The Rejected Stone

Jesus Answers Traps and Teaches · Mark 12

Story guide: First-century builders lowering one unique dressed stone into the corner of a wall beside a vineyard and watchtower. This shared image is not a scene-for-scene rendering of Mark 12:1-12.

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1And he began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard, and put a fence around it, and dug a winepress pit, and built a tower, and leased it to tenant farmers, and went away.”

2And at the proper time he sent a servant to the vine-growers, so that he might receive from the vine-growers some of the fruit of the vineyard.

3And they took him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed.

4And again he sent another servant to them, and they struck him on the head and dishonored him.

5And he sent another, and they killed that one; and many others—some they beat, and some they killed.

6He still had one, a beloved son. He sent him last to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

7But those tenant farmers said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’

8And they took him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

9What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenant farmers, and give the vineyard to others.

10Have you not even read this Scripture: ‘The stone that the builders rejected, this has become the cornerstone’?”

11This came from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes.

12And they were seeking to seize him, but they feared the crowd, for they knew that he had spoken the parable against them. So they left him and went away.

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