Book of Common Prayer

²⁵ My brothers, I want you to know something that has been a secret. Then you will not be proud of yourselves. The secret is this. Some Jews will have hard hearts until the right number of other people have come in.

²⁶ Then all the Jews will be saved. The holy writings say, `Someone will come from Zion to save people. He will take away the wrong ways of our father Jacob.'

²⁷ This will be my agreement with them when I take away the wrong things they have done.

²⁸ The Jews make themselves enemies of God because they do not want the good news of Jesus Christ. That helps you since the good news has then come to you. But God still loves the Jews because of the promise he made to their fathers long ago.

²⁹ God does not change his gifts or his call to people.

³⁰ At one time you did not obey God. But now he has been kind to you because the Jews did not obey him.

³¹ So now, they also have not obeyed him. But he will also be kind to them because he was kind to you.

³² God allowed people to disobey him. He did it so that he might be kind and forgive all people.

³³ God is very kind. He is very wise. He knows much. No one can understand why he judges the way he does. No one can find out why he does the things he does.

³⁴ The holy writings say, `Who has known what the Lord thinks? Who has ever told him what to do?

³⁵ Who has given a gift to God first, so that God would give him something also?'

³⁶ All things come from God, through God, and return to God. Praise him for ever! Yes, it is so!

²⁸ When she had said this, she went back to call her sister. She said quietly, `Mary, the Master has come. He is calling you.'

²⁹ When Mary heard that, she got up quickly and came to him.

³⁰ Jesus was not in the town yet. He was at the same place where Martha had met him.

³¹ The Jews who were in the house to comfort Mary saw her get up quickly and go out. They went after her. They said, `She is going to the grave to cry.'

³² Mary reached the place where Jesus was. When she saw him, she kneeled down before him and said, `Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.'

³³ Jesus saw her crying. He saw the Jews who came with her crying also. Then his heart was troubled very much.

³⁴ `Where have you buried him?' he said. `Come, Lord, and see,' they said.

³⁵ Then Jesus cried.

³⁶ `Look,' the Jews said. `He truly loved him very much!'

³⁷ Then some of them said, `This man made the blind see. Could he not have saved Lazarus from dying?'

³⁸ Jesus' heart was troubled very much again. Then he came to the grave. It was a hole in the side of a large rock. A stone covered the hole.

³⁹ Jesus said, `Take the stone away.' Martha, the sister of the dead man, said, `Lord, he will smell bad by this time. He has been dead four days already.'

⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, `Did I not tell you that if you believed God you would see that he is great?'

⁴¹ So they pushed the stone away from the grave. Jesus looked up and said, `Father, I thank you because you have heard me.

⁴² I know that you always hear me. But I have said this so that the people who are standing here might believe that you have sent me.'

⁴³ When he had said this, he shouted, `Lazarus, come out!'

⁴⁴ Out came the dead man! The cloth that they had buried him in was tied around his hands and feet. Another small cloth was tied around his face. Jesus said to the people, `Take off the cloths and free him!'

³⁷ Even though they had seen Jesus doing many big works, they did not believe in him.

³⁸ What the prophet Isaiah said came true. He said, `Lord, who has believed what we told them? Who has believed even though they have seen the power of God's hand?'

⁴⁰ So they could not believe. Isaiah said also, `God has made them blind. Their hearts have no feeling. They cannot see. They do not understand with their heart. They will not turn to God. If they did turn, he would heal them.'

⁴¹ Isaiah said this about the Christ when he saw how great he was.

⁴² Some of the chief rulers believed in Jesus, but they did not tell anyone that they believed in him. They were afraid the Pharisees would put them out of the meeting place.

⁴³ They wanted the praise of men more than the praise of God.

⁴⁴ Jesus called out, `Anyone who believes in me does not believe just in me, but in the one who sent me.

⁴⁵ Anyone who sees me sees the one who sent me.

⁴⁶ I am a light and have come into the world. Anyone who believes in me will not be in the dark.

⁴⁷ If anyone hears what I say and does not believe it, I do not judge him. I did not come to judge the world. I came to save the world.

⁴⁸ The one who will not believe in me and will not listen to what I say will be judged anyway. The same things that I have said will judge him on the last day.

⁴⁹ `I have not said this from my own mind, but my Father who sent me told me what to say. He told me what to tell you.

⁵⁰ I know that what he told me to say has power to give life for ever. So I say everything my Father has told me to say.'