John 11:35 — “Jesus wept”
Two words, eleven characters, and the shortest verse in an English Bible: Jesus wept. The detail almost nobody mentions is that he weeps after announcing Lazarus is dead, after deliberately staying away two extra days, and minutes before calling him out of the tomb. He is not crying because he does not know how this ends. Below is the whole scene in both translations.
Jesus wept.John 11:35 · World English Bible
John 11:35 in the King James Version
The King James wording is identical — Jesus wept. — which is unusual, and part of why the line has travelled so far intact. Public domain in both translations, so quote it anywhere without asking anyone.
Jesus wept.John 11:35 · King James Version
Line by line
John 11:1-6
Now a certain man was sick, Lazarus from Bethany, of the village of Mary and her sister, Martha. It was that Mary who had anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus, was sick. The sisters therefore sent to him, saying, “Lord, behold, he for whom you have great affection is sick.” But when Jesus heard it, he said, “This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that God’s Son may be glorified by it.” Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus. When therefore he heard that he was sick, he stayed two days in the place where he was.
The setup, and the first strange thing. Word reaches him that Lazarus is ill. He says the sickness is not to death, and then — the text is blunt about it — he stayed two days in the place where he was. The delay is deliberate.
John 11:14-15
So Jesus said to them plainly then, “Lazarus is dead. I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe. Nevertheless, let’s go to him.”
The second strange thing. He says plainly that Lazarus is dead, and that he is glad he was not there. Whatever is coming, he has known about it since before he set off.
John 11:25-26
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Said to Martha at the roadside, before the tomb. This is the sentence that opens most funeral services in the English-speaking world — and it is spoken here to one grieving sister, not to a congregation.
John 11:33-36
When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews weeping who came with her, he groaned in the spirit and was troubled, and said, “Where have you laid him?” They told him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. The Jews therefore said, “See how much affection he had for him!”
The verse in its sentence. Note what surrounds it: he groaned in the spirit and was troubled before, and the onlookers read the tears as affection after. Serenity is not what is being described.
John 11:38-44
Jesus therefore, again groaning in himself, came to the tomb. Now it was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to him, “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see God’s glory?” So they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you listened to me. I know that you always listen to me, but because of the multitude standing around I said this, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” He who was dead came out, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Free him, and let him go.”
And then, minutes later, he raises him. The stone, the stench, the four days, the loud voice. The weeping and the raising are the same visit.
He already knew
This is the whole point of the verse and it is easy to miss, because the famous line is usually quoted on its own.
Three separate details, all in the passage above, establish that Jesus knows exactly what is about to happen. He says at the outset that the sickness is not to death. He hears Lazarus is ill and then deliberately waits two days before setting out. And on the road he tells the disciples flatly: Lazarus is dead. I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe.
He arrives with a plan. He is minutes from the loud voice and the stone rolled away. And standing in front of Mary, in front of a crowd of people crying, he cries too.
That is what makes the shortest verse in the Bible worth the space it takes. Grief here is not ignorance of the ending. Knowing that it works out does not exempt him from weeping about it, and the text does not present the tears as a failure of nerve or a lapse in faith. It just reports them, and then he gets on with it.
Is it really the shortest verse?
In English, yes. Jesus wept. is eleven characters including the full stop, and no verse in a standard English Bible is shorter.
In Greek, no. The usual rival is 1 Thessalonians 5:16, which the World English Bible renders:
Always rejoice.1 Thessalonians 5:16 · World English Bible
Both are two words in English. But in the Greek, 1 Thessalonians 5:16 runs to fourteen letters against John 11:35's sixteen, so the Greek title goes to the other one. Verse divisions themselves are a much later invention than either sentence, which makes the whole contest a mild curiosity rather than a fact about Scripture.
Worth knowing if you are about to put "the shortest verse in the Bible" on something permanent: it is true, with in English doing quiet work in that sentence.
Why it gets read at funerals
Because it is the shortest possible answer to the question people are actually asking, which is not usually theological.
Two verses of this same chapter do most of the work at a graveside. John 11:25-26 — I am the resurrection and the life — is the opening sentence of the Book of Common Prayer burial service. And John 11:35 is what gets quoted afterwards, usually by someone who does not want to say anything longer.
It earns that. A passage promising that everything will be restored can be hard to hear in the first week. A verse reporting that God, standing at a grave and knowing the outcome, cried — that asks nothing of the person hearing it.
Both are on our funeral readings page, quoted in full and free to print in an order of service.
What it does not say
- It does not say why. The onlookers guess — see how much affection he had for him — but that is their reading, reported as theirs. The text itself gives no reason.
- It is not the only emotion in the scene. He groaned in the spirit and was troubled at verse 33, and is again groaning in himself at 38. Whatever is happening is more turbulent than the two quiet words on their own suggest.
- It does not promise your outcome. Lazarus walks out; that is what the chapter is for. It is not a general assurance that everyone's does, and reading it that way at a graveside asks the verse to carry something it never claims.
When it gets read
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Funerals and memorial services
Usually alongside John 11:25-26 from the same chapter, and often said rather than read from a lectern. See funeral readings.
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Sitting with someone who is grieving
The passage people reach for when they have run out of things to say and are right to stop talking. More on that in verses for grief.
What this looks like on a phone
Push From God sends a passage when it fits what you've told it about your week — not on a schedule you have to keep up with.
For the third day of this
Jesus wept.
John 11:35
Two words. He knew how it ended and cried anyway — that's the whole verse.
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Questions
What is the shortest verse in the Bible?
John 11:35 — “Jesus wept.” — at eleven characters, in English. In the original Greek the shorter one is 1 Thessalonians 5:16, at fourteen letters against sixteen. Both are two words in English.
Why did Jesus weep in John 11:35?
The text does not say. The onlookers assume affection — “see how much affection he had for him” — but that is reported as their interpretation, not as the reason. What the passage does establish is that he already knew he was about to raise Lazarus, so the tears are not confusion about the outcome.
Did Jesus know he was going to raise Lazarus?
Yes, and the chapter says so three times before verse 35: he calls the sickness “not to death”, he deliberately waits two days before travelling, and he tells the disciples plainly that Lazarus is dead and that he is glad he was not there. All three passages are quoted in full above.
Can I print or reproduce John 11:35?
Yes, freely. Both the World English Bible and the King James Version are public domain, and the wording is identical in each, so you can put it on an order of service, a card or a headstone with no licence and no fee. Modern translations such as the NIV and ESV are copyrighted.