1. After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests, and the scribes, sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death.
2. But they said, Not on the feast-day, lest there should be an uproar of the people.
3. And being in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard, very precious; and she broke the box, and poured it on his head.
4. And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?
5. For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.
6. And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.
7. For ye have the poor with you always, and whenever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.
8. She hath done what she could: she is come beforehand to anoint my body to the burying.
9. Verily I say to you, Wherever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of, for a memorial of her.
10. And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests, to betray him to them.
11. And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money. And he sought how he might conveniently betray him.
12. And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said to him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare, that thou mayest eat the passover?