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NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Mat_21:12-13
12And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves. 13And He said to them, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'; but you are making it a robbers'den."
Mat_21:12 "and Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were buying and selling in the temple and overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who were selling doves" This was the second cleansing of the Temple (cf. Joh_2:15). The High Priest and his family were the owners of these particular booths. They purchased the right from the Roman authorities. They originally had been set up to aid those pilgrims from foreign lands who were unable to bring sacrificial animals and the right type of money (shekel) that the temple required. These booths charged outrageous prices. If a man did bring his own animal, the priestly inspectors would find some defect in it so that they had to purchase an animal from the booth operator for a highly inflated price.
The Temple only accepted shekels (cf. Exo_30:13). There were no longer any Jewish shekels available, but there were Tyrian ones. Pilgrims were charged exorbitant prices for exchanging into this coinage. The doves were available for the poorest people so that they could make a sacrifice (cf. Lev_1:14; Lev_5:7; Lev_5:11; Lev_12:8; Lev_14:22; Luk_2:24), but the High Priests were charging exorbitant prices even for them.
This is an example of Jesus' anger at the religious exploitation by the Jewish leaders of His day. If anger is a sin, Jesus would have sinned (cf. Eph_4:26).
Mat_21:13 "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer'" All of this buying and selling was taking place in the Court of the Gentiles, which was meant to be a place to attract the nations to the worship of YHWH. Jesus quoted Isa_56:7 and made an allusion to Jer_7:11. In Mark's parallel (cf. Mat_11:17), he adds the phrase, 'shall be a house of prayer for all nations.'Matthew, writing to Jews, left out this universal emphasis while Mark, writing to Romans, included it.