And every widemouthed cooking pot in Jerusalem and in Judah must become something holy belonging to Jehovah of armies, and all those who are sacrificing must come in and take from them and must do boiling in them.” (Zechariah 14:20, 21)

The cooking pots at the house of Jehovah being used extraordinarily now for the sprinkling of the blood on the altar, there would be a shortage of cooking pots at the temple. This would necessitate the appropriating of the common cooking pots of the private homes of the city of Jerusalem in order to do the boiling of the sacrificial flesh at the temple. In this manner those common domestic cooking pots would become “something holy belonging to Jehovah.” They would be sanctified to His service.

23. Notwithstanding what the picture with earthly Jerusalem implies, what about a shortage of priests in the “heavenly Jerusalem” and the means for rendering priestly service to mankind?

²³ Whatever would be the case with the typical Jerusalem as used in the prophetic picture, there will be no shortage of priestly service in the “city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem.” The High Priest Jesus Christ and his full complement of 144,000 underpriests will be up there. They will be fully adequate for the worldwide work of healing obedient mankind from the death-dealing effects of sin and imperfection. There will be no shortage of utensils, as it were. The cleansing, healing blood of the High Priest Jesus Christ as the “Lamb of God” will be ample enough in its redemptive value to avail for all who turn to Jehovah God. Throughout the thousand years of his reign he and his underpriests will minister to mankind’s needs; and so the blessed results of this will be, as stated in Hebrews 7:24, 25: “He because of continuing alive forever has his priesthood without any successors. Consequently he is able also to save completely those who are approaching God through him, because he is always alive to plead for them.” So the tremendous increase of worshipers at Jehovah’s spiritual temple due to resurrection of the dead will not put too great a burden on him.

NO “CANAANITE” TO MAR MILLENNIAL WORSHIP

24. (a) What will the earthly celebrators of the Millennial festival not be molested by at the spiritual temple of Jehovah? (b) What action by Jesus on earth at the temple of Jerusalem proves that he will not tolerate any such molestation?

²⁴ When all those earthly celebrators of the Millennial festival of the booths approach Jehovah’s spiritual temple of worship, they will not be confronted with or be obliged to run the gauntlet of a swarm of traffickers in religious articles, selfishly seeking to make money off those who desire to worship God “with spirit and truth.” (John 4:24) Jehovah’s heavenly High Priest will not stand for this for one moment. When he was on earth as a man in order to offer his perfect human sacrifice as a high priest, he twice cleansed the temple at Jerusalem of religious commercialists, once in the first year of his public ministry and again just four days before his sacrificial death. Concerning this latter case we read:

“And [on his triumphal ride] he entered into Jerusalem, into the temple; and he looked around upon all things, and, as the hour was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve. The next day, when they had come out from Bethany, . . . they came to Jerusalem. There he entered into the temple and started to throw out those selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves; and he would not let anyone carry a utensil through the temple, but he kept teaching and saying: ‘Is it not written, “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations”? But you have made it a cave of robbers.’ And the chief priests and the scribes heard it, and they began to seek how to destroy him.”​—Mark 11:11-18; Isaiah 56:7; John 2:12-17.

25. The High Priest will see to it that what part of Zechariah’s prophecy is thus fulfilled?

²⁵ With just as much zeal as ever for the house of God’s worship, the heavenly High Priest Jesus Christ will see to it that the closing words of Zechariah’s prophecy are fulfilled: “And there will no more prove to be a Canaanite [or, tradesman] in the house of Jehovah of armies in that day.”​—Zechariah 14:21.

26. (a) Why does the “Canaanite” have no place at Jehovah’s house of worship? (b) How or with what will the earth then be sanctified?

²⁶ The designation Canaanite was synonymous with “tradesman.” (Proverbs 31:24; Job 41:6; compare Nehemiah 13:15-21.) Such persons, who seek to make selfish, commercial profit out of the most sacred thing on earth, the worship of the one living and true God, have no place in the earthly courtyard of Jehovah’s spiritual temple, nor on the earth His footstool at all. And there will be none such, nor any religious frauds. The teaching of the pure truth and the practice of pure, undefiled religion will then sanctify the earth. Everywhere on earth Jehovah will be known and adored. (Isaiah 11:9) He is holy, and his worshipers in the earth-wide paradise will, like him, be holy.​—1 Peter 1:16.