Jesus chased people out of the temple courts with a whip.  Why?  They were using the place to make money.  Another time, as He tipped over their tables and chased them away, He said:

“‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’  (Matthew 21:13)

If those guys had been paying attention to God’s Word, they’d have known better. Jesus was quoting from a complaint by God written several hundred years earlier.  Here’s the first half of what Jeremiah wrote:

Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you?   (Jeremiah 7:11a)

Religious shysters were nothing new in Jesus’ day.  They are still at it today.  A quick Google search, using “pastor” and “swindling” will give you 401,000 hits!  Apparently those crooks aren’t paying attention either.  Instead of shaking down the flock they’d be shaking in their boots.  Here’s the rest of what God said:

Has this house, which bears my Name, become a den of robbers to you? But I have been watching! declares the Lord.  ( Jeremiah 7:11)

God wasn’t kidding…