John 11:38–53

Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life

³⁸Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it.^{* 39}Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, already there is a stench because he has 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. And Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you for having heard me.^{* 42}I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”^{* 43}When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”^*

The Plot to Kill Jesus

⁴⁵Many of the Jews, therefore, 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. ⁴⁷So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the council and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs.^{* 48}If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place^c and our nation.” ⁴⁹But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!^{* 50}You do not understand that it is better for you to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.”^{* 51}He did not say this on his own, but being high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, ⁵²and not for the nation only, but to gather into one the dispersed children of God. ⁵³So from that day on they planned to put him to death.^*