Read the Gospels in 40 Days

Lazarus dies

11 There was a certain man, who was called Lazarus. He lived at Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived too. He became ill. ² It was this Mary who had poured oil with a nice smell over the feet of the Lord Jesus. Then she had cleaned his feet with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus who was ill. ³ So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus to say, ‘Lord, the friend that you love is ill.’

⁴ Jesus heard the message. Then he said, ‘This illness will not finish with Lazarus's death. No, its purpose is to show how great God is. Because of this, people will see how great God's Son is.’ ⁵ Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and their brother Lazarus, too. ⁶ He heard the news that Lazarus was ill. But then he stayed in the place where he was for two more days.

⁷ After that, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘We should return to Judea.’ ⁸ The disciples said, ‘Teacher, only a short time ago, the Jews there tried to kill you with stones. You should not return there!’ ⁹ Jesus answered, ‘You know that there are 12 hours in the day. Anyone who walks during the day will not fall down. He will not fall down because he sees this world's light. ¹⁰ But anyone who walks during the night will fall down. He will fall down because he has no light.’

¹¹ After Jesus said that, he said to them, ‘Our friend Lazarus is sleeping. But I will go there to wake him up.’ ¹² So the disciples said to him, ‘If he is sleeping, Lord, he will get well again.’ ¹³ The disciples thought that Jesus was talking about sleep as rest. But Jesus meant that Lazarus had died. ¹⁴ So then, Jesus told them clearly, ‘Lazarus is dead. ¹⁵ But I am happy that I was not there with him. I am happy about that because it will help you. Now you will believe in me. We must go to him now.’ ¹⁶ Thomas, who was called Didymus, said to the other disciples, ‘We should go with our Teacher, so that we can die with him!’^[a]

Jesus is able to give life to dead people

¹⁷ Jesus arrived at Bethany. He discovered that Lazarus had already been in the grave for four days. ¹⁸ Bethany was about 3 kilometres from Jerusalem. ¹⁹ Many Jews had come there to visit Martha and Mary. They wanted to help Martha and Mary because their brother had died.

²⁰ Martha heard the news that Jesus was coming. So she went out to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house with the visitors. ²¹ Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. ²² But even now, I know that God will answer you. He will do whatever you ask him.’ ²³ Jesus told her, ‘Your brother will rise and become alive again.’ ²⁴ Martha replied, ‘I know that he will rise on the last day, to become alive again.’ ²⁵ Jesus said to her, ‘I have authority over death. I raise dead people, and I give people true life. Anyone who believes in me will live. Even if that person dies, he will continue to live. ²⁶ People who believe in me while they are alive will never die. Do you believe that?’ ²⁷ Martha answered, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah. You are God's Son, the one that God promised to send into the world.’

²⁸ After this, Martha went back to the house. She took Mary to speak to her on her own. Martha said to her, ‘The Teacher is here, and he is asking to meet you.’ ²⁹ When Mary heard this, she got up immediately. She went out to meet Jesus. ³⁰ Jesus had not arrived in the village yet. He was still in the place where Martha had met him. ³¹ There were still Jews in the house who were with Mary to help her. They saw her get up quickly and go out. So they followed her. They thought that she was going to the place where they had put Lazarus's dead body. They thought that she wanted to go there to weep.

³² Mary arrived at the place where Jesus was. When she saw Jesus, she bent down low at his feet. She said, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ ³³ Jesus saw that Mary was weeping. He saw that the Jews who had come with her were weeping too. When Jesus saw them, he felt very sad in his spirit. He was upset about Lazarus's death. ³⁴ He asked them, ‘Where have you put his dead body?’ They answered, ‘Come and see, Lord.’ ³⁵ Jesus wept. ³⁶ Then the Jews said to each other, ‘See how much he loved Lazarus!’ ³⁷ But some of them said, ‘He opened the eyes of the blind man. So surely he would have been able to stop the death of Lazarus.’

