Mark 11:27–12:12

²⁷And they came again to Jerusalem. And as he was walking in the temple, the chief priests and the scribes and the elders came to him, ²⁸and they said to him, “By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?” ²⁹Jesus said to them, “I will ask you a question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰Was the baptism of John from heaven or from men? Answer me.” ³¹And they argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ ³²But shall we say, ‘From men’?”—they were afraid of the people, for all held that John was a real prophet. ³³So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things.”

Chapter 12

¹And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country. ²When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. ³And they took him and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴Again he sent to them another servant, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. ⁵And he sent another, and him they killed; and so with many others, some they beat and some they killed. ⁶He had still one other, a beloved son; finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ⁷But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ ⁸And they took him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard. ⁹What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others.

¹⁰Have you not read this scripture:

‘The very stone which the builders rejected

has become the head of the corner;

¹¹this was the Lord’s doing,

and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

¹²And they tried to arrest him, but feared the multitude, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them; so they left him and went away.