Mark 14:1-9 ▼

1 Now it was two days before the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The high priests and the scribes were looking for a way to arrest Jesus secretly and to have him put to death,

2 because they kept saying, |This must not happen during the festival. Otherwise, there'll be a riot among the people.|

3 While Jesus was in Bethany sitting at the table in the home of Simon the leper, a woman arrived with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume made from pure nard. She broke open the jar and poured the perfume on his head.

4 Irritated, some who were there asked one another, |Why was the perfume wasted like this?

5 This perfume could have been sold for more than 300 denarii and the money given to the destitute.| So they got extremely angry with her.

6 But Jesus said, |Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing for me,

7 because you'll always have the destitute with you and can help them whenever you want, but you won't always have me.

8 She has done what she could. She poured perfume on my body in preparation for my burial.

9 I tell all of you with certainty, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will also be told as a memorial to her.|