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The Parable about the Tenant Farmers(A)

33 “Listen to another parable. There was a landowner who planted a vineyard, put a wall around it, dug a wine press in it, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to tenant farmers and went abroad. 34 When harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenant farmers to collect his produce. 35 But the farmers took his servants and beat one, killed another, and attacked another with stones. 36 Again, he sent other servants to them, a greater number than the first, but the tenant farmers[a] treated them the same way. 37 Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenant farmers saw his son, they told one another, ‘This is the heir. Come on, let’s kill him and get his inheritance!’ 39 So they grabbed him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. 40 Now when the owner of the vineyard returns, what will he do to those farmers?”

41 They told him, “He will put those horrible men to a horrible death. Then he will lease the vineyard to other farmers who will give him his produce at harvest time.”

42 Jesus asked them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures,

‘The stone that the builders rejected
    has become the cornerstone.[b]
This was the Lord’s[c] doing,
    and it is amazing in our eyes.’?[d]

43 That is why I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce fruit for it. 44 The person who falls over this stone will be broken to pieces, but it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”[e]

45 When the high priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was talking about them. 46 Although they wanted to arrest him, they were afraid of the crowds, who considered Jesus[f] to be a prophet.

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Footnotes

  1. Matthew 21:36 Lit. they
  2. Matthew 21:42 Or capstone
  3. Matthew 21:42 MT source citation reads Lord’s
  4. Matthew 21:42 Cf. Ps 118:22-23
  5. Matthew 21:44 Other mss. lack this verse
  6. Matthew 21:46 Lit. him