1. NOW the feast of the pasch, and of the Azymes was after two days; and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might by some wile lay hold on him, and kill him.
2. But they said: Not on the festival day, lest there should be a tumult among the people.
3. And when he was in Bethania, in the house of Simon the leper, and was at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of precious spikenard: and breaking the alabaster box, she poured it out upon his head.
4. Now there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said: Why was this waste of the ointment made?
5. For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and given to the poor. And they murmured against her.
6. But Jesus said: Let her alone, why do you molest her? She hath wrought a good work upon me.
7. For the poor you have always with you: and whensoever you will, you may do them good: but me you have not always.
8. She hath done what she could: she is come beforehand to anoint my body for burial.
9. Amen, I say to you, wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, that also which she hath done, shall be told for a memorial of her.