of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of robbers!” Jesus was teaching every day in
the temple. The chief priests and teachers of the law wanted to kill him, and the elders
of the Jews as well, but they were unable to do anything, for all the people were listening
to him and hanging on his words.

Reflect

“House of prayer.” The Lucan account of the cleansing of the temple appears not as
elaborate as the others in terms of describing how fierce Jesus was (Mk 11:15-19;
Mt 21:12-17; Jn 2:13-16). Luke simply narrates that Jesus drove out the merchants.
Luke ends the pericope by narrating that Jesus was teaching every day in the temple.
Interestingly, this particular line is followed immediately by telling that the chief priests,
the teachers of the law and the elders of the Jews wanted to kill Jesus. Luke may have
toned down the depiction of Jesus’ physical assault to the temple but we may reflect on
the fact that Jesus’ teachings must have shaken the then existing status quo, earning
the ire of the powers that be in those days. The passage ends by telling that these
powerful people were not able to accomplish their plan of killing Jesus because the
people were listening to and hanging on to his words. Later on, Jesus would be killed.
This implies that the people stopped listening to him.

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