Jesus' story about some wicked farmers
9 Then Jesus began to tell this story to the people. He said, ‘A man planted vines in a vineyard to grow grapes there. He found some farmers to work in the vineyard for him. Then he went away to another country and he stayed there for a long time.
10 At the time for the harvest, the man sent a servant to speak to the farmers. He wanted them to give him his fruit from the vines.
But the farmers hit the servant with sticks and they sent him away with nothing.
11 The master sent another servant to go to the farmers. They hit him with sticks too, and they did other bad things to him. They also sent him away with nothing. 12 The master then sent a third servant to the farmers. They also hurt him very much, and they threw him out of the vineyard.
13 Then the master of the vineyard said to himself, “I know what I will do. I will send my own son to go to them. I love him very much. Perhaps they will respect him.” 14 But the farmers saw the son coming. They said to each other, “This is the master's own son. When our master dies, the farm will belong to his son. So we should kill the son and then the farm will belong to us.”
15 So they threw the son out of the vineyard and they killed him.’
20:15The farmers were a picture of the people who had not obeyed God's prophets in the past. Now they were ready to kill God's own Son.
Jesus asked, ‘Then what will the master of the vineyard do to those farmers? 16 I tell you, he will come to those farmers and he will kill them. Then he will give the vineyard to other people to take care of it.’
When the people heard this, they replied, ‘That must never happen!’
17 Jesus then looked at the people and he said, ‘You say that this must not happen. But you have read this in the Bible and you should know what it means:
“The builders refused to use a certain stone.
They thought that it had no value.
But now that stone has become the most important stone at the corner of the building.
20:17See Psalm 118:22. God had chosen Jesus to do his work. But the Jewish leaders would not agree with that. 18 When a person falls onto that stone, it will break his body into pieces. When that stone falls on top of someone, it will destroy him completely.” ’
