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Jesus said, "I am telling you the truth: the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in some other way, is a thief and a robber.
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The man who goes in through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.
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The gatekeeper opens the gate for him; the sheep hear his voice as he calls his own sheep by name, and he leads them out.
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When he has brought them out, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him, because they know his voice.
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They will not follow someone else; instead, they will run away from such a person, because they do not know his voice."
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Jesus told them this parable, but they did not understand what he meant.
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So Jesus said again, "I am telling you the truth: I am the gate for the sheep.
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All others who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
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I am the gate. Those who come in by me will be saved; they will come in and go out and find pasture.
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The thief comes only in order to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come in order that you might have life---life in all its fullness.
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"I am the good shepherd, who is willing to die for the sheep.
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When the hired man, who is not a shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees a wolf coming, he leaves the sheep and runs away; so the wolf snatches the sheep and scatters them.
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The hired man runs away because he is only a hired man and does not care about the sheep.
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I am the good shepherd. As the Father knows me and I know the Father, in the same way I know my sheep and they know me. And I am willing to die for them.
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There are other sheep which belong to me that are not in this sheep pen. I must bring them, too; they will listen to my voice, and they will become one flock with one shepherd.
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"The Father loves me because I am willing to give up my life, in order that I may receive it back again.
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No one takes my life away from me. I give it up of my own free will. I have the right to give it up, and I have the right to take it back. This is what my Father has commanded me to do."
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Again there was a division among the people because of these words.
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Many of them were saying, "He has a demon! He is crazy! Why do you listen to him?"
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But others were saying, "A man with a demon could not talk like this! How could a demon give sight to blind people?"
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It was winter, and the Festival of the Dedication of the Temple was being celebrated in Jerusalem.
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Jesus was walking in Solomon's Porch in the Temple,
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when the people gathered around him and asked, "How long are you going to keep us in suspense? Tell us the plain truth: are you the Messiah?"
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Jesus answered, "I have already told you, but you would not believe me. The deeds I do by my Father's authority speak on my behalf;
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but you will not believe, for you are not my sheep.
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My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.
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I give them eternal life, and they shall never die. No one can snatch them away from me.
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What my Father has given me is greater than everything, and no one can snatch them away from the Father's care.
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The Father and I are one."
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Then the people again picked up stones to throw at him.
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Jesus said to them, "I have done many good deeds in your presence which the Father gave me to do; for which one of these do you want to stone me?"
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They answered, "We do not want to stone you because of any good deeds, but because of your blasphemy! You are only a man, but you are trying to make yourself God!"
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Jesus answered, "It is written in your own Law that God said, 'You are gods.'
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We know that what the scripture says is true forever; and God called those people gods, the people to whom his message was given.
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As for me, the Father chose me and sent me into the world. How, then, can you say that I blaspheme because I said that I am the Son of God?
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Do not believe me, then, if I am not doing the things my Father wants me to do.
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But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, you should at least believe my deeds, in order that you may know once and for all that the Father is in me and that I am in the Father."
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Once more they tried to seize Jesus, but he slipped out of their hands.
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Jesus then went back again across the Jordan River to the place where John had been baptizing, and he stayed there.
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Many people came to him. "John performed no miracles," they said, "but everything he said about this man was true."
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And many people there believed in him.
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A man named Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, became sick. Bethany was the town where Mary and her sister Martha lived.
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(This Mary was the one who poured the perfume on the Lord's feet and wiped them with her hair; it was her brother Lazarus who was sick.)
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The sisters sent Jesus a message: "Lord, your dear friend is sick."
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When Jesus heard it, he said, "The final result of this sickness will not be the death of Lazarus; this has happened in order to bring glory to God, and it will be the means by which the Son of God will receive glory."
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Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.
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Yet when he received the news that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was for two more days.
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Then he said to the disciples, "Let us go back to Judea."
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"Teacher," the disciples answered, "just a short time ago the people there wanted to stone you; and are you planning to go back?"
