1 The next day was Saturday. It was their rest day. When the sun went down, that rest day was finished. Then some women went and bought some perfume to put on Jesus’s body, so they could bury him the right way. They were Mary Magdalene, and Salomi, and Mary the mother of James.
1 And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him.
1 AND WHEN the Sabbath was past [that is, after the sun had set], Mary Magdalene, and Mary [the mother] of James, and Salome purchased sweet-smelling spices, so that they might go and anoint [Jesus' body].
1 And when the Sabbath had passed, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought aromatic spices, so that when they arrived they could anoint Jesus.
There were some women there at the cross too. Before this time, those women went everywhere with Jesus in Galilee country. They looked after him there, and after that, they came with him to Jerusalem. While Jesus was dying, they stood looking from a long way off. They were Mary Magdalene, and Salomi, and the other Mary that was the mother of young James and Joses, and some other women with them.
All this happened on the day before the Jewish people’s rest day. And it was going to be a really special rest day, because it was the time of the Passover ceremony. The Jewish leaders didn’t want the bodies to be on those crosses on their rest day, and in their culture a new day started when the sun went down. It was already afternoon, so they asked Pilate to get the soldiers to break the legs of the men on the crosses, so those men can die more quickly, and then they can take their bodies down before the sun went down.
There were 4 women standing near Jesus’s cross. They were his mother, and her sister, and Mary Magdalene, and another Mary that was the wife of Clopas.
The women didn’t know what to think. They were so frightened they were shaking. They came out of that cave and ran away. Those women were too frightened to talk to anybody. They just ran away. Nobody knows for sure the words that Mark wrote at the end of this story about Jesus. We don’t have the book that he wrote, we only have copies of it. Some of those copies end here, and some copies have the next bit from verse 9 to verse 20. Maybe somebody else wrote this ending to Mark’s book.
At the time, Jesus was at the town called Bethany. A man lived there that used to have a skin sickness, but then he got better. His name was Simon. Jesus went to Simon’s house, and he was eating dinner there. A woman came into the house with some special perfume in a pretty bottle. That perfume smelled really good and it cost a lot of money. She opened the bottle and poured the perfume on Jesus’s head.
That day that Jesus died was the day when the Jewish people got everything ready for their rest day. That rest day was going to start when it got dark.
Then Joseph talked to some of his workers. Joseph said to them, “My father Jacob died. Now I want you to get his body ready for the funeral. I want you to look after his body in that special way that you do for important people.” So those men worked on Jacob’s body to get it ready, then they put special oils and perfumes on his body, so that it will not rot away. Then they wrapped his body in long bits of cloth, and they put it in a special coffin.