New Testament in a Year
14 The Passover observance began two days later—an annual Jewish holiday when no bread made with yeast was eaten. The chief priests and other Jewish leaders were still looking for an opportunity to arrest Jesus secretly and put him to death.
2 “But we can’t do it during the Passover,” they said, “or there will be a riot.”
3 Meanwhile Jesus was in Bethany, at the home of Simon the leper; during supper a woman came in with a beautiful flask of expensive perfume. Then, breaking the seal, she poured it over his head.
4-5 Some of those at the table were indignant among themselves about this “waste,” as they called it.
“Why, she could have sold that perfume for a fortune and given the money to the poor!” they snarled.
6 But Jesus said, “Leave her alone; why berate her for doing a good thing? 7 You always have the poor among you, and they badly need your help, and you can aid them whenever you want to; but I won’t be here much longer.
8 “She has done what she could and has anointed my body ahead of time for burial. 9 And I tell you this in solemn truth, that wherever the Good News is preached throughout the world, this woman’s deed will be remembered and praised.”
10 Then Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, went to the chief priests to arrange to betray Jesus to them.
11 When the chief priests heard why he had come, they were excited and happy and promised him a reward. So he began looking for the right time and place to betray Jesus.
12 On the first day of the Passover, the day the lambs were sacrificed, his disciples asked him where he wanted to go to eat the traditional Passover supper. 13 He sent two of them into Jerusalem to make the arrangements.
“As you are walking along,” he told them, “you will see a man coming toward you carrying a pot of water. Follow him. 14 At the house he enters, tell the man in charge, ‘Our Master sent us to see the room you have ready for us, where we will eat the Passover supper this evening!’ 15 He will take you upstairs to a large room all set up. Prepare our supper there.”
16 So the two disciples went on ahead into the city and found everything as Jesus had said, and prepared the Passover.
17 In the evening Jesus arrived with the other disciples, 18 and as they were sitting around the table eating, Jesus said, “I solemnly declare that one of you will betray me, one of you who is here eating with me.”
19 A great sadness swept over them, and one by one they asked him, “Am I the one?”
20 He replied, “It is one of you twelve eating with me now. 21 I[a] must die, as the prophets declared long ago; but, oh, the misery ahead for the man by whom I am betrayed. Oh, that he had never been born!”
22 As they were eating, Jesus took bread and asked God’s blessing on it and broke it in pieces and gave it to them and said, “Eat it—this is my body.”
23 Then he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it and gave it to them; and they all drank from it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood, poured out for many, sealing the new agreement[b] between God and man. 25 I solemnly declare that I shall never again taste wine until the day I drink a different kind[c] in the Kingdom of God.”
26 Then they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives.
The Living Bible copyright © 1971 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.