Book of Common Prayer

3 My brothers, you are holy. You are also called to go to heaven. Take time to think carefully about Jesus. God sent him. He is the high priest we believe in.

² He did what God sent him to do, just as Moses did in God's house.

³ But Jesus is much greater than Moses - as the one who builds a house is greater than the house itself.

⁴ Every house is built by someone, but God is the one who builds all things.

⁵ Moses did what he was told to do as a servant in all of God's house. He showed things that God would say later.

⁶ But Jesus Christ was true as a Son over God's house. We are God's house if we keep on believing and telling others what we hope to have.

⁷ So as the Holy Spirit says, `Today, when you hear me speak, do not make your hearts hard.

⁸ That is what happened when the people tested me in the desert and I became angry.

⁹ There your fathers tested me and tried me. And they saw what I did for forty years.

¹⁰ So I was very angry with the people of that time. I said, "Their minds are always dark. They have not known my ways."

¹¹ I said when I was angry, "They will never go into my resting place." '

¹³ The time for the Passover Feast of the Jews was near. So Jesus went to Jerusalem.

¹⁴ In the temple he found people buying and selling things. They were selling cows, sheep, and doves. Others were sitting at tables changing money for the people.

¹⁵ Jesus tied some pieces of cord together to make a whip. Then he drove out all the people who were buying and selling in the temple. And he drove out the sheep and the cows. He threw down the tables of the money changers and their money.

¹⁶ He said to the people who sold doves, `Take these things out of here. Do not make my Father's house into a market place.'

¹⁷ His disciples remembered that God's word says, `My love for your house is like a fire burning in me.'

¹⁸ The leaders of the Jews said to Jesus, `Who gave you the right to do this? What big work will prove it to us?'

¹⁹ Jesus answered them, `Break down this temple and in three days I will raise it up.'

²⁰ The Jewish leaders said, `It took forty-six years to build this temple. Do you say you will raise it in three days?'

²¹ But Jesus was talking about the temple which was his body.

²² After Jesus died and had been raised from death, the disciples remembered that he had said this to them. Then they believed what the holy writings say. They also believed what Jesus had said to them.