Cleansing the Temple Complex

12 Jesus went into the temple complex(a)(A) and drove out all those buying and selling in the temple. He overturned the money changers’ tables and the chairs of those selling doves.(B) 13 And He said to them, “It is written, My house will be called a house of prayer.(b) But you are making it a den of thieves!”(C)(c)

Children Praise Jesus

14 The blind and the lame came to Him in the temple complex, and He healed them. 15 When the chief priests and the scribes saw the wonders that He did and the children shouting in the temple complex, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant 16 and said to Him, “Do You hear what these children are saying?”

“Yes,” Jesus told them. “Have you never read:

You have prepared(d) praise(D)
from the mouths of children and nursing infants?”(e)
17 Then He left them, went out of the city to Bethany,(E) and spent the night there.

The Barren Fig Tree

18 Early in the morning,(F) as He was returning to the city, He was hungry. 19 Seeing a lone fig tree by the road, He went up to it and found nothing on it except leaves. And He said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” At once the fig tree withered.

Footnotes:

a. Matthew 21:12: Other mss add of God
b. Matthew 21:13: Is 56:7
d. Matthew 21:16: Or restored
e. Matthew 21:16: Ps 8:2

Holman Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers.