1
It was two days before the Passover and the festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him;
2
for they said, "Not during the festival, or there may be a riot among the people."
3
While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head.
4
But some were there who said to one another in anger, "Why was the ointment wasted in this way?
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For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor." And they scolded her.
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But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me.
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For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me.
8
She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial.
9
Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."