Hear another parable: There was a man, a householder, who planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it, and dug a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country. And when the time of the fruits drew near, he sent servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive its fruits. And the husbandmen, having seized his servants, beat one, killed another, and stoned yet another. Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did to them likewise. Last of all he sent to them his son, saying: 'Perhaps they will respect my son.' But the husbandmen, seeing the son, said within themselves: 'This is the heir;
come, let us kill him, and we shall have his inheritance.' And having seized him, they cast him out of the vineyard and killed him. When therefore the lord of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants? They said to him: 'He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and will let out his vineyard to other husbandmen who will render him the fruit in their seasons.' Jesus said to them: 'Have you never read in the Scriptures: "The stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner: this was the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes" (Ps. 117:22-23)? Therefore I say to you, that the kingdom of God shall be taken away from you and given to a nation yielding its fruit. And whoever falls upon this stone shall be broken; but on whomever it falls, it shall grind him to powder.'
And when the chief priests and the Pharisees had heard his parables, they understood that he was speaking about them. And seeking to seize him, they feared the multitudes, since they held him as a prophet. And Jesus, answering, again spoke to them in parables, saying: