Many in the crowd had seen Jesus call Lazarus from the tomb, raising him from the dead, and they were telling others about it. 

             That was the reason so many went out to meet him because they had heard about this miraculous sign. 

                         Then the Pharisees said to each other, “There’s nothing we can do. Look, everyone has gone after him!”

His disciples didn’t understand at the time that this was a fulfillment of prophecy.  But after Jesus entered into his glory, they remembered what had happened and realized that these things had been written about him.

 Jesus found a young donkey and rode on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said:

    “Don’t be afraid, people of Jerusalem.
Look, your King is coming,    riding on a donkey’s colt.”

The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A large crowd of Passover visitors took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted,

         “Praise God!
          Blessings on the one who comes 

               in the name of the Lord!
          Hail to the King of Israel!”

When all the people heard of Jesus’ arrival, they flocked to see him and also to see Lazarus, the man Jesus had raised from the dead. 

                 Then the leading priests decided to kill Lazarus, too,  for it was because of him that many of the people had deserted them and believed in Jesus.

But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him, said,  “That perfume was worth a year’s wages. It should have been sold and the money given to the poor.”  Not that he cared for the poor—he was a thief, and since he was in charge of the disciples’ money, he often stole some for himself.

              Jesus replied, “Leave her alone. She did this in preparation for my burial.  You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.”

Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead.  A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. 

                 Then Mary took a jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.

Meanwhile, the leading priests and Pharisees had publicly ordered that anyone seeing Jesus must report it immediately so they could arrest him.

They kept looking for Jesus, but as they stood around in the Temple, they said to each other, “What do you think? He won’t come for Passover, will he?”

It was now almost time for the Jewish Passover celebration, and many people from all over the country arrived in Jerusalem several days early so they could go through the purification ceremony before Passover began.

So from that time on, the Jewish leaders began to plot Jesus’ death. 

            As a result, Jesus stopped his public ministry among the people and left Jerusalem. He went to a place near the wilderness, to the village of Ephraim, and stayed there with his disciples.

He did not say this on his own; as high priest at that time he was led to prophesy that Jesus would die for the entire nation. 

                   And not only for that nation, but to bring together and unite all the children of God scattered around the world.

Caiaphas, who was high priest at that time,  said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about!   You don’t realize that it’s better for you that one man should die for the people than for the whole nation to be destroyed.”

Many of the people who were with Mary believed in Jesus when they saw this happen.    But some went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.    

            Then the leading priests and Pharisees called the high council together. “What are we going to do?” they asked each other. “This man certainly performs many miraculous signs.    If we allow him to go on like this, soon everyone will believe in him. Then the Roman army will come and destroy both our Temple and our nation.”

Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?”   

       So they rolled the stone aside.  Then Jesus looked up to heaven and said,  “Father, thank you for hearing me.   You always hear me, but I said it out loud for the sake of all these people standing here, so that they will believe you sent me.”   Then Jesus shouted, “Lazarus, come out!” 

                     And the dead man came out, his hands and feet bound in graveclothes, his face wrapped in a headcloth.  Jesus told them, “Unwrap him and let him go!”

Jesus was still groaning inwardly as he arrived at the tomb, a cave with a stone rolled across its entrance.   

          “Roll the stone aside,” Jesus told them.

                     But Martha, the dead man’s sister, protested, “Lord, he has been dead for four days. The smell will be terrible.”

When Jesus saw her weeping and saw the other people wailing with her, a groaning welled up within him, and he was deeply troubled. 

          “Where have you put him?” he asked them.

                     They told him, “Lord, come and see.”  Then Jesus wept. 

                               The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!”  But some said, “This man healed a blind man. Couldn’t he have kept Lazarus from dying?”

Jesus had stayed outside the village, at the place where Martha met him.   When the people who were at the house consoling Mary saw her leave so hastily, they assumed she was going to Lazarus’s grave to weep. So they followed her there.   When Mary arrived and saw Jesus, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.”

Jesus told her, “Your brother will rise again.”
      
     “Yes,” Martha said, “he will rise when everyone else rises, at the last day.”

                  Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life.  Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying.   Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die. Do you believe this, Martha?”

                          “Yes, Lord,” she told him. “I have always believed you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who has come into the world from God.” 

                                  Then she returned to Mary. She called Mary aside from the mourners and told her, “The Teacher is here and wants to see you.”   So Mary immediately went to him.

When Jesus arrived at Bethany, he was told that Lazarus had already been in his grave for four days. ¹⁸ Bethany was only a few miles down the road from Jerusalem,  and many of the people had come to console Martha and Mary in their loss.   

            When Martha got word that Jesus was coming, she went to meet him. But Mary stayed in the house.   Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if only you had been here, my brother would not have died.   But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask.”

 So he told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead.   And for your sakes, I’m glad I wasn’t there, for now you will really believe. Come, let’s go see him.”

              Thomas, nicknamed the Twin,said to his fellow disciples, “Let’s go, too—and die with Jesus.”

The disciples said, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will soon get better!” 

           They thought Jesus meant Lazarus was simply sleeping, but Jesus meant Lazarus had died.

 But his disciples objected. “Rabbi,” they said, “only a few days ago the people in Judea were trying to stone you. Are you going there again?”

                Jesus replied, “There are twelve hours of daylight every day. During the day people can walk safely. They can see because they have the light of this world.   But at night there is danger of stumbling because they have no light.”  

                      Then he said, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but now I will go and wake him up.”

But when Jesus heard about it he said, “Lazarus’s sickness will not end in death. No, it happened for the glory of God so that the Son of God will receive glory from this.” 

            So although Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, he stayed where he was for the next two days.  

                    Finally, he said to his disciples, “Let’s go back to Judea.”

A man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany with his sisters, Mary and Martha.   

           This is the Mary who later poured the expensive perfume on the Lord’s feet and wiped them with her hair.   

                    Her brother, Lazarus, was sick.   So the two sisters sent a message to Jesus telling him, “Lord, your dear friend is very sick.”

 Once again they tried to arrest him, but he got away and left them.    He went beyond the Jordan River near the place where John was first baptizing and stayed there awhile.    And many followed him. “John didn’t perform miraculous signs,” they remarked to one another, “but everything he said about this man has come true.”    

            And many who were there believed in Jesus.

Jesus replied, “It is written in your own Scriptures that God said to certain leaders of the people, ‘I say, you are gods!’  And you know that the Scriptures cannot be altered. So if those people who received God’s message were called ‘gods,’ why do you call it blasphemy when I say, ‘I am the Son of God’? After all, the Father set me apart and sent me into the world.   

            Don’t believe me unless I carry out my Father’s work.   But if I do his work, believe in the evidence of the miraculous works I have done, even if you don’t believe me. Then you will know and understand that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father.”