Mark 14:1-11

1 Now the passover and the [feast of] unleavened bread was after two days. And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how they might seize him by subtlety and kill him.

2 For they said, Not in the feast, lest perhaps there be a tumult of the people.

3 And when he was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he lay at table, there came a woman having an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly; and having broken the alabaster flask, she poured it out upon his head.

4 And there were some indignant in themselves, and saying, Why has this waste been made of the ointment?

5 for this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor. And they spoke very angrily at her.

6 But Jesus said, Let her alone; why do ye trouble her? she has wrought a good work as to me;

7 for ye have the poor always with you, and whenever ye would ye can do them good; but me ye have not always.

8 What *she* could she has done. She has beforehand anointed my body for the burial.

9 And verily I say unto you, Wheresoever these glad tidings may be preached in the whole world, what this [woman] has done shall be also spoken of for a memorial of her.

10 And Judas Iscariote, one of the twelve, went away to the chief priests that he might deliver him up to them;

11 and they, when they heard it, rejoiced, and promised him to give money. And he sought how he could opportunely deliver him up.

Footnotes

• [a] See Note, Matt. 5.25.
• [b] Perhaps 'liquid.' The word is only found here and John 12.3, evidently a known kind of nard. It is by no means impossible it may be derived from the Latin spicatae, which was the best kind of nard; hence, doubtless, the English translation 'spikenard.' The sense is plain: that it was of the best and most precious kind. See Note, John 12.3.