Tuesday, December 15

³⁸Jesus, intensely moved again, came to the tomb. (Now it was a cave, and a stone was placed across it.) ³⁹Jesus 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.” ⁴⁰Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believe, you would see the glory of God?” ⁴¹So they took away the stone. Jesus looked upward and said, “Father, I thank you that you have listened to me. ⁴²I 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.” ⁴³When he had said this, he shouted in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴The 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.”

⁴⁵Then many of the people, who had come with Mary and had seen the things Jesus did, believed in him. ⁴⁶But some of them went to the Pharisees and reported to them what Jesus had done. ⁴⁷So the chief priests and the Pharisees called the council together and said, “What are we doing? For this man is performing many miraculous signs. ⁴⁸If 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.”

⁴⁹Then one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, “You know nothing at all! ⁵⁰You 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.” 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, ⁵²and not for the Jewish nation only, but to gather together into one the children of God who are scattered.) ⁵³So from that day they planned together to kill him.

⁵⁴Thus 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. ⁵⁵Now 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. ⁵⁶Thus 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?” 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.)

¹Then, six days before the Passover, Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom he had raised from the dead. ²So they prepared a dinner for Jesus there. Martha was serving, and Lazarus was among those present at the table with him. ³Then Mary took three quarters of a pound of expensive aromatic oil from pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus. She then wiped his feet dry with her hair. (Now the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfumed oil.) ⁴But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was going to betray him) said, ⁵“Why wasn’t this oil sold for 300 silver coins and the money given to the poor?” ⁶(Now Judas said this not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief. As keeper of the money box, he used to steal what was put into it.) ⁷So Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She has kept it for the day of my burial. ⁸For you will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me!”

⁹Now a large crowd of Judeans learned that Jesus was there, and so they came not only because of him but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. ¹⁰So the chief priests planned to kill Lazarus too, ¹¹for on account of him many of the Jewish people from Jerusalem were going away and believing in Jesus.