M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan
The death of Lazarus
11 There was a man in Bethany named Lazarus, and he became ill. Bethany was the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This was the Mary who anointed the Lord with myrrh, and wiped his feet with her hair. Lazarus, who was ill, was her brother.)
3 So the sisters sent messengers to Jesus.
“Master,” they said, “the man you love is ill.”
4 When Jesus got the message, he said, “This illness won’t lead to death. It’s all about the glory of God! The son of God will be glorified through it.”
5 Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that he was ill, he stayed where he was for two days.
7 Then, after that, he said to the disciples, “Let’s go back to Judaea.”
8 “Teacher,” replied the disciples, “the Judaeans were trying to stone you just now! Surely you don’t want to go back there!”
9 “There are twelve hours in the day, aren’t there?” replied Jesus. “If you walk in the day, you won’t trip up, because you’ll see the light of this world. 10 But if anyone walks in the night, they will trip up, because there is no light in them.”
11 When he had said this, Jesus added: “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. But I’m going to wake him up.”
12 “Master,” replied the disciples, “if he’s asleep, he’ll be all right.”
13 (They thought he was referring to ordinary sleep; but Jesus had in fact been speaking of his death.)
14 Then Jesus spoke to them plainly.
“Lazarus,” he said, “is dead. 15 Actually, I’m glad I wasn’t there, for your sakes; it will help your faith. But let’s go to him.”
16 Thomas, whose name was the Twin, addressed the other disciples.
“Let’s go too,” he said. “We may as well die with him.”
The resurrection and the life
17 So when Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles away. 19 Many of the Judaeans had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother.
20 When Martha heard that Jesus had arrived, she went to meet him. Mary, meanwhile, stayed sitting at home.
21 “Master!” said Martha to Jesus. “If only you’d been here! Then my brother wouldn’t have died! 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask him.”
23 “Your brother will rise again,” replied Jesus.
24 “I know he’ll rise again,” said Martha, “in the resurrection on the last day.”
25 “I am the resurrection and the life,” replied Jesus. “Anyone who believes in me will live, even if they die. 26 And anyone who lives and believes in me will never, ever die. Do you believe this?”
27 “Yes, Master,” she said. “This is what I’ve come to believe: that you are the Messiah, the son of God, the one who was to come into the world.”
Jesus goes to the tomb
28 With these words, Martha went back and called her sister Mary.
“The teacher has come,” she said to her privately, “and he’s asking for you.”
29 When she heard that, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Jesus hadn’t yet arrived in the village. He was still in the place where Martha had met him.
31 The Judaeans who were in the house with Mary, consoling her, saw her get up quickly and go out. They guessed that she was going to the tomb to weep there, and they followed her.
32 When Mary came to where Jesus was, she saw him and fell down at his feet.
“Master!” she said. “If only you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died!”
33 When Jesus saw her crying, and the Judaeans who had come with her crying, he was deeply stirred in his spirit, and very troubled.
34 “Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Master,” they said, “come and see.”
35 Jesus burst into tears.
36 “Look,” said the Judaeans, “see how much he loved him!”
37 “Well, yes,” some of them said, “but he opened the eyes of a blind man, didn’t he? Couldn’t he have done something to stop this fellow from dying?”
The raising of Lazarus
38 Jesus was once again deeply troubled within himself. He came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was placed in front of it.
39 “Take away the stone,” said Jesus.
“But, Master,” said Martha, the dead man’s sister, “there’ll be a smell! It’s the fourth day already!”
40 “Didn’t I tell you,” said Jesus, “that if you believed you would see God’s glory?”
41 So they took the stone away. Jesus lifted up his eyes.
“Thank you, Father,” he said, “for hearing me! 42 I know you always hear me, but I’ve said this because of the crowd standing around, so that they may believe that you sent me.”
43 With these words, he gave a loud shout: “Lazarus—come out!”
44 And the dead man came out. He was tied up, hand and foot, with strips of linen, and his face was wrapped in a cloth.
“Untie him,” said Jesus, “and let him go.”
