1
Now the feast of the pasch and of the Azymes was after two days: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might by some wile lay hold on him and kill him.
2
But they said: Not on the festival day, lest there should be a tumult among the people.
3
And when he was in Bethania, in the house of Simon the leper, and was at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of precious spikenard. And breaking the alabaster box, she poured it out upon his head.
4
Now there were some that had indignation within themselves and said: Why was this waste of the ointment made?
5
For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred pence and given to the poor. And they murmured against her.
6
But Jesus said: Let her alone. Why do You molest her? She hath wrought a good work upon me.
7
For the poor you have always with you: and whensoever you will, you may do them good: but me you have not always.
8
She hath done what she could: she is come beforehand to anoint my body for the burial.
9
Amen, I say to you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she hath done shall be told for a memorial of her.
10
And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests, to betray him to them.
11
Who hearing it were glad: and they promised him they would give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently betray him.