Jesus loves and has pity on sinners, just as a good doctor loves his suffering patients. However, His hatred of sin is also undeniable. This is evidenced by the expulsion of traders from the temple, which is most vividly described in the gospel of John. "The Jewish Passover was approaching, and Jesus came to Jerusalem and found that oxen, sheep, and pigeons were being sold in the temple, and money changers were sitting there. And having made a whip of ropes, he drove everyone out of the temple, including sheep and oxen. He scattered the money from the money changers and overturned their tables. He said to those who were selling pigeons, "Take this from here and do not make my Father's house a house of commerce." (John 2:13-17)

Sometimes, readers perceive this episode incorrectly, believing that Jesus' anger was caused by the mere fact of trading in a holy place. In reality, things were a little more complicated. The temple complex in Jerusalem consisted of a sanctuary and surrounding courtyards. The most spacious of them was the Pagan Courtyard, which was the only territory of the Temple Mount where non-Jews could be. It was here that all commercial transactions with money and animals were carried out on quite legitimate grounds without desecrating the sanctuary.

The annual tax on the Jerusalem Temple could only be paid with special temple money by silversmiths. Therefore, pilgrims who came from afar had to first exchange their money for temple money. Money changers helped with this by setting up their tables in the Yard of the pagans. For their services, they took a commission, which was almost 2/3 of the amount exchanged.

But the withdrawal of money from the pilgrims did not end there. With the silver coins they received, they had to buy animals for sacrifice right there in the Yard of the pagans. These bellowing and bleating animals cost much more here than in the city, but the pilgrims still bought them at an inflated price. The reason for this was simple: the temple servants checked all the sacrifices for the absence of defects, and the pilgrims had to pay for this inspection. Oxen and sheep bought elsewhere rarely received a positive conclusion after such an examination. Therefore, people were forced to buy animals at the temple, but at an exorbitant price. The system, which was initially meant to help pilgrims, turned into an instrument of robbery and unscrupulous profit. This is why Jesus called the money changers and cattle sellers robbers who were robbing worshippers.

It was not the trade itself in the Yard of the pagans that caused His anger, but the "interest" that the servants took from the people. Even in this situation, Jesus divided sin from sinners themselves by restoring order through such harsh methods. The mention of the scourge might tempt many to think that the incarnate God was capable of beating people who were guilty in front of Him with a specially made tool. To protect the readers of the Gospel from such assumptions, Euthymius Zigaben, one of the interpreters of the Holy Scripture, explained this passage in more detail.

It should be noted that Jesus Christ, who made the scourge, did not beat people but only intimidated them and removed them. He also hit sheep and oxen and drove them out. The whip is a shepherd's tool that can be made from improvised materials where it is necessary to drive cattle from the yard. However, to believe that Jesus also beat people with the same scourge would be, to say the least, strange.