Mark 14:1-9

Preparation for burial

1 It was two days before Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and legal experts through cunning tricks were searching for a way to arrest Jesus and kill him.
2 But they agreed that it shouldn't happen during the festival; otherwise, there would be an uproar among the people.
3 Jesus was at Bethany visiting the house of Simon, who had a skin disease. During dinner, a woman came in with a vase made of alabaster and containing very expensive perfume of pure nard. She broke open the vase and poured the perfume on his head.
4 Some grew angry. They said to each other, "Why waste the perfume?
5 This perfume could have been sold for almost a year's pay and the money given to the poor." And they scolded her.
6 Jesus said, " Leave her alone. Why do you make trouble for her? She has done a good thing for me.
7 You always have the poor with you; and whenever you want, you can do something good for them. But you won't always have me.
8 She has done what she could. She has anointed my body ahead of time for burial.
9 I tell you the truth that, wherever in the whole world the good news is announced, what she's done will also be told in memory of her."

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Or three hundred denaria; a denarion was equivalent to a day’s pay.
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