⁷ (Such women are forever following new teachings, but they are never able to understand the truth.)

⁷ For I solemnly warned your ancestors when I brought them out of Egypt, “Obey me!” I have repeated this warning over and over to this day,

³ “For the past twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of the reign of Josiah son of Amon,^[a] king of Judah, until now—the Lord has been giving me his messages. I have faithfully passed them on to you, but you have not listened.

⁴ “Again and again the Lord has sent you his servants, the prophets, but you have not listened or even paid attention. ⁵ Each time the message was this: ‘Turn from the evil road you are traveling and from the evil things you are doing. Only then will I let you live in this land that the Lord gave to you and your ancestors forever. ⁶ Do not provoke my anger by worshiping idols you made with your own hands. Then I will not harm you.’

⁷ “But you would not listen to me,” says the Lord. “You made me furious by worshiping idols you made with your own hands, bringing on yourselves all the disasters you now suffer.

¹² You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word.^[a] You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food.

The Priceless Value of Knowing Christ

3 Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters,^[a] rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith.

³⁴ At the time of the grape harvest, he sent his servants to collect his share of the crop. ³⁵ But the farmers grabbed his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another. ³⁶ So the landowner sent a larger group of his servants to collect for him, but the results were the same.

³⁷ “Finally, the owner sent his son, thinking, ‘Surely they will respect my son.’

³⁸ “But when the tenant farmers saw his son coming, they said to one another, ‘Here comes the heir to this estate. Come on, let’s kill him and get the estate for ourselves!’ ³⁹ So they grabbed him, dragged him out of the vineyard, and murdered him.

⁴⁰ “When the owner of the vineyard returns,” Jesus asked, “what do you think he will do to those farmers?”

⁴¹ The religious leaders replied, “He will put the wicked men to a horrible death and lease the vineyard to others who will give him his share of the crop after each harvest.”