Mark 14

Mark 14 is the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of Mark in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It contains the plot to kill Jesus, his anointing by a woman, the Last Supper, predictions of his betrayal, and Peter the Apostle's three denials of him. It then begins the Passion of Jesus, with the garden of Gethsemane and Judas Iscariot's betrayal and Jesus' arrest, followed by Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin and Peter's denials of Jesus.

Having 72 verses, this is the longest chapter in Mark's Gospel. The Gospel of Matthew's chapter which covers the same material, Matthew 26, has 75 verses. This chapter's material is presented somewhat differently in Luke 22, which has 71 verses. Jesus' arrest at Gethsemane, his trial, and Peter's denials are found in John 18:1–27.

The original text was written in Koine Greek.

Some early manuscripts containing the text of this chapter are:

Mark states at the beginning of this chapter that the Passover was two days away, although Lutheran pietist Johann Bengel argues in his Gnomon of the New Testament that μετὰ δυὸ ἡμέρας (meta duo hēmeras) in Mark 14:1 means "on the following day". If the Passover was on Friday (Good Friday) then the opening events "probably" happened on the Wednesday, the day celebrated by Christians as Holy Wednesday. Verse 12 moves the narrative on to on the first day of Unleavened Bread, the afternoon of the 14th Nisan, and the action continues overnight (verses 27, 30) and concludes the next morning as a rooster crows. Henry Alford notes that "chronological difficulties ... beset this part of the gospel history".

Mark states that the chief priests were looking for a way "by craft", or "by trickery" to arrest Jesus. They determine not to do this during the feast, because they were afraid that the people would riot. Some translations emphasise the proposed subtlety or trickery in the priests' approach; others emphasise that they were looking for secrecy, to avoid popular knowledge of his arrest. Meanwhile, Jesus was in Bethany at the home of Simon the Leper, who has not appeared in this gospel until now. Simon's relationship to Jesus is not explored, but they must have been friends as this appears to have been a social visit. According to the Markan narrative, Jesus is arrested on the following evening.

An unnamed woman, who has a very expensive jar or box of perfume, made of "pure", "expensive" or "genuine" (πιστικῆς, pistikēs) nard, or nard from some specific place, comes and breaks the alabaster jar containing the perfume, and pours it on Jesus' head. Theologian Albert Barnes suggests that she broke the seal of the box, not the actual container. Augustine, in reviewing how this incident fits with John 12:3, where the feet of Jesus were anointed, suggests that both his head and his feet were anointed, and that a person "of a more pious spirit will contend that it was not broken so as to pour out the whole, or else that the feet were anointed before it was broken, so that there remained in the unbroken box enough to anoint the head".

Some unnamed people gathered in the house become angry and say that this is a waste: the perfume could have been sold for 300 denarii and the proceeds given to the poor. Jesus, however, is pleased with her and rebukes her critics: