Mark 14:3-9

Revised Standard Version

The Anointing at Bethany

³ And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. ⁴ But there were some who said to themselves indignantly, “Why was the ointment thus wasted? ⁵ For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii,^[a] and given to the poor.” And they reproached her. ⁶ But Jesus said, “Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. ⁷ For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them; but you will not always have me. ⁸ She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burying. ⁹ And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”