Ezekiel 37: 1 14

The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry.
He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?”
I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.
Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,” says the Lord.    (NRSV)

Romans 8: 6 11

To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law – indeed it cannot, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.    (NRSV)

John 11: 1 45

A man named Lazarus, who lived in Bethany, was ill. Bethany was the town where Mary and her sister Martha lived. (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 ill.) The sisters sent Jesus a message: “Lord, your dear friend is ill.”
When Jesus heard it, he said, “The final result of this illness 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.”
Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. Yet when he received the news that Lazarus was ill, he stayed where he was for two more days. Then he said to the disciples, “Let us go back to Judaea.”
“Teacher,” the disciples answered, “just a short time ago the people there wanted to stone you; and are you planning to go back?”
Jesus said, “A day has twelve hours, hasn’t it? So whoever walks in broad daylight does not stumble, for he sees the light of this world. But if he walks during the night he stumbles, because he has no light.” Jesus said this and then added, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I will go and wake him up.”
The disciples answered, “If he is asleep, Lord, he will get well.”
Jesus meant that Lazarus had died, but they thought he meant natural sleep. So Jesus told them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, but for your sake I am glad that I was not with him, so that you will believe. Let us go to him.”
Thomas (called the Twin) said to his fellow-disciples, “Let us all go with the Teacher, so that we may die with him!”
When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had been buried four days before. Bethany was less than three kilometres from Jerusalem, and many Judaeans had come to see Martha and Mary to comfort them over their brother’s death. When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed in the house.
Martha said to Jesus, “If you had been here, Lord, my brother would not have died! But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask him for.”
“Your brother will rise to life,” Jesus told her.
“I know,” she replied, “that he will rise to life on the last day.”
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
“Yes, Lord!” she answered. “I do believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.”
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.”
When Mary heard this, she got up and hurried out to meet him. (Jesus had not yet arrived in the village, but was still in the place where Martha had met him.) 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. 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!”
Jesus saw her weeping, and he saw how the people who were with her were weeping also; he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.
“Where have you buried him?” he asked them.
“Come and see, Lord,” they answered.
Jesus wept.
“See how much he loved him!” the people said.
But some of them said, “He gave sight to the blind man, didn’t he? Could he not have kept Lazarus from dying?”
Again groaning in himself, Jesus went to the tomb, which was a cave with a stone placed at the entrance.
“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!”
Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believed?”
They took the stone away.
Jesus looked up and said, “I thank you, Father, that you listen to me. 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.”
After he had said this, he called out in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!”
He came out, his hands and feet wrapped in grave clothes, and with a cloth round his face.
“Untie him,” Jesus told them, “and let him go.”
Many of the people who had come to visit Mary saw what Jesus did, and they believed in him.    (TEV)