Isaiah 56:7

Is it not written, "He says, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations' "? We read this in Isaiah: "But you have made it a den of thieves." …Where we read, "You have made it a den of thieves," John's Gospel had instead, "You have made it a house of business." Wherever there are thieves, there is a house of trafficking. Would that it were applied only to the Jews and not the Christians! We would, indeed, weep for them but rejoice for ourselves.

It is written in the prophet Isaiah, "My house will be called a house of prayer among all nations." But perhaps the Jews will say that the house of God, that is, the synagogue, is open to all. We will not argue the point, except to say that the circumcised always appeal to the law. For their law is of the manner of Abraham's circumcision. Nothing new is to be seen in what the prophet gives. But if only worthless things can be found, who will say that the prophet is speaking unnecessary and empty words? I do not know whether it is prudent to listen and not to prohibit. For since the Jewish people because of their sins, which took them away from God, were asking requests from idols, they were often rebuked by the prophets. They did not want to walk the road of penitence and return to God; to their shame he signals his house is open to all nations for prayer and that since the Jews have abandoned it, he will put others in their place. For if the nations were always being admitted to the law, as the Jews claim, how was the prophet speaking of the future, unless that signified something other than had already been commanded? For it would not be possible to speak of such things as happening every day, since they were yet to come.

"And the sons of the foreigners who join themselves to the Lord, … these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer." These words refer to the church of the Gentiles, as the Lord himself explained to …

(v. 6, 7.) And the sons of the stranger, who adhere to the Lord, to serve Him and love His name, to be His servants: everyone who keeps the Sabbath from defiling it, and holds fast (or holding) to my covenant, I will bring them to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. LXX: And to the foreigners who have joined themselves to the Lord to serve Him and love His name, to be His servants ÷ both men and women ÷ and all who keep my Sabbaths without profaning them, and hold fast (or holding) to my covenant, I will bring them to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer. After eunuchs pass over to foreigners, whom he had previously mentioned, he also promises rewards to them: that if they serve him, and pass from servitude to the love of that name, they will be his servants: such was also the Apostle Paul, writing at the beginning of his Epistles: Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ (Rom, I, 1). And Moses, a servant of God (Heb. III). But what was added in the Septuagint: and female servants, we have marked with an asterisk. For it cannot happen that there be any diversity of sex in spiritual gifts: since in Christ Jesus there is no male or female; but all are one in him (John 17). We have already spoken about the Sabbath and the eternal covenant. Therefore, whoever does these things, God will bring him to his holy mountain, and he will be filled with joy in his house of prayer. The holy mountain, or the teachings of truth, and the confession of the Trinity: or the Lord himself, to whom in the last times (according to this same Isaiah and the prophet Micah) many nations will come together (Isaiah 2, Micah 4). The Church is the house of prayer, which is divided throughout the whole world, and not the Temple of the Jews, which was confined to the narrow confines of the land of Judea.

As if you did not know that all human beings come from Adam and that it is written that the nations will believe in Christ, as it is said, "My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." … The saints were …