CLEANSING THE TEMPLE

12 Jesus went into the templeB,c and threw out all those buying and selling. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the chairs of those selling doves.d 13 He said to them, “It is written, my house will be called a house of prayer,C but you are making it a den of thieves!”D,e

CHILDREN PRAISE JESUS

14 The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, 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, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” they were indignant 16 and said to him, “Do you hear what these children are saying?”

Jesus replied, “Yes, have you never read:

You have preparedE praisef

from the mouths of infants and nursing babies?”F

17 Then he left them, went out of the city to Bethany,g and spent the night there.

THE BARREN FIG TREE

18 Early in the morning,h 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.

20 When the disciples saw it, they were amazed and said, “How did the fig tree wither so quickly?”

21 Jesus answered them, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you tell this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will be done.i 22 And if you believe, you will receivej whatever you ask for in prayer.”