Grow in the Word

1At this time a man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.

The Death of Lazarus2(Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was to anoint the Lord with perfume and wipe His feet with her hair.)

3So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one You love is sick.”

4When Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

5Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

6So on hearing that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was for two days,

7and then He said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

8“Rabbi,” they replied, “the Jews just tried to stone You, and You are going back there?”

9Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? If anyone walks in the daytime, he will not stumble, because he sees by the light of this world.

10But if anyone walks at night, he will stumble, because he has no light.”

11After He had said this, He told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.”

12His disciples replied, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will get better.”

13They thought that Jesus was talking about actual sleep, but He was speaking about the death of Lazarus.

14So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead,

15and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

16Then Thomas called Didymus said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.”

Jesus Comforts Martha and Mary17When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already spent four days in the tomb.

18Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, a little less than two miles away,

19and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them in the loss of their brother.

20So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed at home.

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

22But even now I know that God will give You whatever You ask of Him.”

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

24Martha replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

25Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.

26And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”

27“Yes, Lord,” she answered, “I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”

28After Martha had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside to tell her, “The Teacher is here and is asking for you.”

29And when Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him.

30Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met Him.

31When the Jews who were in the house consoling Mary saw how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.

32When Mary came to Jesus 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 Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

34“Where have you put him?” He asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they answered.

35Jesus wept.

36Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!”

37But some of them asked, “Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept Lazarus from dying?”

Jesus Raises Lazarus38Jesus, once again deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.

39“Take away the stone,” Jesus said. “Lord, by now he stinks,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man. “It has already been four days.”

40Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”

41So they took away the stone. Then Jesus lifted His eyes upward and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.

42I knew that You always hear Me, but I say this for the benefit of the people standing here, so they may believe that You sent Me.”

43After Jesus had said this, He called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

44The man who had been dead came out with his hands and feet bound in strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a cloth. “Unwrap him and let him go,” Jesus told them.

The Plot to Kill Jesus45Therefore many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him.

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

47Then the chief priests and Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs.

48If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

49But one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!

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

51Caiaphas did not say this on his own. Instead, as high priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation,

52and not only for the nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to gather them together into one.

53So from that day on they plotted to kill Him.

54As a result, Jesus no longer went about publicly among the Jews, but He withdrew to a town called Ephraim in an area near the wilderness. And He stayed there with the disciples.

55Now the Jewish Passover was near, and many people went up from the country to Jerusalem to purify themselves before the Passover.

56They kept looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple courts, “What do you think? Will He come to the feast at all?”

57But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where He was must report it, so that they could arrest Him.