1  It was now two days before the Festival of Passover and Unleavened Bread.  The Chief Priests and the Teachers of the Law were looking for a way to arrest Jesus secretly and put him to death.  2  “We must not do it during the festival,” they said, “or the people might riot.”

3  Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon, a man who had suffered from a dreaded skin disease.  While Jesus was eating, a woman came in with an alabaster jar full of a very expensive perfume made of pure nard.  She broke the jar and poured the perfume on Jesus’ head.

4  Some of the people there became angry and said to one another, “What was the use of wasting the perfume?     5  It could have been sold for more than three hundred silver coins and the money given to the poor!”  And they criticised her harshly.