Book of Common Prayer

⁷ Beloveds, let us love one another. For love comes of God. And every one who loves is born of God and knows God. ⁸ He who does not love, does not know God. For God is love.

⁹ In this did the love of God for us appear, that God sent his only begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him. ¹⁰ Herein is love – not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

¹¹ Beloveds, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. ¹² No man has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us. ¹³ By this we know that we dwell in him, and he in us – because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son, who is the Saviour of the world. ¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, in him dwells God, and he in God. ¹⁶ And we have known and believed the love that God has to us.

God is love, and he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. ¹⁷ In this is the love made perfect in us, so that we may have trust in the day of judgment. For as he is, even so are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear. For fear has painfulness. He who fears is not perfect in love.

¹⁹ We love him because he first loved us. ²⁰ If a person says, I love God, and yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For how can he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, love God whom he has not seen? ²¹ And this commandment we have from him: that he who loves God, should love his brother also.

³⁰ Jesus had not yet come into the town, but was in the place where Martha met him. ³¹ Then the Jews who were with Mary in the house and comforting her, when they saw that she rose up hastily and went out, followed her, saying, She is going to the grave, to weep there.

³² Then when Mary arrived where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying to him, Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not be dead.

³³ When Jesus saw her weep, and the Jews who came with her also weep, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled in himself, ³⁴ and said, Where have you laid him? They said to him, Lord, come and see. ³⁵ And Jesus wept. ³⁶ Then the Jews said, See how he loved him! ³⁷ And some of them said, Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind, have made also that this man should not have died? ³⁸ Jesus again groaned in himself, and came to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. ³⁹ And Jesus said, Take away the stone.

Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, Lord, by this time he will smell, for he has been dead four days. ⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, Did I not say to you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?

⁴¹ Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank you, because you have heard me. ⁴² I know that you hear me always. But because of the people that stand by, I said this – so that they may believe that you have sent me.

⁴³ And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! ⁴⁴ And he that was dead came forth wrapped hand and foot with grave bonds, and his face was bound about with a headcloth.

Jesus said to them, Loose him and let him go.