7P

7P

One of the Herodians said, "When you cast out devils you must be doing it by the power of Beelzebub himself."

Yeshua said,  "That fever  dream  makes  no  sense at  all.  If Beelzebub  gave me  the power  to destroy  his kingdom,  he's an idiot, because his kingdom is, in fact, being destroyed."

The Herodians murmured amongst themselves and departed the field station, leaving Yeshua to enjoy the simple pleasure of sharing a mealwith his disciples. They spent the evening in the comfort of the  B'nei  Elohim  field  station  and  Yeshua's  disciples marvelled at the great wealth that must have been spent.

For a year  Yeshua  and his  followers  wandered through  Lower Galilee and Samaria on the west  side of the Jordan  river. The religious authorities who  favored  the  ruler, Antipas,  never ceased to shadow Yeshua. Yeshua healed a man with  a withered hand one Shabbat, and the Herodians said that was a day when no work should  be done. Yeshua could hardly believe his  ears. He said, "If your lamb falls into a hole on  Shabbat, will you not fetch it out? This man is worth far more than a lamb."

Miriam came before Yeshua after  being away from  the disciples for a number  of  days and  told him,  "Nothing  ever comes  of antagonizing the Herodian faction here  in the north," she said, "and the people come to you with a mind only  to be healed, not to embrace God's Kingdom."

So Yeshua drifted south. He and his disciples began to dwell in Bethany at the house of Shimon, a leper who had been cleansed by Yeshua. And for the  first time the  people near  Jerusalem saw Yeshua heal, and they heard him teach.

For his first visit to the temple Yeshua intended to preach from the prophet Jeremiah concerning how the temple had become a den of thieves. Not a place where thievery  took place,  but where thieves went to avoid the  consequences of their theft. He was unprepared for the real situation.

Without sensing the  irony, the  Yehudim, alone  among all  the children of Israel, made a mandatory pilgrimage once  a year to Jerusalem  to  offer  sacrifice  in  what  began  as  a  harvest festival, but became a celebration of freedom from slavery, all while remaining slaves of Rome. As this celebration of liberty was required by the Code of Moshe, but very few of the people of Judea were actually involved in raising the animals specified in the Torah for slaughter. So the situation was ripe  for abuse. The presence of foreign soldiers even spoke of Roman graft.