A modern English translation drawn directly from the original Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts. Translated word-for-word where possible, by a committee with scholarly oversight.
Uses the same source texts as the ESV, NASB, and most academic Bibles, including the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia and the Nestle-Aland critical edition.
John 11
John 11 is the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John. The 57-verse chapter records one of the most dramatic miracles in the gospels: the raising of Lazarus from the dead.
The chapter opens by introducing Lazarus of Bethany, who is sick. He is the brother of Mary and Martha. The sisters send word to Jesus that the one he loves is sick. When Jesus hears the news, he says that the sickness will not end in death but is for God's glory. He stays where he is for two more days.
Jesus then tells the disciples they are going back to Judea. The disciples are alarmed, because the Jews there had recently tried to stone him. Jesus tells them Lazarus has fallen asleep and he is going to wake him. The disciples take this literally. Jesus tells them plainly: Lazarus is dead.
When Jesus arrives in Bethany, Lazarus has already been in the tomb for four days. Many Jews have come to comfort Martha and Mary. Martha goes out to meet Jesus and says: "Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that God will give You whatever You ask." Jesus tells her: "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies." She declares him the Christ.
Mary comes to him and weeps. Jesus is moved in spirit and troubled. The chapter contains the shortest verse in the Bible: "Jesus wept."
At the tomb, Jesus tells them to take away the stone. Martha objects, saying there will be a bad smell after four days. Jesus reminds her of his promise. They take away the stone. Jesus prays aloud, thanking the Father, then calls in a loud voice: "Lazarus, come forth!" The dead man comes out, still wrapped in his grave clothes. Jesus tells them to take off the grave clothes and let him go.
Many of the Jews who have seen what Jesus did believe in him. Others report him to the Pharisees. The chief priests and Pharisees call a meeting of the Sanhedrin. Caiaphas the high priest says it is better for one man to die for the people than for the whole nation to perish. From that day on they plot to kill Jesus.
Verse 1. At this time a man named Lazarus was sick. He lived in Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.
Verse 2. (Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was to anoint the Lord with perfume and wipe His feet with her hair.)
Verse 3. So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one You love is sick.”
Verse 4. When Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”
Verse 5. Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
Verse 6. So on hearing that Lazarus was sick, He stayed where He was for two days,
Verse 7. and then He said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”
Verse 8. “Rabbi,” they replied, “the Jews just tried to stone You, and You are going back there?”
Verse 9. Jesus answered, “Are there not twelve hours of daylight? If anyone walks in the daytime, he will not stumble, because he sees by the light of this world.
Verse 10. But if anyone walks at night, he will stumble, because he has no light.”
Verse 11. After He had said this, He told them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.”
Verse 12. His disciples replied, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will get better.”
Verse 13. They thought that Jesus was talking about actual sleep, but He was speaking about the death of Lazarus.
Verse 14. So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead,
Verse 15. and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
Verse 16. Then Thomas called Didymus said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.”
Verse 17. When Jesus arrived, He found that Lazarus had already spent four days in the tomb.
Verse 18. Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, a little less than two miles away,
Verse 19. and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them in the loss of their brother.
Verse 20. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Mary stayed at home.
Verse 21. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.
Verse 22. But even now I know that God will give You whatever You ask of Him.”
Verse 23. “Your brother will rise again,” Jesus told her.
Verse 24. Martha replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
Verse 25. Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.
Verse 26. And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Verse 27. “Yes, Lord,” she answered, “I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
Verse 28. After Martha had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary aside to tell her, “The Teacher is here and is asking for you.”
Verse 29. And when Mary heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him.
Verse 30. Now Jesus had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met Him.
Verse 31. When the Jews who were in the house consoling Mary saw how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
Verse 32. When Mary came to Jesus and saw Him, she fell at His feet and said, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”
Verse 33. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
Verse 34. “Where have you put him?” He asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they answered.
Verse 36. Then the Jews said, “See how He loved him!”
Verse 37. But some of them asked, “Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept Lazarus from dying?”
Verse 38. Jesus, once again deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
Verse 39. “Take away the stone,” Jesus said. “Lord, by now he stinks,” said Martha, the sister of the dead man. “It has already been four days.”
Verse 40. Jesus replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
Verse 41. So they took away the stone. Then Jesus lifted His eyes upward and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.
Verse 42. I knew that You always hear Me, but I say this for the benefit of the people standing here, so they may believe that You sent Me.”
Verse 43. After Jesus had said this, He called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
Verse 44. The man who had been dead came out with his hands and feet bound in strips of linen, and his face wrapped in a cloth. “Unwrap him and let him go,” Jesus told them.
Verse 45. Therefore many of the Jews who had come to Mary, and had seen what Jesus did, believed in Him.
Verse 46. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
Verse 47. Then the chief priests and Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs.
Verse 48. If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”
Verse 49. But one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!
Verse 50. You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
Verse 51. Caiaphas did not say this on his own. Instead, as high priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation,
Verse 52. and not only for the nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to gather them together into one.
Verse 53. So from that day on they plotted to kill Him.
Verse 54. As a result, Jesus no longer went about publicly among the Jews, but He withdrew to a town called Ephraim in an area near the wilderness. And He stayed there with the disciples.
Verse 55. Now the Jewish Passover was near, and many people went up from the country to Jerusalem to purify themselves before the Passover.
Verse 56. They kept looking for Jesus and asking one another as they stood in the temple courts, “What do you think? Will He come to the feast at all?”
Verse 57. But the chief priests and Pharisees had given orders that anyone who knew where He was must report it, so that they could arrest Him.
Last updated: