The scribes and Pharisees took counsel with the high priest to slay Lazarus; for many renounced their traditions and believed in the word of Jesus, because the miracle of Lazarus was a great one, seeing that Lazarus had conversation with men, and ate and drank. But because he was powerful, having a following in Jerusalem, and possessing with his sister Magdala and Bethany, they knew not what to do.
Jesus entered into Bethany, into the house of Lazarus, and Martha, with Mary, ministered to him. *Mary, sitting one day at the feet of Jesus, was listening to his words, whereupon Martha said to Jesus: ‘Lord, see you not that my sister takes no care for you, and provides not that which you must eat and your disciples?’ Jesus answered: ‘Martha, Martha, do you take thought for that which you should do; for Mary has chosen a part which shall not be taken away from her for ever.
Jesus, sitting at table with a great multitude that believed in him, spoke, saying: ‘Brethren, I have but little time to remain with you, for the time is at hand that I must depart from the world. Wherefore I bring to your mind the words of God spoken to Ezekiel ;the prophet, saying: “As I, your God, live eternally, the soul that sins, it shall die, but if the sinner shall repent he shall not die but live.” Wherefore the present death is not death, but rather the end of a long death: even as the body when separated from the sense in a swoon, though it have the soul within it, has no other advantage over the dead and buried save this, that the buried [body] awaits God to raise it again, but the unconscious waits for the sense to return. Behold, then, the present life that it is death, through having no perception of God.