<P> Jesus is stated to have visited the Temple in Jerusalem, where the courtyard is described as being filled with livestock, merchants, and the tables of the money changers, who changed the standard Greek and Roman money for Jewish and Tyrian money . Jerusalem was packed with Jews who had come for Passover, perhaps numbering 300,000 to 400,000 pilgrims . </P> <P> And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen . And he poured out the coins of the money - changers and overturned their tables . And he told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade ." </P> <P> "And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves, And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves ." </P> <P> In Mark 12: 40 and Luke 20: 47 Jesus accused the Temple authorities of thieving and this time he names poor widows as their victims, going on to provide evidence of this in Mark 12: 42 and Luke 21: 2 . Dove sellers were selling doves that were sacrificed by the poor who could not afford grander sacrifices and specifically by women . According to Mark 11: 16, Jesus then put an embargo on people carrying any merchandise through the Temple--a sanction that would have disrupted all commerce . This occurred in the outermost court of the gentiles . </P>

Who overthrew the moneychangers' tables in the temple