Then they came to Jerusalem. Jesus entered the temple area and began to drive out those who were selling and buying in the temple courts. He turned over the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves,and he would not permit anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts.Then he began to teach them and said,“ Is it not written:‘ My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have turned it into a den of robbers!”
While Ezra was praying and confessing, weeping and throwing himself to the ground before the temple of God, a very large crowd of Israelites– men, women, and children alike– gathered around him. The people wept loudly.
When I heard this report, I tore my tunic and my robe and ripped out some of the hair from my head and beard. Then I sat down, quite devastated.Everyone who held the words of the God of Israel in awe gathered around me because of the unfaithful acts of the people of the exile. Devastated, I continued to sit there until the evening offering.
Now the Jewish feast of Passover was near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem.He found in the temple courts those who were selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting at tables.So he made a whip of cords and drove them all out of the temple courts, with the sheep and the oxen. He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.To those who sold the doves he said,“ Take these things away from here! Do not make my Father’s house a marketplace!”His disciples remembered that it was written,“ Zeal for your house will devour me.”
