The Song of the Unfruitful Vineyard

⁴ even though I, too, have reason for confidence in the flesh.

If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;^{(A) 6} as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

⁷ Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.^{(B) 8} More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ^{(C) 9} and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ,^[a] the righteousness from God based on faith.^{(D) 10} I want to know Christ^[b] and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead.^(E)

Pressing toward the Goal

¹² Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal,^[c] but I press on to lay hold of that for which Christ^[d] has laid hold of me.^{(F) 13} Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have laid hold^[e] of it, but one thing I have laid hold of: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,^{(G) 14} I press on toward the goal, toward the prize of the heavenly^[f] call of God in Christ Jesus.^(H)

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)

⁴² Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the scriptures:

⁴³ “Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people that produces its fruits.^{(G) 44} The one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”^[b]

⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them. ⁴⁶ They wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.^(H)