The Final Week Begins

Jesus’ Arrival in Bethany

(Jn 11:55-12:1. 9-11)

⁵⁵Now the Jews’ Passover was coming up, and people from around Ephraim went up to Jerusalem to purify themselves ceremonially. ⁵⁶They were looking for Jesus and saying to one another in the temple, “What do you think? Surely he won’t come to the festival.” ⁵⁷The chief priests and the Pharisees had passed laws that if anybody knew where he was, he should report it so they could arrest him.

^12:1Six days before the Passover Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived that Jesus had raised from the dead.

⁹A great crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there. They didn’t come just because of him, but to see Lazarus. ¹⁰The chief priests planned to kill Lazarus too, because many Jews were going away ¹¹and believing in Jesus because of him.

The Anointing by Mary

(Mt 26:6-13; Mk 14:3-9; Jn 12:1b-8)

Jesus arrived at Bethany. ²They made him a meal there in the house of Simon the leper. Martha was waiting on Jesus, and Lazarus was reclining at table with him. ³Mary took twelve ounces of ointment in an alabaster cruise—pure nard, very expensive—broke open the cruise and poured the ointment on Jesus’ head and feet while he was reclining at table, and started wiping his feet with her hair. The scent from the ointment filled the whole house.

The disciples were indignant when they saw it, and said to one another, “What’s the point of such waste?” ⁴Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ disciples—the one that was going to betray him—said, 5“Why didn’t she sell this ointment for three hundred denarii and give it to the poor?” (6He didn’t say this because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief. He took care of the money pouch, and had been stealing from it.) They started fussing at her.

⁷Jesus said, “Why are you fussing at her? She has done me a good turn. ⁸She did what she could: let her be putting this ointment on my body beforehand to prepare me for burial. ⁸You always have poor people around you; you can do something good them whenever you want to. You don’t always have me. ⁹Wherever you preach the gospel in the whole world, tell what she did in memory of her.”

The Triumphal Entry

(Mt 21:1-11; Mk 11:1-11; Lk 19:29-44; Jn 12:12-19)

The next day 11:1when they got close to Jerusalem—to Bethphage and Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, he sent two disciples, 2“Go in the village over there. Just inside, you’ll find a donkey tied and a colt with her that nobody has ridden. Untie them and bring them here. ³ If anybody says, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord needs them,’ and he’ll send them here right away.”

⁴This fulfilled what the prophet said,

⁵“SAY TO THE DAUGHTER OF ZION,

‘Don’t be afraid, daughter of Zion;

Look! YOUR KING’S COMING,

HUMBLE AND RIDING ON A DONKEY—

THE COLT OF A DONKEY’” [Zech 9:9].

⁴They went and found the donkey and the colt tied at the gate outside by the road like he said, and untied them. ³³As they were untying them, their owners, ⁵standing there, said, “What are you doing, untying them?”

³⁴“The Lord needs them.” They let them take them.

³⁵They brought them to Jesus and laid their cloaks over the colt and put Jesus on it. ³⁶As he went along, many started spreading their cloaks on the road. ¹²The huge crowd that attended the festival heard Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, ¹³and took fronds from the palm trees and went out to meet him. ⁹Others brought leafy branches cut out of the fields and spread them on the road.

³⁷As he came near the descent from the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples ahead and behind began to celebrate. They were loudly praising God for all the miracles they’d seen,

⁹“HOSANNA to the son of David!

BLESSED IS THE king THAT’S COMING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD [Ps 118:25-26].

¹⁰Blessed is the coming kingdom of our ancestor David.

HOSANNA in the highest!”

(16His disciples didn’t understand what was happening at the time; but when Jesus was glorified, they remembered that the scriptures said these things about him and that people had done these things to him.)

³⁹Some Pharisees from the crowd said, “Rabbi, rebuke your disciples.”

⁴⁰He answered, “If these go silent, the rocks will shout.”

⁴¹As he came near and saw the city, he cried over it, 42“If you, yes you, only knew today what’s in store for your peace . . ; but you can’t see it. ⁴³The time’s coming when your enemies will throw up a siege wall around you and box you in from every direction. ⁴⁴They’ll level you to the ground and your inhabitants along with you. They won’t leave one stone on another, because you didn’t know when it was coming.”

¹⁷The crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead, was telling about it. ¹⁸That’s the reason as well that the crowd met him: they heard he’d done this sign. ¹⁹The Pharisees said to each other, “See how you don’t get anywhere. The world has gone after him!”

¹⁰When he came in Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, “Who is this?”

¹¹The crowd said, “The prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

¹¹He went in the temple and looked around at everything. It was already evening, and he went out to Bethany with the twelve.

Cursing the Fig Tree;

Second Cleansing of the Temple

(Mt 21:18-19, 12-17; Mk 11:12-19; Lk 19:45-48)

¹²The next day, after they left Bethany, he was hungry. ¹³From a distance he saw one fig tree leafed out beside the road. He went over to it to see if he could find anything on it. He didn’t find anything on it but leaves—because it wasn’t the season for figs yet. ¹⁴He said to it, “May nobody ever eat fruit from you again.” His disciples heard it. Immediately the tree started shriveling up.

¹⁵They went into Jerusalem. In the temple, he began to put the buyers and sellers out. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and the chairs of the ones that sold doves. ¹⁶He wouldn’t let anybody take a container through the temple. ¹⁷He began to teach, “Doesn’t scripture say, ‘CALL MY HOUSE A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL THE NATIONS’? [Is 56:7] You’ve made it a den of thieves!”

¹⁸The chief priests and the scribes heard about it, and kept looking for a way to destroy him. They were afraid of him, and the crowd was astonished at his teaching.

¹⁴Blind and lame people came to him in the temple, and he healed them. ¹⁵But when the chief priests and the scribes saw the amazing things he was doing and the children shouting in the temple, “Hosanna to the son of David!” they were indignant.

¹⁶They said, “Do you hear what they’re saying?”

“Yes. Haven’t you ever read, ‘OUT OF THE MOUTH OF INFANTS AND NURSING BABIES YOU’VE PREPARED YOURSELF PERFECT PRAISE’?” [Ps 8:3 LXX]

⁴⁷Every day he taught in the temple, and the chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people kept looking for a way to destroy him. ⁴⁸They couldn’t find a way to do it, because the people were listening to him eagerly.

In the evening he went out of the city to Bethany and spent the night.

Discussing the Shriveled Fig Tree

(Mt 21:20-22; Mk 11:19-25; Lk 21:37-38)

³⁷Jesus was spending the days teaching in the temple, and spending the nights on the hill called Olivet. ³⁸The people would come early to hear him.

²⁰As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree completely shriveled up. The disciples were amazed. ²¹Peter remembered, “Rabbi, the fig tree you cursed has shriveled up. How did it shrivel up so fast?”

²¹Jesus answered, “Put faith in God. If you have faith—and don’t doubt—not only will you do what happened to this fig tree; even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be picked up and thrown in the sea,’ it’ll happen. So, ²²whatever you ask for in prayer you’ll receive if you believe. ²⁵When you stand praying, if you have anything against anybody, forgive him so your Father in heaven will forgive you.