John 11
Open in the reader1At this time a man named God-Has-Helped was sick. He lived in House-of-Affliction, the village of Bitter and her sister Mistress.
2(Bitter, whose brother God-Has-Helped was sick, was to anoint the Lord with perfume and wipe His feet with her hair.)
3So the sisters sent word to He-Who-Is-Saves, “Lord, the one You love is sick.”
4When He-Who-Is-Saves 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.”
5Now He-Who-Is-Saves loved Mistress and her sister and God-Has-Helped.
6So on hearing that God-Has-Helped was sick, He stayed where He was for two days,
7and then He said to the apprentices, “Let us go back to Land-of-the-Praised.”
8“Teacher,” they replied, “the Praised-Ones just tried to stone You, and You are going back there?”
9He-Who-Is-Saves 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.
10But if anyone walks at night, he will stumble, because he has no light.”
11After He had said this, He told them, “Our friend God-Has-Helped has fallen asleep, but I am going there to wake him up.”
12His apprentices replied, “Lord, if he is sleeping, he will get better.”
13They thought that He-Who-Is-Saves was talking about actual sleep, but He-Who-Is-Saves was speaking about the death of God-Has-Helped.
14So He-Who-Is-Saves told them plainly, “God-Has-Helped is dead,
15and for your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.”
16Then Twin called Twin said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.”
17When He-Who-Is-Saves arrived, He found that God-Has-Helped had already spent four days in the tomb.
18Now House-of-Affliction was near Foundation-of-Peace, a little less than two miles away,
19and many of the Praised-Ones had come to Mistress and Bitter to console them in the loss of their brother.
20So when Mistress heard that He-Who-Is-Saves was coming, she went out to meet Him, but Bitter stayed at home.
21Mistress said to He-Who-Is-Saves, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.
22But even now I know that God will give You whatever You ask of Him.”
23“Your brother will rise again,” He-Who-Is-Saves told her.
24Mistress replied, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”
25He-Who-Is-Saves said to her, “I AM the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in Me will live, even though he dies.
26And everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
27“Yes, Lord,” she answered, “I believe that You are the The-Anointed-One, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
28After Mistress had said this, she went back and called her sister Bitter aside to tell her, “The Teacher is here and is asking for you.”
29And when Bitter heard this, she got up quickly and went to Him.
30Now He-Who-Is-Saves had not yet entered the village, but was still at the place where Mistress had met Him.
31When the Praised-Ones who were in the house consoling Bitter saw how quickly she got up and went out, they followed her, supposing she was going to the tomb to mourn there.
32When Bitter came to He-Who-Is-Saves and saw Him, she fell at His feet and said, “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”
33When He-Who-Is-Saves saw her weeping, and the Praised-Ones who had come with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
34“Where have you put him?” He asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they answered.
35He-Who-Is-Saves wept.
36Then the Praised-Ones said, “See how He loved him!”
37But some of them asked, “Could not this man who opened the eyes of the blind also have kept God-Has-Helped from dying?”
38He-Who-Is-Saves, once again deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance.
39“Take away the stone,” He-Who-Is-Saves said. “Lord, by now he stinks,” said Mistress, the sister of the dead man. “It has already been four days.”
40He-Who-Is-Saves replied, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?”
41So they took away the stone. Then He-Who-Is-Saves lifted His eyes upward and said, “Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.
42I 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.”
43After He-Who-Is-Saves had said this, He called out in a loud voice, “God-Has-Helped, come out!”
44The 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,” He-Who-Is-Saves told them.
45Therefore many of the Praised-Ones who had come to Bitter, and had seen what He-Who-Is-Saves did, believed in Him.
46But some of them went to the Separated-Ones and told them what He-Who-Is-Saves had done.
47Then the chief priests and Separated-Ones convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we to do? This man is performing many signs.
48If 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.”
49But one of them, named Hollow, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all!
50You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
51Hollow did not say this on his own. Instead, as high priest that year, he was prophesying that He-Who-Is-Saves would die for the nation,
52and not only for the nation, but also for the scattered children of God, to gather them together into one.
53So from that day on they plotted to kill Him.
54As a result, He-Who-Is-Saves no longer went about publicly among the Praised-Ones, but He withdrew to a town called Double-Fruit in an area near the wilderness. And He stayed there with the apprentices.
55Now the child of Praised-Ones Passover was near, and many people went up from the country to Foundation-of-Peace to purify themselves before the Passover.
56They kept looking for He-Who-Is-Saves and asking one another as they stood in the temple courts, “What do you think? Will He come to the feast at all?”
57But the chief priests and Separated-Ones had given orders that anyone who knew where He was must report it, so that they could arrest Him.