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It was now two days before the Festival of Passover and Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the teachers of the Law were looking for a way to arrest Jesus secretly and put him to death.
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"We must not do it during the festival," they said, "or the people might riot."
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Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon, a man who had suffered from a dreaded skin disease. While Jesus was eating, a woman came in with an alabaster jar full of a very expensive perfume made of pure nard. She broke the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus' head.
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Some of the people there became angry and said to one another, "What was the use of wasting the perfume?
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It could have been sold for more than three hundred silver coins and the money given to the poor!" And they criticized her harshly.
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But Jesus said, "Leave her alone! Why are you bothering her? She has done a fine and beautiful thing for me.
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You will always have poor people with you, and any time you want to, you can help them. But you will not always have me.
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She did what she could; she poured perfume on my body to prepare it ahead of time for burial.
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Now, I assure you that wherever the gospel is preached all over the world, what she has done will be told in memory of her."