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Jesus said, "A day has twelve hours, doesn't it? So those who walk in broad daylight do not stumble, for they see the light of this world.
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But if they walk during the night they stumble, because they have no light."
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Jesus said this and then added, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up."
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The disciples answered, "If he is asleep, Lord, he will get well."
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Jesus meant that Lazarus had died, but they thought he meant natural sleep.
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So Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead,
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but for your sake I am glad that I was not with him, so that you will believe. Let us go to him."
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Thomas (called the Twin) said to his fellow disciples, "Let us all go along with the Teacher, so that we may die with him!"
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When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been buried four days before.
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Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem,
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and many Judeans had come to see Martha and Mary to comfort them about their brother's death.
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When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house.
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Martha said to Jesus, "If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died!
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But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for."
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"Your brother will rise to life," Jesus told her.
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"I know," she replied, "that he will rise to life on the last day."
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Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die;
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and those who live and believe in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
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"Yes, Lord!" she answered. "I do believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world."
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After Martha said this, she went back and called her sister Mary privately. "The Teacher is here," she told her, "and is asking for you."
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When Mary heard this, she got up and hurried out to meet him.
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(Jesus had not yet arrived in the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.)
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The people who were in the house with Mary comforting her followed her when they saw her get up and hurry out. They thought that she was going to the grave to weep there.
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Mary arrived where Jesus was, and as soon as she saw him, she fell at his feet. "Lord," she said, "if you had been here, my brother would not have died!"
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Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people with her were weeping also; his heart was touched, and he was deeply moved.
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"Where have you buried him?" he asked them. "Come and see, Lord," they answered.
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"See how much he loved him!" the people said.
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But some of them said, "He gave sight to the blind man, didn't he? Could he not have kept Lazarus from dying?"
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Deeply moved once more, Jesus went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone placed at the entrance.
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"Take the stone away!" Jesus ordered. Martha, the dead man's sister, answered, "There will be a bad smell, Lord. He has been buried four days!"
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Jesus said to her, "Didn't I tell you that you would see God's glory if you believed?"
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They took the stone away. Jesus looked up and said, "I thank you, Father, that you listen to me.
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I know that you always listen to me, but I say this for the sake of the people here, so that they will believe that you sent me."
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After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, "Lazarus, come out!"
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He came out, his hands and feet wrapped in grave cloths, and with a cloth around his face. "Untie him," Jesus told them, "and let him go."
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Many of the people who had come to visit Mary saw what Jesus did, and they believed in him.
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But some of them returned to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
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So the Pharisees and the chief priests met with the Council and said, "What shall we do? Look at all the miracles this man is performing!
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If we let him go on in this way, everyone will believe in him, and the Roman authorities will take action and destroy our Temple and our nation!"
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One of them, named Caiaphas, who was High Priest that year, said, "What fools you are!
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Don't you realize that it is better for you to have one man die for the people, instead of having the whole nation destroyed?"
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Actually, he did not say this of his own accord; rather, as he was High Priest that year, he was prophesying that Jesus was going to die for the Jewish people,
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and not only for them, but also to bring together into one body all the scattered people of God.
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From that day on the Jewish authorities made plans to kill Jesus.
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So Jesus did not travel openly in Judea, but left and went to a place near the desert, to a town named Ephraim, where he stayed with the disciples.
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The time for the Passover Festival was near, and many people went up from the country to Jerusalem to perform the ritual of purification before the festival.
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They were looking for Jesus, and as they gathered in the Temple, they asked one another, "What do you think? Surely he will not come to the festival, will he?"
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The chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where Jesus was, he must report it, so that they could arrest him.
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Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, the man he had raised from death.
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They prepared a dinner for him there, which Martha helped serve; Lazarus was one of those who were sitting at the table with Jesus.
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Then Mary took a whole pint of a very expensive perfume made of pure nard, poured it on Jesus' feet, and wiped them with her hair. The sweet smell of the perfume filled the whole house.
