of the Lord....
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
They shall prosper that love thee.'"

A few days more, and they would sacrifice their lambs in the Temple.
They would pray God to be good to the Jews, and to save them from
their enemies. A few nights more, and they would sit down to eat the
roasted flesh of the lambs at the Passover feast; and when they had
eaten they would sing:

"'O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good:
For his mercy endureth for ever.'"

Jesus and the disciples came out of the desert, and paused among the
olive groves near the village of Bethany. Now only the Mount of Olives
and the brook called Kidron stood between Jesus and Jerusalem. Already
the Passover pilgrims were pouring through the gates of the city and
up to the Temple. It was hard for all the pilgrims to find places to
stay during the week of the Passover. Here at Bethany, Jesus had
friends who loved him, and here he found a place in which to stay.

A man named Simon, whom Jesus once cured of the dreaded leprosy, had a
house in Bethany where Jesus was welcome. There also was a woman in
Bethany whose name was Mary. She thought that nothing was too much to
give to Jesus. Like another woman who once made the Pharisees angry,
she came to Jesus when he sat at dinner in Simon's house and poured
precious ointment on his head.

But this time it was not the Pharisees who were angry, for there were
no Pharisees in the house. It was Jesus' own disciples, especially
Judas Iscariot, who said that it was wrong to waste anything that cost
as much as the ointment. Judas spoke up and said, "Why was not this
ointment sold, and the money given to the poor?"

Judas did not really care about the poor. He looked after the money
for Jesus and the disciples, and when he wanted any, he secretly
helped himself out of what belonged to all of them. He thought that if
the precious ointment had been sold, there would have been more money
in the purse he carried.

When Jesus heard the disciples complaining about Mary's gift, he said:
"Let her alone. This is a good thing that she has done. There will
always be poor people, and you can give them all you like after I am
gone. But you will not have _me_ always. You know your custom is that
when your loved ones die you put ointment on their bodies before you
bury them. Well, Mary has come to get me ready to be buried, before I
am even dead. I tell you, this woman's name will be remembered all
o