John

¹Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. ²It was that [same] Mary who had anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair and whose brother, Lazarus, was sick. ³So the sisters sent [word] to Jesus, saying, “Lord, behold, he whom you love¹¹⁷⁶ is sick!” ⁴But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” ⁵Now Jesus loved¹¹⁷⁷ Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. ⁶Yet, when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed two [more] days in the place where he was. ⁷After this, he said to the disciples, “Let us go into Judea again.”

⁸The disciples told him, “Rabbi, the Jews were just trying to stone you, and you are going there again?”

⁹Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Anyone who walks in the day does not stumble because he sees the light of this world. ¹⁰But anyone who walks in the night will stumble because the light is not in him.” ¹¹He said these things, and then added, “Our friend, Lazarus, has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep.”

¹²At this, his disciples said, “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.”

¹³Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he had spoken of taking rest in sleep. ¹⁴And so, Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵I am glad for your sake that I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”

¹⁶Then Thomas (who is called Didymus)¹¹⁷⁸ said to his fellow disciples, “Let us go also, so that we may die with him.”¹¹⁷⁹

¹⁷And so, when Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been in the tomb four days already. ¹⁸Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles¹¹⁸⁰ away. ¹⁹Many of the Jews had joined the women around¹¹⁸¹ Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. ²⁰Then, when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary stayed in the house. ²¹Therefore, 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 of God, God will give you.” ²³Jesus replied, “Your brother will rise again.”

²⁴Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

²⁵Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life! The one who believes in me, even though he dies, will live! ²⁶Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

²⁷She answered, “Yes, Lord! I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who comes into the world.”

²⁸When she had said this, she went away, and called her sister Mary in private,¹¹⁸² saying, “The Teacher is here, and [he] is calling you.”

²⁹When Mary¹¹⁸³ heard this, she arose quickly and went to him. ³⁰Now Jesus had not yet come into the village, but was in the place where Martha had met him. ³¹Then the Jews who were with Mary in the house consoling her saw that she got up quickly and went out. They followed her, saying, “She is going to the tomb to weep there.” ³²Therefore, when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell down at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!”

³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her [also] weeping, he groaned in the spirit and was deeply moved. ³⁴He asked, “Where have you laid him?”

They told him, “Lord, come and see.”

³⁵Jesus wept.

³⁶At this, the Jews said, “See how much affection he had for Lazarus!”^{1184 37}Some of them said, “Could not the one who opened the eyes of the man who was blind have also kept Lazarus¹¹⁸⁵ from dying?”

³⁸Jesus therefore, being again deeply moved, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone was placed against it. ³⁹Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”

Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days!”

⁴⁰Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?”

⁴¹And so, they took away the stone <from the place where the dead man was lying.>¹¹⁸⁶ Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, “Father, I thank you that you have listened to me. ⁴²I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude that stands around, I said this, so that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³After saying this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”

⁴⁴Then he who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth.

Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

The Sanhedrin discusses Jesus—The plot begins

⁴⁵As a result, many of the Jews who had come to Mary and had seen what Jesus had accomplished believed in him. ⁴⁶However, some of them went away to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷Then the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered a council and said, “What are we to do? This man does many signs! ⁴⁸If we leave him alone like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

⁴⁹But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You understand nothing at all! ⁵⁰Do you not consider that it is better for us that one man should die for the people than that the whole nation should perish?” ⁵¹Now he did not say this of himself, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation, ⁵²and not for the nation only, but also in order to gather as one the children of God scattered abroad. ⁵³And so, from that day forward, they planned together to put him to death. ⁵⁴For this reason, Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews. Instead, he left that place [and went] into the countryside near the wilderness, to a city called Ephraim. He stayed there with his disciples.

Passover approaches

⁵⁵Now the Passover of the Jews was near. Many went up from the countryside to Jerusalem before the Passover in order to perform their purification rites. ⁵⁶Then they began to look for Jesus and discussed with one another as they stood in the temple, “What do you think? Is he not coming to the feast at all?” ⁵⁷Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given an order that anyone who knew where Jesus was should report it, so that they might arrest him.

The anointing at Bethany

1176. Or “him for whom you have great affection.” The Greek is filei/j
1177. Here, the word is hvga,pa
1178. “Didymus” means “Twin”
1179. This “him” seems to be a reference to Lazarus rather than to Jesus.
1180. 15 stadia is about 2.8 kilometers or 1.7 miles
1181. Some manuscripts omit “the women around”
1182. Or “secretly”
1183. Greek “she”
1184. Greek “him”
1185. Greek “this one”
1186. CT omits “from the place where the dead man was lying.”