John 12:12-33

EasyEnglish Bible

Jesus goes into Jerusalem

¹² The next day, a large crowd of people were in Jerusalem for the festival. They heard the news that Jesus was on the way there. ¹³ So they took branches from palm trees and they went out to meet Jesus. They were shouting, ‘We praise God! May the Lord God bless the king who comes with his authority. May he bless the king of Israel!’ ¹⁴ Jesus found a young donkey, and he sat on it. This happened in the way that was written in the Bible long ago:

¹⁶ Jesus' disciples did not understand all this at that time. They understood only after Jesus had returned to God in heaven. Then they remembered that someone had written these things about him in the Bible. And they remembered that these things had now really happened to him. ¹⁷ The crowd that had been with Jesus before at Bethany continued to tell people about Lazarus. They said, ‘Jesus told Lazarus that he should come out of the hole in the rock. He made Lazarus alive again after he had died and his body had been put in there.’ ¹⁸ That is why many people came to meet Jesus. They had heard that he had done this miracle. ¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to each other, ‘This is not what we wanted.^[b] Look! All the people in the world have left us to go with him!’

Jesus says that he will soon die

²⁰ There were some Greek people among the people at the festival. They also had come to worship God. ²¹ These Greek people came to Philip, who was from a town in Galilee called Bethsaida. They said to him, ‘Please sir, we want to meet Jesus.’ ²² Philip went and he told Andrew this. Then Philip and Andrew went to Jesus and they told him.

²³ Jesus said to them, ‘God will show how great the Son of Man is. It is now time for that to happen. ²⁴ I tell you this: A seed of wheat continues to be only a single seed unless it falls into the ground. It must fall into the ground and then it must die. If it dies like that, it will grow to give a lot of seeds.

²⁵ Anyone who loves his own life will lose it. But anyone who hates his life in this world will have true life for ever with God. ²⁶ Anyone who wants to be my servant must follow me. Then he will be with me, where I am. My Father will praise anyone who is my servant. ²⁷ Now I have trouble in my mind. What will I say? I might say, “Father, save me from this time of trouble!” But this difficult time is the purpose for which I came to the world. ²⁸ So I will say, “Father, show how great and how good you are.” ’

Then a voice spoke from heaven and said, ‘I have shown how great and how good I am. And I will do it again.’ ²⁹ The crowd of people who were standing there heard the sound of this voice. They said that it was like the noise of thunder in a storm. But other people said, ‘An angel spoke to him!’

³⁰ Jesus said, ‘When this voice spoke, it was not so that it could help me. No, it spoke so that it could help you. ³¹ It is time now for God to judge the people in this world. Now he will throw out the ruler of this world. ³² But when people lift me up from the ground, then I will bring everyone to myself.’ ³³ Jesus said this to show in what way he would soon die.^[c]