First Reading
Reading from the prophecy of Ezekiel
Ezekiel 37, 21-28
Thus says the Lord God: “I will take the Israelites from the nations to which they have gone and gather them from all around to bring them back to their land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; there will be one king over all of them, and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms.
They will no longer defile themselves with their idols, their abominations, and all their transgressions; I will save them from all their apostasies in which they sinned, and I will purify them; they will be my people, and I will be their God.
My servant David will be their king, and they will all have one shepherd; they will follow my commandments and keep my decrees. They will live in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your ancestors lived; they and their children and grandchildren will live there forever; my servant David will be their king forever.
I will make an everlasting covenant of peace with them. I will establish them, make them grow, and put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people.
The nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when they see my sanctuary in their midst forever.”
Gospel
Reading from the holy gospel according to Saint John
John 11, 45-56
At that time, many of the Jews who had come to Mary and Martha’s house and had seen what Jesus did believed in him. But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done.
So the chief priests and the Pharisees convened the Sanhedrin and said, “What are we going to do? This man is performing many signs. If we leave him alone, all will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our land and our nation.”
But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing. You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people and not have the whole nation perish.” He did not say this on his own, but, since he was high priest for that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not only for the nation, but also to gather into one the dispersed children of God. So from that day on they plotted to kill him.
Therefore, Jesus no longer walked about openly among the Jews but departed from there to a region near the desert, to a town called Ephraim, and there he stayed with his disciples.
The Jewish Passover was near, and many from the surrounding area went up to Jerusalem before the Passover to purify themselves. They looked for Jesus in the temple area and said to one another, “What do you think? Will he not come to the feast?”