The next thing to happen didn’t only involve words. In the temple there were many activities connected with buying and selling: for example, doves and cattle and sheep were offered for sale to those who wanted to make a sacrifice. But as people came to the temple from many places both near and far away, some of them had money different from the local coinage, and there were money-changers there too, ready to calculate the exchange rate and sell them the money to buy doves with. One day Jesus went into the temple and, provoked by his growing anger against the scribes and the priests, lost his patience with all this mercantile activity and began to upset the tables of the money-changers and the animal-sellers.
He flung them this way and that, and took a whip and drove the animals out, shouting, ‘This should be a house of prayer, but look at it now! It’s a den of robbers! Take your money and your buying and selling elsewhere, and leave this place to God and his people!’
The temple guards came running to try and restore order, but the people were too excited to listen to them, and some were scrambling to gather up the coins that were rolling all over the floor before the money-changers could save them. In the confusion the officials missed Jesus, and failed to arrest him.