John 11:28-57

Evangelical Heritage Version

²⁸ After she said this, Martha went back to call her sister Mary. She whispered, “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”

²⁹ When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰ Now Jesus had not yet gone into the village, but was still where Martha met him. ³¹ The Jews who were with Mary in the house consoling her saw that she got up quickly and left. So they followed her, supposing^[a] she was going to the tomb to weep there. ³² When Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

³³ When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled.

³⁴ He asked, “Where have you laid him?”

They told him, “Lord, come and see.”

³⁵ Jesus wept.

³⁶ Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷ But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?”

³⁸ Jesus was deeply moved again as he came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. ³⁹ “Take away the stone,” he said.

Martha, the dead man’s sister, told him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, because it has been four days.”

⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” ⁴¹ So they took away the stone.

Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³ After he said this, he shouted with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

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

The Plot

⁴⁵ Therefore many of the Jews who came to Mary and saw what Jesus did believed in him. ⁴⁶ But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷ So the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. They asked, “What are we going to do, because this man is doing many miraculous signs? ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him. Then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

⁴⁹ But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all. ⁵⁰ You do not even consider that it is better for us^[b] that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” ⁵¹ He did not say this on his own, but, as high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, ⁵² and not only for that nation, but also in order to gather into one the scattered children of God.

⁵³ So from that day on they plotted to kill him. ⁵⁴ Therefore Jesus no longer walked about openly among the Jews. Instead he withdrew into a region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim. And he stayed there with his disciples.

⁵⁵ The Jewish Passover was near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the country to purify themselves before the Passover. ⁵⁶ They kept looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple area, “What do you think? He certainly won’t come to the Festival, will he?” ⁵⁷ The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he should report it so that they could arrest Jesus.