12Jesus began to speak to the people by using stories. He said, “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it. He dug a pit for a winepress. He also built a lookout tower. He rented the vineyard out to some farmers. Then he went away on a journey.

²“At harvest time he sent a servant to the renters. He told the servant to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. ³But they grabbed the servant and beat him up. Then they sent him away with nothing. ⁴So the man sent another servant to the renters. They hit this one on the head and treated him badly. ⁵The man sent still another servant. The renters killed him. The man sent many others. The renters beat up some of them. They killed the others.

⁶“The man had one person left to send. It was his son, and he loved him. He sent him last of all. He said, ‘They will respect my son.’

⁷“But the renters said to each other, ‘This is the one who will receive all the owner’s property someday. Come, let’s kill him. Then everything will be ours.’ ⁸So they took him and killed him. They threw him out of the vineyard.

⁹“What will the owner of the vineyard do then? He will come and kill those renters. He will give the vineyard to others.

¹⁰“Haven’t you read what Scripture says,

“ ‘The stone the builders didn’t accept

has become the most important stone of all.

¹¹The Lord has done it.

It is wonderful in our eyes’?”

¹²Then the religious leaders looked for a way to arrest Jesus. They knew he had told the story against them. But they were afraid of the crowd. So they left him and went away.

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