The Rejected Stone

33Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower, and leased it to tenant farmers, and went away.

34But when the season for the fruits had drawn near, he sent his servants to the tenant farmers to collect his fruits.

35And the tenant farmers took his servants; one they beat, another they killed, and another they stoned.

36Again he sent other servants, more than the first ones, and they did the same to them.

37But later he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’

38But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’

39And they took him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him.

40Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those farmers?

41They said to him, “He will miserably destroy those wretches, and he will lease the vineyard to other farmers, who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”

42Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone that the builders rejected—this one has become the cornerstone. This came from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

43Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a nation producing its fruits.

44And the one who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will crush him.

45And when the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they knew that he was speaking about them.

46And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they regarded him as a prophet.