1. It was two days before the Passover and the Festival of Unleavened Bread. The chief priests and the experts in Moses’ Teachings were looking for some underhanded way to arrest Jesus and to kill him.
2. However, they said, “We shouldn’t arrest him during the festival, or else there will be a riot among the people.”
3. Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon, a man who had suffered from a skin disease. While Jesus was sitting there, a woman went to him. She had a bottle of very expensive perfume made from pure nard. She opened the bottle and poured the perfume on his head.
4. Some who were there were irritated and said to one another, “Why was the perfume wasted like this?
5. This perfume could have been sold for a high price, and the money could have been given to the poor.” So they said some very unkind things to her.