Mark 12:1-12, The Parable of the Tenants

¹ And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard [a major and long-term investment] and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. [See Isaiah 5:1-2] ² When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. ³ And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴ Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. ⁵ And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. ⁶ He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ [Is Jesus acknowledging to them that he is the Son of God?] ⁷ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ [The rejection of the son is the rejection of the father.] ⁸ And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. ⁹ What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. [Jesus gives them full warning of the consequences of their homicidal plans.] ¹⁰ Have you not read this Scripture:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected    has become the cornerstone;¹¹ this was the Lord's doing,    and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” [Psalm 118:22-23]

¹² And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.