¹⁶ Then, going over to the people who sold doves, he told them, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!”

¹³ He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves!”^[a]

¹¹ Don’t you yourselves admit that this Temple, which bears my name, has become a den of thieves? Surely I see all the evil going on there. I, the Lord, have spoken!

¹⁷ He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be called a house of prayer for all nations,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”^[a]

Sinful Leaders Condemned

⁴⁹ “But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”^[a]

¹⁴ They commit adultery with their eyes, and their desire for sin is never satisfied. They lure unstable people into sin, and they are well trained in greed. They live under God’s curse. ¹⁵ They have wandered off the right road and followed the footsteps of Balaam son of Beor,^[a] who loved to earn money by doing wrong.

³ In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money. But God condemned them long ago, and their destruction will not be delayed.