Jesus Clears the Temple in John's Early Account

After this, Jesus went to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days. Then the Passover of the Jews came near, so Jesus went up to Jerusalem.

In the temple, he found people selling oxen, sheep, and doves. Others were sitting there exchanging money. Jesus made a whip from cords, drove out the sheep and oxen, poured out the money changers' coins, and turned over their tables.

To the people selling doves, he said to take these things away and stop making his Father's house a marketplace. When the disciples saw this, they remembered words from Scripture about zeal for God's house.

The Jews there answered him by asking for a sign to show why he was doing these things. Jesus replied with a puzzling saying about destroying this temple and raising it in three days. They thought he meant the building, which had taken forty-six years to build.

John explains that Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body. After Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered this and believed the Scripture and Jesus' words. During that Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw his signs, but Jesus did not entrust himself to them, because he knew what was in every person.