Mark 12:1-9

Worldwide English (New Testament)

12 Jesus then began to speak to the disciples in stories. `A man planted a farm of vines for growing fruit called grapes. He put a fence of small trees around it. He dug a place to press the juice from the fruit. He built a high house from which men could watch over the farm. Then he let some men pay to use it and went to a country far away.

² At harvest time the owner sent one his servants to get some of the fruit from the farm.

³ The men took the servant and beat him. They sent him away without any fruit.

⁴ He sent another servant. They hurt this one also, and cut his head. The things they did to him were very wrong.

⁵ So he sent another servant. The men killed him. He sent many others, and the men beat some and killed others.

⁶ There was one left. He was his own son. He sent him last. He said, "They will respect my son."

⁷ But the men said to each other, "This is the one who will have everything when his father dies. Let us kill him. Then everything will belong to us."

⁸ They killed him and threw his body outside the farm.

⁹ `What will the man who owned the farm do to them? He will come back and kill the men in the farm. And he will give the farm to other men to use.