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One of Jesus' disciples, Judas Iscariot---the one who was going to betray him---said,
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"Why wasn't this perfume sold for three hundred silver coins and the money given to the poor?"
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He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. He carried the money bag and would help himself from it.
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But Jesus said, "Leave her alone! Let her keep what she has for the day of my burial.
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You will always have poor people with you, but you will not always have me."
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A large number of people heard that Jesus was in Bethany, so they went there, not only because of Jesus but also to see Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from death.
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So the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus too,
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because on his account many Jews were rejecting them and believing in Jesus.
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The next day the large crowd that had come to the Passover Festival heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem.
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So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, shouting, "Praise God! God bless him who comes in the name of the Lord! God bless the King of Israel!"
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Jesus found a donkey and rode on it, just as the scripture says,
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"Do not be afraid, city of Zion! Here comes your king, riding on a young donkey."
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His disciples did not understand this at the time; but when Jesus had been raised to glory, they remembered that the scripture said this about him and that they had done this for him.
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The people who had been with Jesus when he called Lazarus out of the grave and raised him from death had reported what had happened.
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That was why the crowd met him---because they heard that he had performed this miracle.
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The Pharisees then said to one another, "You see, we are not succeeding at all! Look, the whole world is following him!"
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Some Greeks were among those who had gone to Jerusalem to worship during the festival.
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They went to Philip (he was from Bethsaida in Galilee) and said, "Sir, we want to see Jesus."
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Philip went and told Andrew, and the two of them went and told Jesus.
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Jesus answered them, "The hour has now come for the Son of Man to receive great glory.
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I am telling you the truth: a grain of wheat remains no more than a single grain unless it is dropped into the ground and dies. If it does die, then it produces many grains.
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Those who love their own life will lose it; those who hate their own life in this world will keep it for life eternal.
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Whoever wants to serve me must follow me, so that my servant will be with me where I am. And my Father will honor anyone who serves me.
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"Now my heart is troubled---and what shall I say? Shall I say, 'Father, do not let this hour come upon me'? But that is why I came---so that I might go through this hour of suffering.
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Father, bring glory to your name!" Then a voice spoke from heaven, "I have brought glory to it, and I will do so again."
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The crowd standing there heard the voice, and some of them said it was thunder, while others said, "An angel spoke to him!"
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But Jesus said to them, "It was not for my sake that this voice spoke, but for yours.
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Now is the time for this world to be judged; now the ruler of this world will be overthrown.
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When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to me."
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(In saying this he indicated the kind of death he was going to suffer.)
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The crowd answered, "Our Law tells us that the Messiah will live forever. How, then, can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?"
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Jesus answered, "The light will be among you a little longer. Continue on your way while you have the light, so that the darkness will not come upon you; for the one who walks in the dark does not know where he is going.
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Believe in the light, then, while you have it, so that you will be the people of the light." After Jesus said this, he went off and hid himself from them.
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Even though he had performed all these miracles in their presence, they did not believe in him,
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so that what the prophet Isaiah had said might come true: "Lord, who believed the message we told? To whom did the Lord reveal his power?"
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And so they were not able to believe, because Isaiah also said,
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"God has blinded their eyes and closed their minds, so that their eyes would not see, and their minds would not understand, and they would not turn to me, says God, for me to heal them."
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Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about him.
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Even then, many Jewish authorities believed in Jesus; but because of the Pharisees they did not talk about it openly, so as not to be expelled from the synagogue.
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They loved human approval rather than the approval of God.
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Jesus said in a loud voice, "Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in him who sent me.
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Whoever sees me sees also him who sent me.
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I have come into the world as light, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in the darkness.
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If people hear my message and do not obey it, I will not judge them. I came, not to judge the world, but to save it.
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Those who reject me and do not accept my message have one who will judge them. The words I have spoken will be their judge on the last day!
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This is true, because I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has commanded me what I must say and speak.
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And I know that his command brings eternal life. What I say, then, is what the Father has told me to say."
