Bible Strands
John 2:16
To those selling doves He said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn My Father’s house into a marketplace!”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses the dove sellers still present in the temple courts, immediately after driving out the animals and overturning the money changers' tables (John 2:15).
The words — ἄρατε (arate), aorist imperative of αἴρω, is a blunt physical command: "lift up and remove." The present participle πωλοῦσιν (pōlousin) pins them to their ongoing trade.
The thread — Matthew 21:13 and Mark 11:17 voice the same charge by citing Isaiah 56:7 and Jeremiah 7:11; John 2:16 states it without the OT quotation but with the same force.
Why it lands — It asks the reader to name where they have turned a sacred obligation into a transaction.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father’s house an house of merchandise.
Cross-references
- Matthew 21:13 And He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”
- Jeremiah 7:11 Has this house, which bears My Name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Yes, I too have seen it, declares the LORD.
- Mark 11:17 Then Jesus began to teach them, and He declared, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
- Isaiah 56:5 I will give them, in My house and within My walls, a memorial and a name better than that of sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off.
- Luke 2:49 “Why were you looking for Me?” He asked. “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?”
- 2 Peter 2:14 Their eyes are full of adultery; their desire for sin is never satisfied; they seduce the unstable. They are accursed children with hearts trained in greed.
- Hosea 12:7 A merchant loves to defraud with dishonest scales in his hands.
- John 5:17 But Jesus answered them, “To this very day My Father is at His work, and I too am working.”
- 2 Peter 2:3 In their greed, these false teachers will exploit you with deceptive words. The longstanding verdict against them remains in force, and their destruction does not sleep.
- John 20:17 “Do not cling to Me,” Jesus said, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and tell My brothers, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’”