45 The result of all this was that several of the Judaeans who had come to Mary, and who had seen what he had done, believed in him. 46 But some of them went off to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
The plan of Caiaphas
47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called an assembly.
“What are we going to do?” they asked. “This man is performing lots of signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone is going to believe in him! Then the Romans will come and take away our holy place, and our nation!”
49 But one of them, Caiaphas, the high priest that year, addressed them.
“You know nothing at all!” he said. 50 “You haven’t worked it out! This is what’s best for you: let one man die for the people, rather than the whole nation being wiped out.”
51 He didn’t say this of his own accord. Since he was high priest that year, it was a prophecy. It meant that Jesus would die for the nation; 52 and not only for the nation, but to gather into one the scattered children of God. 53 So from that day on they plotted how to kill him.
54 So Jesus didn’t go around openly any longer among the Judaeans. He went away from there to the region by the desert, to a town called Ephraim. He stayed there with the disciples.
55 The time came for the Judaeans’ Passover. Lots of people went up to Jerusalem from the countryside, before the Passover, to purify themselves. 56 They were looking for Jesus. As they stood there in the Temple, they were discussing him with one another.
“What d’you think?” they were saying. “Do you suppose he won’t come to the festival?”
57 The chief priests and the Pharisees had given the order that if anyone knew where he was, they should tell them, so that they could arrest him.
Blessings on the sovereign God!
1 From Paul, one of Messiah Jesus’ apostles through God’s purpose, to the holy ones in Ephesus who are also loyal believers in Messiah Jesus: 2 may God our father and the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, give you grace and peace!
3 Let us bless God, the father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah! He has blessed us in the Messiah with every spirit-inspired blessing in the heavenly realm.
The choice and the plan
4 He chose us in him before the world was made, so as to be holy and irreproachable before him in love. 5 He foreordained us for himself, to be adopted as sons and daughters through Jesus the Messiah. That’s how he wanted it, and that’s what gave him delight, 6 so that the glory of his grace, the grace he poured on us in his beloved one, might receive its due praise.
7 In the Messiah, and through his blood, we have deliverance—that is, our sins have been forgiven—through the wealth of his grace 8 which he lavished on us. Yes, with all wisdom and insight 9 he has made known to us the secret of his purpose, just as he wanted it to be and set it forward in him 10 as a blueprint for when the time was ripe. His plan was to sum up the whole cosmos in the Messiah—yes, everything in heaven and on earth, in him.
The inheritance and the spirit
11 In him we have received the inheritance! We were foreordained to this, following the intention of the one who does all things in accordance with the counsel of his purpose. 12 This was so that we, we who first hoped in the Messiah, might live for the praise of his glory. 13 In him you too, who heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed it—in him you were marked out with the spirit of promise, the holy one. 14 The spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance, until the time when the people who are God’s special possession are finally reclaimed and freed. This, too, is for the praise of his glory.
Knowing the power of the Messiah
15 Because of all this, and because I’d heard that you are loyal and faithful to Jesus the master, and that you show love to all God’s holy people, 16 I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. 17 I pray that the God of Messiah Jesus our Lord, the father of glory, would give you, in your spirit, the gift of being wise, of seeing things people can’t normally see, because you are coming to know him 18 and to have the eyes of your inmost self opened to God’s light. Then you will know exactly what the hope is that goes with God’s call; you will know the wealth of the glory of his inheritance in his holy people; 19 and you will know the outstanding greatness of his power towards us who are loyal to him in faith, according to the working of his strength and power.
20 This was the power at work in the Messiah when God raised him from the dead and sat him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 above all rule and authority and power and lordship, and above every name that is invoked, both in the present age and also in the age to come. 22 Yes: God has “put all things under his feet,” and has given him to the church as the head over all. 23 The church is his body; it is the fullness of the one who fills all in all.
Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019.