⁶ It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops.

³⁶ For you need endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what was promised.^(A)

⁷ Who at any time pays the expenses for doing military service? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not get any of its milk?^(A)

⁸ Do I say this on human authority? Does not the law also say the same? ⁹ For it is written in the law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned?^{(B) 10} Or does he not speak entirely for our sake? It was indeed written for our sake, for whoever plows should plow in hope and whoever threshes should thresh in hope of a share in the crop. ¹¹ If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we harvest material^[a] things?^(C)

⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷ So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. ⁸ The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and each will receive wages according to their own labor.^{(A) 9} For we are God’s coworkers, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.^(B)

³⁵ Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting.^{(A) 36} The reaper is already receiving^[a] wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together.^{(B) 37} For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’^{(C) 38} I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

The Parable of the Wicked Tenants

³³ “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a winepress in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenants and went away.^{(A) 34} When the harvest time had come, he sent his slaves to the tenants to collect his produce.^{(B) 35} But the tenants seized his slaves and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.^{(C) 36} Again he sent other slaves, more than the first, and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷ Then he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ³⁸ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him and get his inheritance.’^{(D) 39} So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. ⁴⁰ Now when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” ⁴¹ They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and lease the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the harvest time.”^(E)

²³ I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I might become a partner in it.

² He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.^(A)