04: Jesus gets things in order!
Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
The blind and the lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. Matthew 21:12-14
Scene of the crime: Royal temple hall
Listen to what happened!
See below what it might have looked like before and after Jesus cleaned up.
The Sanhedrin (Israel's Supreme Court) had its seat in the royal portico of the temple. It had allowed sacrificial animals to be sold there. Originally, the portico was intended as a place where people could worship God devoutly. Jesus cleared it out so that this would be possible again.