Jesus makes Lazarus alive again

³⁸ Jesus arrived at the grave where they had put Lazarus's dead body. It was a cave. A large stone covered the front of the hole. Again, Jesus felt very upset. ³⁹ He said, ‘Take the stone away.’ Martha, the dead man's sister, said to Jesus, ‘But Lord, by now his dead body will have a bad smell. He has been dead for four days!’ ⁴⁰ Jesus said to her, ‘I told you already that you must believe in me. Then you will see how great and how powerful God is.’ ⁴¹ So they moved the stone away. Jesus looked up towards the sky. He said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have listened to me. ⁴² I know that you listen to me always. But I said this to help all the people who are standing here. I want them to believe that you sent me.’ ⁴³ When Jesus had said this, he shouted with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ ⁴⁴ The dead man came out. There were pieces of cloth round his hands and round his feet. Another piece of cloth was round his face. Jesus said to them, ‘Undo the cloths and let him go.’

The Pharisees decide how to kill Jesus

⁴⁵ The Jews who had come to visit Mary saw this. They saw what Jesus did. So many of them believed in him. ⁴⁶ But some of them went to the Pharisees. They told the Pharisees what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷ Then the Pharisees and the leaders of the priests had a meeting with the group of Jewish leaders. They asked each other, ‘What will we do? This man is doing so many miracles. ⁴⁸ If we let him do more things like this, everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman rulers will come and punish us.^[b] Their soldiers will destroy our temple and even destroy our whole country of Israel.’

⁴⁹ One of the group was the leader of the priests that year. He was called Caiaphas. He said, ‘You do not understand the problem. ⁵⁰ It is better that one man should die on behalf of our people. That is better than if all Israel's people should die.’ ⁵¹ Caiaphas did not say this because he had thought it by himself. No, he was speaking as a prophet, because he was the leader of the priests that year. That is why he said that Jesus would die on behalf of Israel's people. ⁵² And Jesus would die not only for Israel's people. He would also die for all God's people who lived in many different places. He would bring them all together. They would become like one big family.

⁵³ From that day, the Jewish leaders decided together how they could kill Jesus. ⁵⁴ So Jesus stopped travelling about in Judea where everyone could see him. Instead, he went away from there to a town called Ephraim that was near to the wilderness. He stayed there with his disciples.

⁵⁵ It was almost time for the Jewish Passover Festival to begin. Many people were going from their country places to Jerusalem. They were going there to make themselves clean in front of God before they went to the festival. ⁵⁶ They were continuing to look for Jesus. While they stood in the yard of the temple, they spoke to each other about him. They asked each other, ‘Do you think that he will come to the festival or not?’ ⁵⁷ The leaders of the priests and the Pharisees had spoken to the people about Jesus. They had told them, ‘If anyone knows where Jesus is, you must tell us.’ So then they could take hold of him to put him in a prison.

Jesus at Bethany

12 Six days before the Passover festival, Jesus went to Bethany, the village where Lazarus lived. He was the man who had been dead, but Jesus had raised him. ² Some friends prepared a special meal there for Jesus. Martha gave out the food, and Lazarus sat among the visitors, with Jesus. ³ Then Mary brought a pound of very expensive oil that had a very nice smell. They used nard to make it. She poured it over Jesus' feet and then she made his feet dry again with her hair. The nice smell of the oil filled the whole house.

⁴ Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus' disciples, was there. He was the man who would sell Jesus to Jesus' enemies. ⁵ Judas said, ‘We could have sold this oil for 300 coins. That is as much money as someone would get for a year's work. Then we could have given that money to poor people.’ ⁶ He did not say this because he really wanted to help the poor people. No, he said it because he wanted the money himself. He kept the bag of money and sometimes he took money from it for himself. ⁷ But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop her! She has kept this oil safe until now. She wanted it for the day when they will bury my dead body. ⁸ You will always have poor people with you. But you will not always have me with you.’

⁹ By this time, a large crowd of Jews had heard the news that Jesus was at Bethany. So they came there to see him. They came also to see Lazarus, because Jesus had made him alive again. ¹⁰ So the leaders of the priests decided to kill not only Jesus, but Lazarus too. ¹¹ They wanted to do that because many Jews now refused to obey them. Instead, these Jews believed in Jesus because of what he had done for Lazarus.

