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I saw Isaac’s son with a group of well dressed young men ahead of me on the stairs leading up to the Temple.
“Matthias.” Amid the noise in the area, he did not seem to hear me. I quickened my pace. Fortunately, the group did not move up the steps but stayed in one place, all of them talking animatedly. I almost ran up the steps.
When I got close enough to hear what they were saying, I wished I were as strong as Jesus so I could sock each of them in the jaw.
“Yes, and when the Romans collect no more taxes, their army will collapse,” one of young men was saying.
“Israel will be free again,” exclaimed another.
“And without the taxes, we’ll keep all our money and grow rich!”
This was the sort of fantasizing common to schoolboys, not full-grown men. I wondered if any one of these fools had ever had to support himself, or if each had lived off his parents.
“Matthias, what’s going on?” I demanded.
He turned toward my voice as he was in the middle of a declaration to his friends. Seeing me, he shrieked almost like a girl and pointed. “There he is! Judah, we are going to rise up here in the city just as you did in Galilee. We are going to help all the people hide their money from the foreign devils.”
I yelled beseechingly. “No! Do not put yourselves and the city in danger.”
“Hah!” He raised his fist in defiance.