John 11:32-55

³²When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she threw herself at his feet. “Master,” she exclaimed, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the people who had come with her weeping also, he groaned deeply, and was greatly distressed.

³⁴“Where have you buried him?” he asked. “Come and see, Master,” they answered.

³⁵Jesus burst into tears.

³⁶“How he must have loved him!” the people exclaimed;

³⁷but some of them said, “Could not this man, who gave sight to the blind man, have also prevented Lazarus from dying?”

³⁸Again groaning inwardly, Jesus came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against the mouth of it.

³⁹“Move the stone away,” said Jesus. “Master,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man, “by this time the smell must be offensive, for this is the fourth day since his death.”

⁴⁰“Didn't I tell you,” replied Jesus, “that, if you would believe in me, you should see the glory of God?”

⁴¹So they moved the stone away; and Jesus, with uplifted eyes, said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard my prayer;

⁴²I know that you always hear me; but I say this for the sake of the people standing near, so that they may believe that you has sent me as your messenger.”

⁴³Then, after saying this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus! Come out!”

⁴⁴The dead man came out, wrapped hand and foot in a winding-sheet; his face, too, had been wrapped in a cloth. “Set him free,” said Jesus, “and let him go.”

⁴⁵In consequence of this, many of the people, who had come to visit Mary and had seen what Jesus did, learned to believe in him.

⁴⁶Some of them, however, went to the Pharisees, and told them what he had done.

⁴⁷The chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the High Council, and said, “What are we to do, now that this man is giving so many signs?

⁴⁸If we allow him to continue as we are doing, everyone will believe in him; and the Romans will come and will take from us both our city and our Nationality.”

⁴⁹One of them, however, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them,

⁵⁰“You are utterly mistaken. You do not consider that it is better for you that one person should die for the people, rather than the whole nation should be destroyed.”

⁵¹Now he did not say this of his own accord; but, as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was to die for the nation —

⁵²And not for the nation only, but also that he might unite in one body the children of God now scattered far and wide.

⁵³So from that day they plotted to put Jesus to death.

⁵⁴In consequence of this, Jesus did not go about publicly among the people any more, but left and went into the country bordering on the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, where he stayed with his disciples.

⁵⁵But the Jewish Festival of the Passover was near; and many people had gone up from the country to Jerusalem, for their purification, before the Festival began.