Jesus goes into Jerusalem

¹² The next day, a large crowd of people were in Jerusalem for the festival. They heard the news that Jesus was on the way there. ¹³ So they took branches from palm trees and they went out to meet Jesus. They were shouting, ‘We praise God! May the Lord God bless the king who comes with his authority. May he bless the king of Israel!’ ¹⁴ Jesus found a young donkey, and he sat on it. This happened in the way that was written in the Bible long ago:

¹⁶ Jesus' disciples did not understand all this at that time. They understood only after Jesus had returned to God in heaven. Then they remembered that someone had written these things about him in the Bible. And they remembered that these things had now really happened to him. ¹⁷ The crowd that had been with Jesus before at Bethany continued to tell people about Lazarus. They said, ‘Jesus told Lazarus that he should come out of the hole in the rock. He made Lazarus alive again after he had died and his body had been put in there.’ ¹⁸ That is why many people came to meet Jesus. They had heard that he had done this miracle. ¹⁹ So the Pharisees said to each other, ‘This is not what we wanted.^[d] Look! All the people in the world have left us to go with him!’

Jesus says that he will soon die

²⁰ There were some Greek people among the people at the festival. They also had come to worship God. ²¹ These Greek people came to Philip, who was from a town in Galilee called Bethsaida. They said to him, ‘Please sir, we want to meet Jesus.’ ²² Philip went and he told Andrew this. Then Philip and Andrew went to Jesus and they told him.

²³ Jesus said to them, ‘God will show how great the Son of Man is. It is now time for that to happen. ²⁴ I tell you this: A seed of wheat continues to be only a single seed unless it falls into the ground. It must fall into the ground and then it must die. If it dies like that, it will grow to give a lot of seeds.

²⁵ Anyone who loves his own life will lose it. But anyone who hates his life in this world will have true life for ever with God. ²⁶ Anyone who wants to be my servant must follow me. Then he will be with me, where I am. My Father will praise anyone who is my servant. ²⁷ Now I have trouble in my mind. What will I say? I might say, “Father, save me from this time of trouble!” But this difficult time is the purpose for which I came to the world. ²⁸ So I will say, “Father, show how great and how good you are.” ’

Then a voice spoke from heaven and said, ‘I have shown how great and how good I am. And I will do it again.’ ²⁹ The crowd of people who were standing there heard the sound of this voice. They said that it was like the noise of thunder in a storm. But other people said, ‘An angel spoke to him!’

³⁰ Jesus said, ‘When this voice spoke, it was not so that it could help me. No, it spoke so that it could help you. ³¹ It is time now for God to judge the people in this world. Now he will throw out the ruler of this world. ³² But when people lift me up from the ground, then I will bring everyone to myself.’ ³³ Jesus said this to show in what way he would soon die.^[e]

³⁴ The crowd said, ‘The Bible tells us that the Messiah will continue for ever. So why do you say, “People must lift up the Son of Man”? Who is this Son of Man?’ ³⁵ Jesus answered, ‘The light will be with you for only a short time longer. So continue to walk while you still have the light. Do that, so that the dark will not come over you. Anyone who walks in the dark does not know where they are going. ³⁶ While you still have the light with you, believe in that light. So then you will become children of light.’ When Jesus had said this, he went away. He hid himself from them.^[f]

Many people still do not believe in Jesus

³⁷ Jesus had done many miracles that the people themselves had seen. But even then, they still did not believe in him. ³⁸ This showed that the prophet Isaiah had spoken true words when he said:^[g]

³⁹ Isaiah spoke also about why the people could not believe.^{[h] 40} He said:

⁴¹ Long ago, Isaiah saw the great glory of Christ. That is why he said these things. He was speaking about Jesus.

⁴² But even at that time, many of the Jewish leaders did believe in Jesus. But they were afraid of the Pharisees. So they did not tell people that they believed. They were afraid that the Pharisees would send them away from their meeting places. ⁴³ The Pharisees wanted other people to praise them, more than they wanted God to praise them.

Jesus' message warns people

⁴⁴ Jesus said in a loud voice, ‘Anyone who believes in me does not believe only in me. That person believes also in the one who sent me. ⁴⁵ Anyone who looks at me does not see only me. They see also him who sent me. ⁴⁶ I have come into the world to be a light for people. Everyone who believes in me will not remain in the dark. That is why I came. ⁴⁷ Not everyone who hears my words will obey them. I will not judge anyone who is like that. I did not come to judge the people in the world. I came to save them. ⁴⁸ But there is something that will judge people who refuse to believe in me. Those are people who do not accept my message. The message that I have spoken will itself judge people like that on the last day. ⁴⁹ The words that I have spoken did not come from me myself. They came from the Father, who sent me. He told me what message I must speak. He told me the words I must say. ⁵⁰ The message that the Father has given me causes people to have life for ever. I know that. So I speak only those things that the Father has said to me.’