Matthew 23:38

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

Scholars omit the word "desolate" (see the ASV margin). Whether or not the word is in the original, the meaning surely is. "Behold your house is left unto you!" This was a seven-word summary of the seven woes just pronounced by the Lord. No longer would the city be disturbed by the teaching of her Saviour. His last public discourse was ended. The Holy City was then left to those vain captains of their sinking ship, unaware of their doom, even when the last lifeboat had departed and no means of escape remained. Plummer expressed it thus:

These sorrowful words of warning are the Messiah's farewell to his people. He never again taught in public, and perhaps he never again entered the temple. It was perhaps only a few hours after uttering these woes upon the teachers, and this lamentation over the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that the Sanhedrin met to consider how they might destroy him who had uttered them. That was their answer to his condemnation of their past and his warnings respecting their future.[14]

Note that Christ refers to the temple as "your house," meaning that the most sacred institutions have genuine value only so long as they are blessed with the presence of the Lord. It was, after Christ's rejection, no longer God's house, but theirs!