1 NOW A certain man named Lazarus was ill. He was of Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived.
2 This Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped His feet with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus who was [now] sick.
3 So the sisters sent to Him, saying, Lord, he whom You love [so well] is sick.
4 When Jesus received the message, He said, This sickness is not to end in death; but [on the contrary] it is to honor God and to promote His glory, that the Son of God may be glorified through (by) it.
5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. [They were His dear friends, and He held them in loving esteem.]
6 Therefore [even] when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He still stayed two days longer in the same place where He was.
7 Then after that interval He said to His disciples, Let us go back again to Judea.