Lesson from the Gospels Matthew 21:12-22 (The Inclusive Bible)
When Jesus entered the Temple, he drove out all those who were selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those selling doves. He said to them, “Scripture says, ‘My house is called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of thieves!”
Those who were blind or couldn’t walk came to him in the Temple, and he healed them. When the chief priests and teachers of the Law saw the wonderful things Jesus did, and heard the children shouting “Hosanna to the Heir to the House of David!” Throughout the Temple area, they became indignant.
“Do you hear what the children are shouting?” they asked him.
“Yes,” Jesus replied. “Have you never read, ‘From the mouths of children and nursing babies, you have brought forth praise’?” After leaving them he went out to Bethany to spend the night.
When he returned to the city early in the morning, Jesus grew hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he walked over to it but found only leaves. So he said to it, “You will never bear fruit again.” And immediately the tree withered.
The disciples were amazed when they saw this. “How was it,” they asked, “that the tree withered on the spot like that?”
Jesus answered, “The truth is, if you have faith and don’t doubt, not only can you do what I did to the fig tree, but you can even say to this mountain, ‘Get up and throw yourself into the sea!” and it will happen. Everything you pray for in faith, you will receive.