Matthew 26:1-16

Revised Standard Version

The Plot to Kill Jesus

26 When Jesus had finished all these sayings, he said to his disciples, ² “You know that after two days the Passover is coming, and the Son of man will be delivered up to be crucified.”

³ Then the chief priests and the elders of the people gathered in the palace of the high priest, who was called Ca′iaphas, ⁴ and took counsel together in order to arrest Jesus by stealth and kill him. ⁵ But they said, “Not during the feast, lest there be a tumult among the people.”

The Anointing at Bethany

⁶ Now when Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, ⁷ a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head, as he sat at table. ⁸ But when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying, “Why this waste? ⁹ For this ointment might have been sold for a large sum, and given to the poor.” ¹⁰ But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? For she has done a beautiful thing to me. ¹¹ For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. ¹² In pouring this ointment on my body she has done it to prepare me for burial. ¹³ Truly, I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

Judas Agrees to Betray Jesus

¹⁴ Then one of the twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests ¹⁵ and said, “What will you give me if I deliver him to you?” And they paid him thirty pieces of silver. ¹⁶ And from that moment he sought an opportunity to betray him.