John 11

Lazarus Dies

1A man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2This Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was sick. 3So the sisters sent word to Jesus: “Lord, look—the one you love is sick.” 4When Jesus heard this, he said, “This sickness will not end in death, but is for God’s glory, so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus. 6Yet when he heard Lazarus was sick, he stayed two more days in the place where he was. 7Then after this he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judea again.” 8The disciples said, “Rabbi, the Jewish leaders were just now trying to stone you, and you are going there again?” 9Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks during the day, they do not stumble because they see this world’s light. 10But if anyone walks at night, they stumble because the light is not in them.” 11After saying this, he told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going to awaken him.” 12The disciples said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” 13Jesus had spoken about his death, but they thought he meant ordinary sleep. 14Then Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died. 15For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may trust. But let us go to him.” 16Thomas, called Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go so that we may die with him.”

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

17When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stadia away. 19Many Jewish people had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother. 20When Martha heard Jesus was coming, she went to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house. 21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22Even now I know that whatever you ask God, God will give you.” 23Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise.” 24Martha said, “I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” 25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever trusts in me will live even if they die, 26and everyone who lives and trusts in me will never die. Do you trust this?” 27She said, “Yes, Lord. I have trusted that you are the Christ, God’s Son, the one coming into the world.”

Jesus Weeps

28After saying this, Martha went and called her sister Mary privately: “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” 29When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30Jesus had not yet entered the village but was still in the place where Martha had met him. 31The Jewish people who were with Mary in the house comforting her saw her get up quickly and go out, and they followed her, thinking she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32When 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 Jewish people who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34He asked, “Where have you laid him?” They said, “Lord, come and see.” 35Jesus wept. 36So the Jewish people said, “See how he loved him!” 37But some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the blind man’s eyes have kept this man from dying?”

Lazarus Is Raised

38Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, said, “Lord, by now there will be an odor, because it has been four days.” 40Jesus told her, “Did I not tell you that if you trust, you will see God’s glory?” 41So they took away the stone. Jesus lifted his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. 42I knew you always hear me, but I said this because of the crowd standing here, so that they may trust that you sent me.” 43After saying this, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44The dead man came out, his feet and hands bound with strips of cloth and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus told them, “Unbind him and let him go.”

The Plot to Kill Jesus

45Many of the Jewish people who had come to Mary and saw what Jesus did trusted in him. 46But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47So the chief priests and Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we doing? This man performs many signs. 48If we let him continue like this, everyone will trust in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” 49But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, “You know nothing at all. 50You do not consider that it is better for you that one man die for the people rather than the whole nation perish.” 51He did not say this from himself. As high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was about to die for the nation, 52and not for the nation alone, but also to gather into one the scattered children of God. 53So from that day they planned together to kill him. 54Therefore Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jewish people, but went from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and stayed there with the disciples. 55The Jewish Passover was near. Many people from the countryside went up to Jerusalem before Passover to purify themselves. 56They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another while standing in the temple, “What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?” 57The chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, they should report it so they could arrest him.