1 Now there was a certain man who had fallen sick, named Lazarus. He was from Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived. 2 (This is the Mary who later anointed the Lord with perfumed oil and wiped his feet with her hair; it was her brother, Lazarus, who was sick.) 3 So the sisters sent someone to Jesus with a message: “Lord, ˢyour dear friend is very sick.”

4 When Jesus heard the news, he said, “This sickness will end not in death, but in a display of the glory of God. And in the end, according to plan, the Son of God will receive honor and be exalted in glory through it.”

5 So, although Jesus had a deep love for Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two more days. 7 After this he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”

8 “Rabbi,” said the disciples, “just recently the authorities+ there tried to stone you to death! And you want to go back?”

9 “There are twelve hours of daylight in a day, are there not?” replied Jesus. “If someone is walking about while the sun is still shining, he doesn’t stumble, because he has this to help him see: The light of this world. 10 If someone tries to walk around at night, however, he stumbles, because there is no source of light inside of him.” 11 These things he said, and then added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up.”

12 “Lord, if he is only asleep, he’ll get better,” replied the disciples. 13 (What Jesus really meant, though, was that Lazarus had died. They, however, thought it was ordinary sleep that he meant.)

14 At that point, therefore, Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, 15 and I’m glad for ᵖyour sakes that I wasn’t there, so that ᵖyou will learn to trust me. Now let us go to him.”

16 Therefore Thomas (also called Didymus; both names mean “Twin”) said to the other disciples, “Let us go with the Teacher, so that we may die with him.”

17 Now then, by the time Jesus got to him, Lazarus had already been in the tomb a good four days. 18 (Bethany was near Jerusalem, only about two miles away, 19 and many people from Judea had come to Martha and Mary in order to comfort them in the loss of their brother.) 20 Martha, therefore, when she received word that Jesus was coming, went out to meet him. Mary, though, stayed there at the house.

21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died! 22 Yet even now I know that God will grant you indeed anything you request of him.”

23 “ˢYour brother will rise to life,” replied Jesus.

24 “I know that he will rise to life in the resurrection at the last Day,” said Martha.

25 “I AM+ the resurrection and the life,” replied Jesus. “If someone places his faith in me, he will live again, even though he dies. 26 Indeed, all who share in life and have faith in me will surely be spared from death forever into the ages. Do you believe this?”

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

28 This having said, Martha went back and called her sister Mary aside, telling her privately, “It’s the Teacher. He is here and is asking for you.” 29 Mary, when she heard this, got up quickly and hurried out to meet him. 30 (Jesus hadn’t yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him.) 31 The people who were at the house comforting Mary, therefore, when they saw her get up and leave so quickly, followed her, supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there.

32 Now then, Mary, when she reached the place where Jesus was, upon seeing him threw herself down at his feet. “Lord,” she said, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

33 Jesus, therefore, when he saw her weeping, and the people who had come with her also weeping, groaned and trembled with anger. 34 “Where have ᵖyou put him?” he asked.

“Lord, come and see,” they replied.

35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the people said, “Look how much he loved him!” 37 Some of them, however, said, “This man opened the eyes of the blind, didn’t he? Surely he could have also kept this man from dying!”

38 Jesus, therefore, groaning and trembling with anger again, came to the tomb. (It was a cave, and lying across the entrance was a stone.) 39 “Remove the stone,” he said.

The dead man’s sister, Martha, replied, “Lord, by now there will be a very bad smell, because his body has been in the tomb for four days.”

40 Jesus said to her, “I told ˢyou that if ˢyou believed ˢyou would see the glory of God, didn’t I?” 41 At that, they removed the stone.

Jesus, then, looked up into the sky and said, “Father, I thank you for answering my prayer.42 Though I know that your ear is inclined to me always, it is for the sake of the people standing here that I have said this, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 These things having said, he shouted with a very loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The dead man came out, his hands and his feet tied with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a face-cloth. “Untie him and let him go,” Jesus said to them.

45 Many of the people who had come to visit Mary, therefore, when they saw what Jesus did, placed their faith in him. 46 Some of them, however, went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 So the chief priests and Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. “What are we going to do?” they asked. “This man is doing so many miraculous signs! 48 If we allow him to go on like this, all will put their faith in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our temple+ and our people.”

49 Then one of them, Caiaphas, who was that year the high priest, said to them, “ᵖYou know nothing at all! 50 Don’t ᵖyou realize that it is better for ᵖyou to have one man die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed?” 51 (Now it wasn’t simply of his own accord that Caiaphas said this; rather, since he was that year the high priest, he was prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation— 52 and not for the Jewish nation only, but to gather together and unite, too, the Gentile children of God who are scattered.) 53 So from that day on they made plans to have Jesus killed.

54 Jesus, therefore, no longer moved about among the Jews publicly, but left there and went to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, where he stayed with the disciples.

55 Now, drawing near was the Jewish Passover, and many people went up to Jerusalem from the rural areas prior to the festival, so that they could perform the ceremonial washings necessary for them to participate in it. 56 So they kept looking for Jesus and kept asking one another while standing there in the temple courts, “What do ᵖyou think? Surely he won’t come to the festival, will he?” 57 (The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if someone knew where Jesus was, he was to report it so that they could arrest him.)