³³ “Now listen to this story: A certain landowner planted a vineyard with a hedge around it, and built a platform for the watchman, then leased the vineyard to some farmers on a sharecrop basis, and went away to live in another country.

³⁴ “At the time of the grape harvest he sent his agents to the farmers to collect his share. ³⁵ But the farmers attacked his men, beat one, killed one, and stoned another.

³⁶ “Then he sent a larger group of his men to collect for him, but the results were the same. ³⁷ Finally the owner sent his son, thinking they would surely respect him.

³⁸ “But when these farmers saw the son coming, they said among themselves, ‘Here comes the heir to this estate; come on, let’s kill him and get it for ourselves!’ ³⁹ So they dragged him out of the vineyard and killed him.

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

⁴¹ The Jewish leaders replied, “He will put the wicked men to a horrible death and lease the vineyard to others who will pay him promptly.”

⁴² Then Jesus asked them, “Didn’t you ever read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone rejected by the builders has been made the honored cornerstone;^[a] how remarkable! what an amazing thing the Lord has done’?

⁴³ “What I mean is that the Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and given to a nation that will give God his share of the crop.^{[b] 44} All who stumble on this rock of truth^[c] shall be broken, but those it falls on will be scattered as dust.”

⁴⁵ When the chief priests and other Jewish leaders realized that Jesus was talking about them—that they were the farmers in his story— ⁴⁶ they wanted to get rid of him but were afraid to try because of the crowds, for they accepted Jesus as a prophet.