John 11:39-57
11:39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.”
Martha, the sister of the deceased,
replied, “Lord, by this time the body will have a bad smell,
because he has been buried
four days.”
11:40 Jesus responded,
“Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?”
11:41 So they took away
the stone. Jesus looked upward
and said, “Father, I thank you that you have listened to me.
11:42 I knew that you always listen to me,
but I said this
for the sake of the crowd standing around here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
11:43 When
he had said this, he shouted in a loud voice,
“Lazarus, come out!”
11:44 The one who had died came out, his feet and hands tied up with strips of cloth,
and a cloth wrapped around his face.
Jesus said to them, “Unwrap him
and let him go.”
The Response of the Jewish Leaders
11:45 Then many of the people, who had come with Mary and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in him.
11:46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and reported to them what Jesus had done.
11:47 So the chief priests and the Pharisees called the council together and said, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many miraculous signs.
11:48 If we allow him to go on in this way, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away our sanctuary and our nation.”
11:49 Then one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, “You know nothing at all!
11:50 You do not realize that it is more to your advantage to have one man die for the people than for the whole nation to perish.”
11:51 (Now he did not say this on his own, but because he was high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the Jewish nation,
11:52 and not for the Jewish nation only, but to gather together into one the children of God who are scattered.)
11:53 So from that day they planned together to kill him.
11:54 Thus Jesus no longer went around publicly among the Judeans, but went away from there to the region near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim, and stayed there with his disciples.
11:55 Now the Jewish feast of Passover was near, and many people went up to Jerusalem from the rural areas before the Passover to cleanse themselves ritually.
11:56 Thus they were looking for Jesus, and saying to one another as they stood in the temple courts, “What do you think? That he won’t come to the feast?”
11:57 (Now the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where Jesus was should report it, so that they could arrest him.)