Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

⁴ Mind you, I’ve got good reason to trust in the flesh. If anyone else thinks they have reason to trust in the flesh, I’ve got more. ⁵ Circumcised? On the eighth day. Race? Israelite. Tribe? Benjamin. Descent? Hebrew through and through. Torah-observance? A Pharisee. ⁶ Zealous? I persecuted the church! Official status under the law? Blameless.

Gaining the Messiah

⁷ Does that sound as though my account was well in credit? Well, maybe; but whatever I had written in on the profit side, I calculated it instead as a loss—because of the Messiah. ⁸ Yes, I know that’s weird, but there’s more: I calculate everything as a loss, because knowing Messiah Jesus as my Lord is worth far more than everything else put together! In fact, because of the Messiah I’ve suffered the loss of everything, and I now calculate it as trash, so that my profit may be the Messiah, ⁹ and that I may be discovered in him, not having my own covenant status defined by Torah, but the status which comes through the Messiah’s faithfulness: the covenant status from God which is given to faith. ¹⁰ This means knowing him, knowing the power of his resurrection, and knowing the partnership of his sufferings. It means sharing the form and pattern of his death, ¹¹ so that somehow I may arrive at the final resurrection from the dead.

Chasing on to the finish

¹² I’m not implying that I’ve already received “resurrection,” or that I’ve already become complete and mature! No; I’m hurrying on, eager to overtake it, because Messiah Jesus has overtaken me. ¹³ My dear family, I don’t reckon that I have yet overtaken it. But this is my one aim: to forget everything that’s behind, and to strain every nerve to go after what’s ahead. ¹⁴ I mean to chase on towards the finishing post, where the prize waiting for me is the upward call of God in Messiah Jesus.

The parable of the tenants

³³ “Listen to another parable,” Jesus went on. “Once upon a time there was a householder who planted a vineyard, built a wall for it, dug out a wine-press in it, and built a tower. Then he let it out to tenant farmers and went away on a journey.

³⁴ “When harvest time arrived, he sent his slaves to the farmers to collect his produce. ³⁵ The farmers seized his slaves; they beat one, killed another, and stoned another. ³⁶ Again he sent other slaves, more than before, and they treated them in the same way. ³⁷ Finally he sent his son to them.

“ ‘They’ll respect my son,’ he said.

³⁸ “But the farmers saw the son.

“ ‘This fellow’s the heir!’ they said among themselves. ‘Come on, let’s kill him, and then we can take over the property!’

³⁹ “So they seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

⁴⁰ “Now then: when the vineyard-owner returns, what will he do to those farmers?”

⁴¹ “He’ll kill them brutally, the wretches!” they said. “And he’ll lease the vineyard to other farmers who’ll give him the produce at the right time.”

⁴² “Did you never read what the Bible says?” said Jesus to them:

⁴³ “So then let me tell you this: God’s kingdom is going to be taken away from you and given to a nation that will produce the goods. ⁴⁴ Anyone who falls on this stone will be smashed to pieces, and anyone it falls on will be crushed.”

⁴⁵ When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew he was talking about them. ⁴⁶ They tried to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowds, who regarded him as a prophet.