Easter People Devotionals: 18

For an explanation of this series, click here. To see a collection of all the Devotionals in the series so far, click here.


Day 18: Rebuilding the Temple


Psalm 69:6-9
⁶ Lord, the LORD Almighty, 
   may those who hope in you 
   not be disgraced because of me; 
God of Israel, 
   may those who seek you 
   not be put to shame because of me. 
⁷ For I endure scorn for your sake, 
   and shame covers my face. 
⁸ I am a foreigner to my own family, 
   a stranger to my own mother’s children; 
⁹ for zeal for your house consumes me, 
   and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.


Jeremiah 7:2-7
  “‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you people of Judah who come through these gates to worship the LORD. ³ This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Reform your ways and your actions, and I will let you live in this place. ⁴ Do not trust in deceptive words and say, “This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD!” ⁵ If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, ⁶ if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, ⁷ then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. 


Isaiah 66:1-2
¹ This is what the LORD says:

   “Heaven is my throne,
   and the earth is my footstool.
Where is the house you will build for me?
   Where will my resting place be?
² Has not my hand made all these things,
   and so they came into being?”
            declares the LORD.

John 2:13-22

¹³ When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. ¹⁴ In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. ¹⁵ So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ¹⁶ To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” ¹⁷ His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.”^[a]

 ¹⁸ The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your authority to do all this?”

 ¹⁹ Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”

 ²⁰ They replied, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” ²¹ But the temple he had spoken of was his body. ²² After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.