John 11:41-53

⁴¹So they removed the stone. Jesus looked heavenwards, and said, “Father, thank you for listening to me.

⁴²I know you always listen to me. I said this because of the crowd standing here so that they will believe that you sent me.”

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

⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of linen, and with a cloth around his face. “Unbind him and set him free,” Jesus told them.

⁴⁵Consequently many of the Jews who had come to comfort Mary and who saw what Jesus did put their trust in him.

⁴⁶But others went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.

⁴⁷Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the ruling council. “What shall we do?” they asked. “This man is doing many miracles.

⁴⁸If we allow him to continue, everybody will believe in him, and then the Romans will destroy both the Temple and our status as a nation.”

⁴⁹“You don't understand anything!” said Caiaphas, who was high priest that year.

⁵⁰“Can't you see that it's better for you that one man die for the people so that the whole nation won't be destroyed?”

⁵¹He didn't say this on his own behalf, but as chief priest that year he was prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation.

⁵²And this was not just for the Jewish nation, but for all the scattered children of God so that they might be gathered together and be made into one.

⁵³From that time on they plotted how they might kill Jesus.