¹Now there was a certain man who was ill: Lazarus from Bethany, from the village of Mary and Martha her sister. ²Mary, incidentally, was the one who had anointed the Lord with ointment and had wiped his feet dry with her hair, and whose brother Lazarus was ill. ³So the sisters sent word to him, and they said, “Lord, look, he whom you love is ill.” ⁴Then when Jesus heard it, he said, “This illness is not with death in view, but is for the sake of the glory of God, so that the son of God may be glorified through it.” ⁵Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and Lazarus, ⁶so when he heard that he was ill, he then remained in the place where he was for two days. ⁷Then after that he said to the disciples, “Let us go to Judaea again.” ⁸The disciples said to him, “Rabbi, the Jews were only recently looking for a way to stone you, yet are you going there again?” ⁹Jesus replied, “Are there not twelve hours in a day? If a person goes around in the daytime, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. ¹⁰But if a person goes around at night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” ¹¹He said these things, and after this he said to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. But I am going along to awaken him.” ¹²Then his disciples said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” ¹³However, Jesus had spoken about his death, but they thought he was speaking about falling asleep in the sense of natural sleep. ¹⁴So Jesus then spoke to them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵And I rejoice on your account, so that you may believe, because I was not there. But let us go to him.” ¹⁶Then Thomas, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples, “Let us go too, so that we may die with him.” ¹⁷Then when Jesus had arrived, he found that he had already been in the tomb for four days. ¹⁸Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about fifteen stades away. ¹⁹And many of the Jews had gone to the women connected with Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. ²⁰Then when she heard that Jesus was coming, Martha went to meet him. But Mary was sitting down in the house. ²¹Then Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²²But even now I know that whatever you ask God for, God will give you it.” ²³Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” ²⁴Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” ²⁵Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, even if he dies, he will live. ²⁶And everyone who lives and believes in me will certainly not die throughout the age. Do you believe this?” ²⁷She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, who should come into the world.” ²⁸And when she had said these things, she went away and called Mary her sister in secret and said, “The teacher is present and is calling for you.” ²⁹When she heard that, she got up quickly and went to him. ³⁰However, Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was in the place where Martha had met him. ³¹So when the Jews who were with her in the house comforting her saw that Mary had quickly got up and gone out, they followed her, and they said, “She is going off to the tomb to weep there.” ³²Then when Mary came to where Jesus was, when she saw him, she fell down at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³Then when he saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her weeping, Jesus was exasperated in spirit and was disquieted, ³⁴and he said, “Where have you put him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” ³⁵Jesus wept. ³⁶Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him.” ³⁷But some of them said, “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have also acted so that this man should not die?” ³⁸Then, again inwardly exasperated, Jesus went to the tomb. There was a cave, and a stone lay on it. ³⁹Jesus said, “Remove the stone.” Martha, the sister of the deceased man, said to him, “Lord, by now he will stink, for he has been dead for four days.” ⁴⁰Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹So they removed the stone where the deceased was lying. Jesus lifted his eyes upwards and said, “Father, I give thanks to you because you have heard me. ⁴²But I knew that you would always hear me. But on account of the crowd standing round, I spoke, so that they might believe that you sent me.” ⁴³And when he had said these things, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” ⁴⁴And he who had died came out, bound at the legs and the hands with swathing. Also, his face had been wrapped with a sweat-band. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him and let him go.” ⁴⁵Then many of the Jews who had come to Mary and had seen what Jesus had done believed in him. ⁴⁶But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷Then the senior priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin council and said, “What are we doing, seeing that this man is performing many signs? ⁴⁸If we leave him like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” ⁴⁹But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, who was the high priest in that year, said to them, “You do not know anything. ⁵⁰Nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people so that the whole nation should not perish.” ⁵¹Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, ⁵²and not only for the nation, but also so that he should gather into one the children of God who are scattered. ⁵³Then from that day, they deliberated on how to kill him. ⁵⁴So Jesus no longer went around openly among the Jews, but went away from there to a region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and he spent time there with his disciples. ⁵⁵Now the Jews' Passover was near, and many went up to Jerusalem from the region before the Passover to purify themselves. ⁵⁶Then they looked for Jesus and spoke with each other as they stood in the temple, and they said, “What do you think? Will he definitely not come to the festival?” ⁵⁷The senior priests and Pharisees on this score had issued a commandment that if anyone knew where he was, he must inform them so that they might seize him.