The Good News by John 11

<< John 10

Press PLAY to listen to the English text

Lazarus Dies

1 There was a sick man [named] Lazarus from Bethany,* the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Now Mary was the one who anointed the Master with perfume later on and wiped his feet with her hair,* and Lazarus, the sick man, was her brother. 3 The two sisters sent [word] to Jesus, saying, “Master, the one you love is sick.” 4 When Jesus heard [this], he said, “This sickness will not lead to death; rather, it is for the glory of God, so that God's Son may be glorified through it.”

5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus; 6 yet, when he heard that [Lazarus] was sick, he waited two days in the region where he was. 7 Then he said to the disciples, “Let's return to the land of Judea.” 8 The disciples said to him, “Teacher, recently their leaders tried to stone you, and you're going back there?” 9 Jesus answered, “There are twelve hours of daytime. Someone who walks during the daytime doesn't stumble, because he sees the light of this world. 10 But someone who walks at night does stumble, because the light is not in him.”

11 After that he said to them, “Our beloved Lazarus has gone to sleep, but I will go wake him up.” 12 The disciples said to him, “Master, if he's gone to sleep, he'll get well.” 13 Jesus meant that he had died, but they thought he was talking about normal sleep. 14 Jesus said to them clearly, “Lazarus has died, 15 and I'm glad that I wasn't there, because this is for your benefit, so that you may believe. Now come, let's go to him.” 16 Thomas, whose name means Twin, said to his fellow disciples, “Come, let's go as well; perhaps we will die with him.”*

Jesus Comforts the Two Sisters

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been [buried] in a tomb* for four days. 18 Now Bethany was close to Jerusalem, around three kilometers away, 19 and a large number of people had come [from there] to console Martha and Mary in [the loss of] their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him. As for Mary, she stayed at home.

21 Martha said to Jesus, “Master, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died. 22 Nevertheless, even at this time, I know that everything you ask of God, he gives you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise [again].” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me, even if he dies, yet he will live. 26 Anyone who is alive and believes in me will not die forever. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Master. I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, whom we've been expecting to come into the world.”

28 [After] she said this, she went and called her sister Mary and said to her secretly, “The Teacher is here, and he is asking for you.” 29 When Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Jesus had not yet arrived at the village, but was in the place where Martha had met him. 31 The people who were in the house with Mary comforting her saw how she got up quickly and went out, so they followed her, because they thought she was going to the tomb to weep there.

32 When she arrived where Jesus was and saw him, she threw herself at his feet and said to him, “Master, if you had been here, my brother wouldn't have died.” 33 When Jesus saw her weeping and [saw] the people who came with her weeping, he was deeply moved and upset. 34 He said, “Where did you bury him?” They said to him, “Master, come and see.” 35 Then Jesus wept. 36 The people said, “See how much he loved him.” 37 But some of them said, “He opened the eyes of the blind man, so couldn't he keep Lazarus from dying?” 38 Jesus sighed again. Then he reached the tomb. It was basically a cave with a stone covering its entrance.

Jesus Raises Lazarus from Death

39 Jesus said, “Remove the stone.” Martha, the sister of the deceased, said, “Master, it'll stink, because this is his fourth day [there].” 40 Jesus answered her, “Didn't I tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” 41 So they removed the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Thank you, my Father, because you have answered me. 42 I know that you always answer me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing around me, so that they may believe that you sent me.” 43 After he said this, he shouted at the top of his voice, “Lazarus, come out!” 44 The deceased came out, wrapped with a shroud around his hands and feet, and his face bound with a headcloth. Then Jesus said to them, “Unwrap the shroud from him and let him go.”

The Plot to Kill Jesus

45 Many of the people who had come to visit Mary saw what Jesus did, and they believed in him. 46 But a group of them went to the Pharisees and told them what he had done. 47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a meeting of the High Council, and they said, “This man is doing many miraculous signs, so what should we do? 48 If we leave him as is, everyone will believe in him; then the Romans will come and destroy the Temple of God and take our nation.”

49 One of them, Caiaphas, who was the high priest* that year, said, “You don't know anything, 50 nor do you understand that it's better for you that one man should die for the populace and the whole nation not perish.” 51 He said this, not on his own, but since he was the high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus would die for the nation — 52 and not for that nation alone, but for the scattered children of God, so that he might gather them and make them one. 53 From that day on, the leaders of the Jews decided to kill Jesus.

54 So Jesus stopped appearing publicly among the people and went from there to a region neighboring the wilderness, to a town named Ephraim, and he stayed there with his disciples.

55 The Jewish festival of Passover was approaching, and a great number of people from the villages went to Jerusalem to do the ritual of purification before the festival. 56 They were searching for Jesus and saying to each other, while standing within the Temple complex, “What's your opinion? Will he come to the festival, or not?” 57 The chief priests and the Pharisees had ordered that anyone knowing where he was should inform them so they could arrest him.

<< John 10

Definitions

 *11:2 This event is mentioned at John 12:1-8

 *11:16 with him: with the Lord Jesus

 *11:17 tomb: a room in which a dead body is laid to rest. At that time, most tombs were made by digging a cave horizontally into the side of a rocky hill. The entrance to the tomb was closed by rolling a large stone across it, one shaped like a wheel. Most of these tombs could hold several bodies, placed there at different times, each in its own place. After a few years, the family would put the bones in a small container. Today most people are buried in holes dug in the ground, and in English these holes are called graves.

 *11:49 high priest: The high priest was administrator of the Temple of God in Jerusalem and was head of the High Council, which governed the Jewish community. Caiaphas was the high priest from AD 18 to AD 37. See high priest in the glossary.