Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

5 ¶ Now will I sing to my well-beloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard in the horn of the sons of oil;

² and he had fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof and planted it with the choicest vine and built a tower in the midst of it and also made a winepress therein; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

³ And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, between me and my vineyard.

⁴ What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Therefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, did it bring forth wild grapes?

⁵ And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away its hedge, and it shall be eaten up; and break down its wall, and it shall be trodden down:

⁶ And I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned, nor hoed; but briers and thorns shall come up there; I will even command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

⁷ For the vineyard of the LORD of the hosts is the house of Israel and every man of Judah his pleasant plant; and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

⁷ Turn us again, O God of the hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.

⁸ ¶ Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; thou hast cast out the Gentiles and planted it.

⁹ Thou didst prepare room before it and didst cause it to take deep root, and it filled the earth.

¹⁰ The hills were covered with the shadow of it, and its boughs were like the cedars of God.

¹¹ She sent out her boughs unto the sea and her branches unto the river.

¹² Why hast thou then broken down her hedges, so that all those who pass by the way pluck her?

¹³ The boar out of the wood wastes it, and the wild beast of the field devours it.

¹⁴ Return, we beseech thee, O God of the hosts: look down from heaven and behold and visit this vine

¹⁵ and the vineyard which thy right hand has planted and the branch that thou didst make strong for thyself.

⁴ ¶ Though I might also have reason to confide in the flesh. If any other man thinks that he has whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:

⁵ Circumcised the eighth day, of the lineage of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee;

⁶ concerning zeal, a persecutor of the congregation; {Gr. ekklesia – called out ones} concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

⁷ But those things which were gain to me, I counted loss for Christ.

⁸ And doubtless I even count all things as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ

⁹ ¶ and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

¹⁰ That I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death,

¹¹ if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.

¹² Not as though I had already attained it, either were already perfect, but I follow after, if I may lay hold of that for which I have also been laid hold of by the Christ, Jesus.

¹³ Brethren, I do not reckon to have laid hold of it yet, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and extending myself unto those things which are ahead,

¹⁴ I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

³³ ¶ Hear another parable: There was a certain husband of a house who planted a vineyard and hedged it round about and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and let it out to husbandmen and went into a far country,

³⁴ and when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his slaves to the husbandmen that they might receive the fruits of it.

³⁵ And the husbandmen took his slaves and beat one and killed another and stoned another.

³⁶ Again, he sent other slaves more than the first, and they did unto them likewise.

³⁷ But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son.

³⁸ But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us take his inheritance.

³⁹ And they took hold of him and cast him out of the vineyard and slew him.

⁴⁰ Therefore, when the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do unto those husbandmen?

⁴¹ They say unto him, He will destroy those wicked men without mercy and will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen who shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

⁴² Jesus said unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes?

⁴³ Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a people bringing forth the fruits thereof.

⁴⁴ And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.

⁴⁵ And as the princes of the priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he spoke of them.

⁴⁶ But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitude because they held him as a prophet.