1 Jesus went to Bethany again 6 days before the Jewish Passover ceremony started. Bethany was the town where he made Lazarus come alive again. 2 After Jesus got to that town, the people there put on a special dinner for him. Lazarus and some other people sat at the table with Jesus, and Lazarus’s sister, Martha, gave them the food.

3 Then Mary came into the room with a big bottle of special perfume, that cost a lot of money. It was made from a plant called nard. Mary put that perfume all over Jesus’s feet, then she wiped his feet with her hair. The sweet smell of the perfume went right through the house.* Luke 7:37-38

4 Judas Iscariot was there with Jesus’s other followers. (He was the one that turned against Jesus later.) He said, 5 “Why did she waste that perfume? Why didn’t she let us sell it? We can get more money than a man gets for working for a whole year, and then we can give that money to poor people.” 6 But, you know, Judas didn’t really feel sorry for poor people. He was the one that looked after the money bag, and sometimes he stole some of that money for himself.

7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She kept this oil to pour on my feet, like she knows that I am going to die soon. She is getting my body ready for people to bury me. 8 You will always have poor people with you, but you will not always have me with you.”* Deuteronomy 15:11

9 The people in that country heard that Jesus was in Bethany, and a big mob went to see him. They wanted to see Lazarus too, the man that Jesus made alive again. 10-11 And when they heard about how Jesus made him alive again, a lot of people believed in Jesus. And they stopped following the bosses of the Jewish ceremonies. Those bosses didn’t like that, so they started to work out a way to kill Jesus, and to kill Lazarus too.

12 The next day, Jesus left Bethany and went to Jerusalem. A big mob of people were there for the Jewish Passover ceremony, and they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. 13 So they cut some branches off palm trees, and they went out to meet him. They shouted,

14-15 Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, to ride it into Jerusalem. You know, a long time ago, God got one of his men to write about that. He wrote this in God’s book,

17 Before that day, there were a lot of people that kept on telling everyone, “We heard Jesus call to Lazarus and tell him to come out of the cave. We saw Jesus make him alive again.” 18 Then the people that heard that story wanted to see Jesus too, so a big mob went out to meet him that day when he was on the young donkey.

19 The Pharisee mob were there too. They didn’t want Jesus because they were strong for the Jewish law. They said to each other, “Look, we still haven’t stopped this man. Everyone is starting to follow him.”

20 There were some Greek people in the mob there at Jerusalem. They came to show respect to God at the Passover ceremony. 21 Those Greek people went to see Philip, one of Jesus’s special workers. (He was from a town called Bethsayida, in Galilee country.) They said to Philip, “Sir, we want to meet Jesus.” 22 Philip went and told Andrew, and then they went together and told Jesus.

23 Jesus said to them, “It is nearly time for God to show everyone that his special man from heaven is really powerful. 24 Listen carefully to this picture story. A wheat seed has to fall into the ground and die, so that it can make a big mob of new seeds. If it never dies, and if it never gets buried, it will never make new seeds. You see, I will die like the seed in that picture story. 25 And it is the same for everybody. If a person loves their life a lot and only cares about their life here in this world, they will not live for ever. But if they don’t worry about their life here in this world, they will live with God for ever.* Matthew 10:39; 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24; 17:33 26 If anyone wants to work for me, they have to follow me. Wherever I go, my workers will go. And if anyone works for me, my father will say they are good.

27 It is nearly time now for my trouble to start. I am very sad and worried. I don’t know what to say to my father. I might say, ‘Father, save me. I don’t want to go through the trouble that is coming to me.’ But I can’t say that. No. I came to the world to have this trouble.”

28 Then Jesus said, “Father, show people that you are really great.”

Straight away, God talked from heaven. He said, “I already showed them that I am great, and I will show them again.”

29 Some of the people standing there thought they heard thunder, but other people there said, “No. An angel messenger talked to him.”

30 Jesus said to them, “That voice came to help you, not to help me.”

31-33 Then Jesus told them how he was going to die. He said, “Soon my enemies are going to lift me up to die on a cross, and then I will call everyone to come to me. And when I die, God will judge everyone in the world. And you know, the boss over the bad spirits is the boss over this world too, but when I die, God will stop his power so he can’t be the boss over the world any more.”

34 But the people in the crowd said, “God’s book says that the Christ, the special man that God promised to send to save us, he will live for ever. But you say that they will lift up the man from heaven and put him on a cross to die. Are you talking about the same man? Who is this man from heaven?”* Psalm 110:4; Isaiah 9:7; Ezekiel 37:25; Daniel 7:14

35 Jesus said, “I am like a light shining for you. You see, I am telling you the true message. But I will only be here with you a little bit longer. So while I am here, you have to listen to my message and believe it. It’s like the light is shining and people have to walk about while there is light, because people that walk in the dark don’t know where they are going. So if you don’t listen properly to my message while I am here, then you will not know the right way to live, and it will be like you are always in the dark. 36 You have to listen to my message while I am still here, and you have to believe it, so that you will be my followers. Then it will be like you are living in the light that I’m shining for you.”

After Jesus said those things, he left that place and stayed away from those people, so they didn’t know where he was.

37 A lot of people saw Jesus do lots of powerful things, but they still did not believe in him. 38 So it happened the way God told Isaiah to write it, a long time ago. And it is in God’s book. He wrote these words,

42 But lots of people did believe in Jesus. Even some of the Jewish leaders believed in him. But those leaders didn’t tell anybody about it. You see, Jesus’s enemies, the Pharisee mob, they said, “If anyone believes in Jesus, we will not let them come to our meeting houses and pray to God with us.” So those leaders that believed in him stayed quiet. 43 They just wanted people to say good things about them. They didn’t worry about what God will say about them.

44 One day, Jesus shouted out, “Anyone that believes in me, is really believing in God. He is the one that sent me here. 45 And anyone that looks at me, can see God too. 46 I came to the world to tell people the true message, so that they can know the true message and believe in me. It’s like people were in the dark, but I came to be a light for them. 47 If somebody hears my words and doesn’t take any notice of them, I do not judge that person. I didn’t come to judge the people of the world, I came to save them. 48 But this will happen to the people that don’t believe in me and don’t take notice of my words. On the day when the world will finish up, they will stand in front of the judge, and the words that I said will make them guilty. You see, they didn’t believe my words, so they will stay guilty for ever. 49 You see, the words I said to you are not just mine. The father told me what to say, and he sent me here to tell you his message. 50 I know that his words have the power to get people to live with him for ever, so I tell you the words that he told me.”