The Great Gospel of John
Volume 1
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
In the fisherman's house at Bethabara
- Chapter 118 -
The offended Pharisees turn to the Lord. The Lord reveals still more of their profanity, their temple-abominations and so-called divine services.
But one Pharisee turned to Me and said, 'How can you, as a true Jew, keep silent when a miserable heathen like that, to whom you have done such good, has the temerity to so blasphemously slander the holy teaching of our fathers?!'
2
Say I, 'But he slandered neither Moses nor the prophets, but only yourselves and your new statutes, letting Me off; with what should I reprimand him? He described only yourselves and hence only abused you; it is your own business to get even with him! If he has nothing against Me, what should I have against him? See to it yourselves as to how to settle with him. I am on good terms with him at this stage.'
3
Say the Pharisees and scribes, 'Too right has he not abused you of course, but us; but we thought you had now become our friend and knowing what power dwells in Your word and will, you could for comradeship have told this heathen off, at least on account of the people. But you let him talk and put us to shame in front of the people and you see, that was not too praiseworthy of you. We don't want to hate You for it, but cannot be favourably disposed towards you either!'
4
Say I, 'Choose the way you want to be and I too shall be the way it seems discreet to Me! By the way, it is rather odd of you to deny Me your friendship now, since you have never shown Me any yet. I however, Who should have the full right to deny you My friendship, since only a short while hence the thoughts about Me in your hearts were not exactly commendable, still am not doing so!
5
What can I actually lose with your friendship? I say unto you: verily, nothing! But when you enjoy My friendship no more, who shall call your dead children to life in My stead?
6
If however you carefully consider the young man's speech, then by any true intellectual standards you must admit it within yourselves that the man has spoken the truth most fundamentally. You know the scriptures and know Moses and the prophets. Do you ask yourselves whether any trace of Moses or any other prophet is to be found in the Temple?
7
Was I not in Jerusalem Myself this year and to My great annoyance saw how the prayer-house of God had been turned into a murderer's den?
8
The forecourts are full of slaughter-cattle for sale, as well as other unclean creatures, so that people cannot get into the actual Temple without gravely endangering their lives. Slaughtering proceeds in the forecourts on one side as in a slaughter-house, with meat being sold; on the other side, brokering booths and money-changers are situated, there being a racket and yelling where hardly a person can hear their own word.
9
When one then gets to the actual main Temple, one cannot move at all for all the pigeon and other bird merchants, yelling out their sale offers! And inside the Holy of Holies, to which once only the High Priest had access once a year by God's Command, anyone, including even a heathen, for payment called offering, can be guided around, behind Jew's backs of course, under seal of secrecy. Yet the Holy of Holies is as well-known in Rome as to the High Priest in Jerusalem! And thus, for money, all Temple-secrets are revealed to strangers. If a poor Jew however should dare to step behind the curtain, he is at once stoned behind the Temple wall, at the accursed spot, as a blasphemer and profaner; and not a week passes when not at least one person is stoned and two have to drink the accursed water.
10
What kind of system is it however where strangers are initiated, but one's own children killed?
11
Tell yourselves that Moses and the prophets commanded this and that Solomon in all his wisdom, when he had completed the Temple, consecrated it for the purpose it now serves. - In short, the prayer-house of God has become the barest den of murderers, and Jehovah's Spirit no longer dwells in the shape of the pillar of fire above the Ark of the Covenant!'
12
Here the Pharisees and scribes grow suspicious, saying to Me, 'You always stayed in and around Nazareth. How can you know all this? Who betrayed the Temple to you?'
13
Say I, 'Oh for the great silliness of your question! If I know your most secret thoughts, how should I not know what is and happens in the Temple? Yet not I alone, but every person knows it!
14
You yourselves however are the actual betrayers of it all and your great money-greed tempted you to it. For money you initiated strangers into Temple secrets and those then loudly proclaimed it to the Jews in the streets; are you asking Me who betrayed the Temple to Me?
15
If however, like many thousands of people, you know how matters stand in the Temple, knowing at the same time what Moses and all the prophets taught, who all were filled with the purest and truest Spirit of God - such Spirit alone speaking through their mouths! - what kind of faith in God is yours then, that you should so easily sell God's Word down the river and with the most brazen and haughty conceit substitute and proclaim as if from God, your own statutes to the poor blind people, together with threats of death, to keep and worship your statues?'