Chapter 11

1A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived.

2This was the Mary who poured fragrant oil on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus who was sick.

3So the sisters sent Jesus this message: “Lord, the friend you love is sick.”

4When Jesus heard this, he said, “This sickness will not end in death. It is for God’s honor, so that through it the Son of God may also be honored.”

5Jesus loved Martha, her sister, and Lazarus.

6Yet when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two more days.

7After that, he told his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

8The disciples said, “Teacher, the Jewish leaders there were just trying to stone you to death. Are you really going back?”

9Jesus answered, “Doesn’t daylight last twelve hours? Anyone who walks during the day does not stumble, because that person sees by the light of this world.

10But anyone who walks at night stumbles, because that person has no light.”

11After saying this, Jesus told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him.”

12The disciples replied, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will recover.”

13Jesus had been speaking about Lazarus’s death, but they thought he meant ordinary sleep.

14So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus has died.

15For your sake, I am glad I was not there, because this will help you believe. Now let us go to him.”

16Then Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to the other disciples, “Let us go too, so that we may die with Jesus.”

17When Jesus arrived, he learned that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.

18Bethany was near Jerusalem, about three kilometers away.

19Many Jewish people had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them after their brother’s death.

20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him. Mary remained seated in the house.

21Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.

22Even now, I know that God will give you whatever you ask him for.”

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

24Martha replied, “I know he will rise when the dead are raised on the last day.”

25Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who trusts in me will live, even after dying.

26Everyone who lives and trusts in me will never truly die. Do you believe this?”

27She answered, “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, God’s Son—the one who was to come into the world.”

28After saying this, Martha went away and privately called her sister Mary. “The Teacher is here,” she said, “and he is asking for you.”

29As soon as Mary heard this, she quickly got up and went to Jesus.

30Jesus had not yet entered the village. He was still at the place where Martha had met him.

31The people who had been comforting Mary in the house saw her get up quickly and leave. They followed her because they thought she was going to the tomb to weep there.

32When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet. She said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

33Jesus saw her weeping and saw the people who had come with her weeping too. He became deeply disturbed in spirit and was troubled.

34He asked, “Where have you laid him?” They replied, “Lord, come and see.”

35Jesus wept.

36The people said, “Look how much he loved Lazarus!”

37But some of them said, “He opened the eyes of the blind man. Couldn’t he also have kept this man from dying?”

38Deeply disturbed again, Jesus came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone covering its entrance.

39Jesus said, “Move the stone away.” Martha, the dead man’s sister, replied, “Lord, by now there will be a terrible smell. He has been dead for four days.”

40Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s greatness revealed?”

41So they moved the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, “Father, thank you for hearing me.

42I knew that you always hear me, but I said this because of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe you sent me.”

43After saying this, Jesus shouted loudly, “Lazarus, come out!”

44The man who had been dead came out. His hands and feet were wrapped in strips of burial cloth, and another cloth was wrapped around his face. Jesus told them, “Unwrap him, and let him go.”

45Many of the Jewish people who had come to Mary saw what Jesus did and put their trust in him.

46But some of them went to the Pharisees, an influential Jewish religious group, and reported what Jesus had done.

47So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Jewish ruling council. They said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs.

48If we let him continue, everyone will trust in him. Then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

49One of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, “You understand nothing!

50You do not realize that it is better for you if one man dies for the people than if the whole nation is destroyed.”

51Caiaphas did not say this on his own. As high priest that year, he spoke prophetically that Jesus was going to die for the nation.

52He would die not only for that nation, but also to gather God’s scattered children together as one people.

53So from that day on, the leaders planned to kill Jesus.

54Because of this, Jesus no longer traveled openly among the people of Judea. He left and went to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim. He stayed there with his disciples.

55The Jewish Passover festival was approaching. Many people from the countryside went to Jerusalem before the festival to perform the required purification ceremonies.

56They kept looking for Jesus. As they stood in the temple grounds, 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 ordered anyone who knew where Jesus was to report it, so that they could arrest him.