kill Jesus. ⁵⁴So Jesus did not travel openly in Judea, but left and went to a place near the desert, to a town named Ephraim, where he stayed with the disciples.

⁵⁵The time for the Passover Festival was near, and many people went up from the country to Jerusalem to perform the ritual of purification before the festival. ⁵⁶They were looking for Jesus, and as they gathered in the Temple, they asked one another, “What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?” ⁵⁷The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he must report it, so that they could arrest him.

Jesus Is Anointed

12Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, the man he had raised from death. ²They prepared a dinner for him there, which Martha helped to serve; Lazarus was one of those who were sitting at the table with Jesus. ^3*Then Mary took half a litre of a very expensive perfume made of pure nard, poured it on Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The sweet smell of the perfume filled the whole house. ⁴One of Jesus’ disciples, Judas Iscariot—the one who was going to betray him—said, ⁵“Why wasn’t this perfume sold for three hundred silver coins^z and the money given to the poor?” ⁶He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. He carried the money bag and would help himself from it.

⁷But Jesus said, “Leave her alone! Let her keep what she has for the day of my burial. ^8*You will always have poor people with you, but you will not always have me.”

The Plot against Lazarus

⁹

A large number of people heard that Jesus was in Bethany, so they went there, not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from death. ¹⁰So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus too, ¹¹because on his account many Jews were rejecting them and believing in Jesus.

The Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem

¹²The next day the large crowd that had come to the Passover Festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. ^13*So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, “Praise God! God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord! God bless the King of Israel!”

¹⁴Jesus found a donkey and rode on it, just as the scripture says,

^15*“Do not be afraid, city of Zion!

Here comes your king,

riding on a young donkey.”

¹⁶His disciples did not understand this at the time; but when Jesus had been raised to glory, they remembered that the scripture said this about him and that they had done this for him.

¹⁷The people who had been with Jesus when he called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from death had reported what had happened. ¹⁸That was why the crowd met him—because they heard that he had performed this miracle. ¹⁹The Pharisees then said to one another, “You see, we are not succeeding at all! Look, the whole world is following him!”

Some Greeks Seek Jesus

²⁰Some Greeks were among those who had gone to Jerusalem to worship during the festival. ²¹They went to Philip (he was from Bethsaida in Galilee) and said, “Sir, we want to see Jesus.”

²²Philip went and told Andrew, and the two of them went and told Jesus. ²³Jesus answered them, “The hour has now come for the Son of Man to receive great glory. ²⁴I am telling you the truth: a grain of wheat remains no more than a single grain unless it is dropped into the ground and dies. If it does die, then it produces many grains. ^25*Those who love their own life will lose it; those who hate their own life in this world will keep it for life eternal. ²⁶Whoever wants to serve me must follow me, so that my servant will be with me where I am. And my Father will honour anyone who serves me.

Jesus Speaks about His Death

²⁷“Now my heart is troubled—and what shall I say? Shall I say, ‘Father, do not let this hour come upon me’? But that is why I came—so that I might go through this hour of suffering. ²⁸Father, bring glory to your name!”

Then a voice spoke from heaven, “I have brought glory to it, and I will do so again.”

²⁹The crowd standing there heard the voice, and some of them said it was thunder, while others said, “An angel spoke to him!”

³⁰But Jesus said to them, “It was not for my sake that this voice spoke, but for yours. ³¹Now is the time for this world to be judged; now the ruler of this world will be overthrown. ³²When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to me.” ³³(In saying this he indicated the kind of death he was going to suffer.)

^34*The crowd answered, “Our Law…