Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

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.