The Plot Against Jesus
When Jesus had finished all this teaching, he said to his disciples:
“You know that in two days’ time the Festival of the Passover will be here; and that the Son of Man is to be given up to be crucified.”
Then the Chief Priests and the Councillors of the nation met in the house of the High Priest, who was called Caiaphas, and plotted together to arrest Jesus by stealth and put him to death; but they said: “Not during the Festival, for fear of causing a riot.”
Jesus Anointed By A Woman At Bethany
After Jesus had reached Bethany, and while he was in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came up to him with an alabaster jar of very costly perfume, and poured the perfume upon his head as he was at table. The disciples were indignant at seeing this.
“What is this waste for?” they exclaimed. “It could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to poor people.”
“Why are you troubling the woman?” Jesus said, when he noticed it “For this is a beautiful deed that she has done to me. You always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me. In pouring this perfume on my body, she has done it for my burying. I tell you, wherever, in the whole world, this Good News is proclaimed, what this woman has done will be told in memory of her.”
Judas Agrees To Betray Jesus
It was then that one of the Twelve, named Judas Iscariot, made his way to the Chief Priests, and said, ” What are you willing to give me, if I betray Jesus to you? The Priests “weighed him out thirty pieces of silver” as payment. So from that time Judas looked for an opportunity to betray Jesus.
—Matthew.
Woman Sets Her Own Price
Ah, wasteful woman!—she who may
On her sweet self set her own price,
Knowing he cannot choose but pay—
How has she cheapened Paradise!
How given for naught her priceless gift,
How spoiled the bread and spilled the wine,
Which, spent with due, respective thrift,
Had made brutes men, and men divine!
—Coventry Patmore.