¹⁶ The priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord to cleanse it, and they brought out all the unclean things that they found in the temple of the Lord into the court of the house of the Lord, and the Levites took them and carried them out to the Wadi Kidron.

¹⁶ King Asa even removed his mother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. Asa cut down her image, crushed it, and burned it at the Wadi Kidron.^(A)

Christ’s Sacrifice Takes Away Sin

²³ Thus it was necessary for the sketches of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves need better sacrifices than these. ²⁴ For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made by human hands, a mere copy of the true one, but he entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.^(A)

² For a tent^[a] was constructed, the first one, in which were the lampstand, the table, and the bread of the Presence;^[b] this is called the holy place.^{(A) 3} Behind the second curtain was a tent^[c] called the holy of holies.^{(B) 4} In it stood the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which there were a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;^{(C) 5} above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat.^[d] Of these things we cannot speak now in detail.^(D)

⁶ These preparations having thus been made, the priests go continually into the first tent^[e] to carry out their ritual duties, ⁷ but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a year and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins committed unintentionally by the people.^{(E) 8} By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary has not yet been disclosed as long as the first tent^[f] is still standing.^(F)

The Betrayal and Arrest of Jesus

18 After Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the Kidron Valley to a place where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.

²⁷ “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of uncleanness.

Jesus Cleanses the Temple

¹² Then Jesus entered the temple^[a] and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.^{(A) 13} He said to them, “It is written,

²⁹ I will save you from all your uncleannesses, and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you.^(A)

⁷ Then the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the Lord to its place, in the inner sanctuary of the house, in the most holy place, underneath the wings of the cherubim.

⁸ He made the most holy place; its length, corresponding to the width of the house, was twenty cubits, and its width was twenty cubits; he overlaid it with six hundred talents of fine gold.^(A)