Study Desk

"Now listen to another parable. There was a farmer who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower; then he rented it to tenants and left.

When harvest-time came, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his share of the crop.

But the tenants seized his servants — this one they beat up, that one they killed, another they stoned.

So he sent some other servants, more than the first group, and they did the same to them.

Finally, he sent them his son, saying, ‘My son they will respect.'

But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and take his inheritance!'

So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?"

They answered him, "He will viciously destroy those vicious men and rent out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him his share of the crop when it's due."

Yeshua said to them, "Haven't you ever read in the Tanakh, ‘The very rock which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone! This has come from Adonai , and in our eyes it is amazing' ?^[i]

Therefore, I tell you that the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to the kind of people that will produce its fruit!"

^[j]

As the head cohanim and the P'rushim listened to his stories, they saw that he was speaking about them.

But when they set about to arrest him, they were afraid of the crowds; because the crowds considered him a prophet.