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Gospel Reading - The cleansing of the Temple

¹³Then it was time for the annual Jewish Passover celebration, and Jesus went to Jerusalem. ¹⁴In the Temple area he saw merchants selling cattle, sheep, and doves for sacrifices, and moneychangers behind their counters. ¹⁵Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them all out, and drove out the sheep and oxen, scattering the moneychangers’ coins over the floor and turning over their tables! ¹⁶Then, going over to the men selling doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Don’t turn my Father’s House into a market!”

¹⁷Then his disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: “Concern for God’s House will be my undoing.”

¹⁸“What right have you to order them out?” the Jewish leaders^a demanded. “If you have this authority from God, show us a miracle to prove it.”

¹⁹“All right,” Jesus replied, “this is the miracle I will do for you: Destroy this sanctuary and in three days I will raise it up!”

²⁰“What!” they exclaimed. “It took forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can do it in three days?” ²¹But by “this sanctuary” he meant his body. ²²After he came back to life again, the disciples remembered his saying this and realized that what he had quoted from the Scriptures really did refer to him, and had all come true!

1. Literally, “the Jews.”