3 Meanwhile, Yeshua (Jesus; Grk. Yesus) was in Beyt-Ania (Bethany) at the home of Shim’on (Simon) who had previously had leprosy. Yeshua was sitting there when a woman came in with a hand-crafted container of very expensive fragrant lotion. Breaking open the sealed flask, she poured the fragrant oil over Yeshua’s head.[ref] 4 Immediately some in the room started quietly grumbling about the extravagant waste, 5 ⇔then they scolded the woman because a flask of genuine lotion like that could easily fetch almost a year’s wages if it was sold.

6 But Yeshua spoke up, “What do you think you’re all doing abusing her—leave her alone! She’s done something very good for me. 7 You’ll always have poor people around,[ref] and you can help them whenever you want to, but I won’t be around forever. 8 She has performed the traditional anointing of my body in advance of my burial, 9 and I can assure you all, that wherever the good message is proclaimed around the world, what she has done today will be part of the story and she’ll be remembered for it.”