Mark 14:1-9 ▼

1 After two days was the passover and the feast of unleavened bread; and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and kill him.

2 But they said: Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult of the people.

3 And while he was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he reclined at table, there came a woman that had an alabaster box of ointment of pure nard, very costly; and she broke the box, and poured it on his head.

4 And some of them were displeased within themselves, and said: For what purpose was this waste of the ointment?

5 For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and given to the poor. And they murmured against her.

6 But Jesus said: Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good work on me.

7 For you have the poor with you always; and whenever you choose, you can do them good; but me you have not always.

8 She has done what she could; she has come beforehand to anoint my body for its burial.

9 Verily I say to you, wherever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also which she has done shall be told, for a memorial of her.