1Jesus and his followers kept walking and got near to Jerusalem. They came to the 2 towns called Bethany and Bethphage, on the hill called Olive Trees.
2Then Jesus told 2 of his followers to go to the nearest town. He said, “As soon as you get there you will see a donkey tied to a post. Nobody ever rode that young donkey yet. I want you to untie that rope and bring him to me.
3If anyone asks you why you are taking that donkey, you can say, ‘Our boss needs him for a while, but don’t worry, he will send him back to you later.’”
4The 2 men went into the town and they found the donkey near the door of a house, then they started to untie him.
5Some people standing there said to them, “What are you doing? Why are you untying that young donkey?”
6Jesus’s followers told them what Jesus said, and then those people let them take the donkey and go.
7They took the donkey back to Jesus. They put their coats on top of the donkey, then Jesus sat on their coats on the donkey and started to ride him into Jerusalem.
8A lot of people laid their coats down on to the track in front of the donkey and other people went to the gardens and cut leaves from trees and put these leaves on the track for the donkey to walk on.
9Some of the people walked in front of Jesus and some walked behind him. They all kept on yelling out, “God, you are really great and powerful. God, we want you to look after the man you have sent. Make him strong and happy.
10God, please make this man boss over everyone, just like his grand-father, the big boss called King David. God in heaven, you are very great and powerful.”
11Jesus came to Jerusalem and went into God’s ceremony house. He looked around at everything that was going on there. The sun was starting to go down, so Jesus left God’s ceremony house and went back to Bethany with his 12 close followers.
12The next morning Jesus and his followers started to walk from Bethany back to Jerusalem. Jesus saw a tree not far away. It was the kind of tree that gets fruit called figs. Jesus was hungry, so he went to look for some figs on that tree, but there was nothing. It had lots of leaves but no fruit. (It wasn’t the right time of the year yet for fruit.)
14The followers of Jesus heard him say to that tree, “Nobody will ever eat any fruit from you again.”
15Jesus and his followers came into Jerusalem, and they went to God’s ceremony house. Inside that house people were buying and selling animals and birds to use in the ceremonies, and other people were changing Roman money to Jewish money to give to the bosses of God’s ceremony house. But they did these things inside that house. They didn’t respect God’s house, so they were wrong. And sometimes those men, that sold things and swapped the money, they cheated people. So Jesus hunted all those men out of God’s ceremony house. He hunted out all those men that sold things, and the people that bought things, and those that changed money. He knocked over the tables with their money on them, and he knocked over the chairs of the men that sold birds.
16He wouldn’t let anyone carry these things through God’s ceremony house, not even through its yard.
17Jesus then taught everyone this way, he said, “God got one of his men to write these words, and they are in God's book, ‘God wants his special house to be a place for people from every tribe to come and pray in.’ But you mob have turned God’s house into a place where crooks steal from people.”
18The Jewish law teachers and ceremony leaders were very upset about this. But all the people were really happy with Jesus and they were excited whenever they heard him teaching, so the Jewish leaders were afraid of him. After they heard what Jesus did at God’s house they started to work out a way to kill him.
19That night Jesus and his followers went back out of Jerusalem.
20In the morning Jesus and his followers walked past that fruit tree that he talked to the day before. They looked at it. It was dead and dry now, right down to the ground.
21Peter remembered what Jesus said to it, and Peter said, “Teacher, that tree you cursed is already dead and dry.”
22Jesus said, “You can do things like that too, if you trust God properly.
23I’m telling you straight, if you ask God to do something and you really trust him to do it, then he will do it for you. If you trust him properly you can even say to a big hill, ‘God will pick you up and throw you into the sea,’ and God will do it.
24Listen to me now. If you believe God properly you can ask him for anything, and if you trust him all the way, like you believe that he already gave you that thing, then God will answer your prayer and make it happen.
25And whenever you pray, first think about this. If somebody did a wrong thing to you, you have to let it go. Don’t think about payback but make it all clear for that person. If you do that, then God will let go all the wrong things you have done too. He will make you all clear from blame and payback. So you first make it all clear for other people, then you can pray to God.”
27After that Jesus and his followers went into Jerusalem and walked into the yard of God’s ceremony house. As Jesus walked along some Jewish leaders came up to him. They were the leaders of the Jewish ceremonies, and the law teachers, and the elders.
28They asked Jesus straight, “Who told you to hunt all those people out of God’s ceremony house? What big boss said you can do that?”
29Jesus said back to them, “You answer my question first. If you answer me then I will tell you which big boss said I can hunt those men out of God’s ceremony house.
30Here is my question. You remember John? Well, who told him to do that washing ceremony for people? Who told him to baptise them? Did people tell John to do it, or did God tell him to do it?”
31Those Jewish leaders talked together to work out their answer. They said to each other, “If we say that John did what God told him to do, then we will be in trouble. He will say to us, ‘So why didn’t you mob listen to him?’
32But we can’t say that people made up that washing ceremony.” They knew that the people believed that John was a special man that told God’s messages, and those people might hit them if they said he wasn’t. The leaders were frightened of those people.
33So those Jewish leaders said, “We don’t know who told John to do that washing ceremony for people.” Then Jesus said, “If you will not answer me, I will not answer you. I will not tell you which big boss said I can do these things.”
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