---
title: Matthew 21:13
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-21-13/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/matthew-21-13.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Matthew 21:13
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Matthew 21:13

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> And He declared to them, “It is written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer.’ But you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "And he said to them: "It is written, 'My house will be called a house of prayer,' but you are making it a cave of robbers.""

## JW Usage

Read as Jesus acting with the authority Jehovah gave him to cleanse his Father's house of commercial corruption — a demonstration of zeal for true worship. The Watchtower applies the cleansing theme to the purification of God's people in the modern era.

## Protestant Usage

Notice the possessive and who is using it. Jesus quotes Isaiah — "my house will be called a house of prayer" — where the speaker is Jehovah, and he uses it as the warrant for acting in that house as its owner. He does not petition the priests or appeal to a commission. He clears the courts on his own authority and cites a verse in which God calls the temple his own. That connects directly to Malachi 3:1, where Jehovah says the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The word is "his." Malachi announces an owner arriving at his own house; Matthew records someone doing exactly that and quoting God's ownership as his ground. Luke 2:49 has the same possessive from Jesus as a boy, in the same building: did you not know that I must be in the house of my Father? Three passages, one temple, one claim. Ask a Witness who Malachi says comes to the temple, and then what Jesus did when he got there. Compare Malachi 3:1, Luke 2:49, Mark 1:2.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [The Messenger of the Covenant](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/malachi-3-1-messenger.md) — Malachi 3:1 — Jehovah comes to His own temple as the messenger [Deity of Christ]