⁶ The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops.^(A)

³⁶ You need to persevere^(A) so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.^(B)

⁷ Who serves as a soldier^(A) at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard^(B) and does not eat its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink the milk? ⁸ Do I say this merely on human authority? Doesn’t the Law say the same thing? ⁹ For it is written in the Law of Moses: “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.”^[a](C) Is it about oxen that God is concerned?^{(D) 10} Surely he says this for us, doesn’t he? Yes, this was written for us,^(E) because whoever plows and threshes should be able to do so in the hope of sharing in the harvest.^{(F) 11} If we have sown spiritual seed among you, is it too much if we reap a material harvest from you?^(G)

⁶ I planted the seed,^(A) Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. ⁷ So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. ⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.^{(B) 9} For we are co-workers in God’s service;^(C) you are God’s field,^(D) God’s building.^(E)

³⁵ Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.^{(A) 36} Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests^(B) a crop for eternal life,^(C) so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. ³⁷ Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’^(D) is true. ³⁸ I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”

The Parable of the Tenants^(A)

³³ “Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted^(B) a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower.^(C) Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place.^{(D) 34} When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants^(E) to the tenants to collect his fruit.

³⁵ “The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third.^{(F) 36} Then he sent other servants^(G) to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. ³⁷ Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.

³⁸ “But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir.^(H) Come, let’s kill him^(I) and take his inheritance.’^{(J) 39} So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

⁴⁰ “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

⁴¹ “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,”^(K) they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants,^(L) who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”

²³ I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings.

² He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.^(A)

The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like^(A) a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.^(B)