Jesus began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a pit for the winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he rented it out to tenant farmers and went away on a journey.[1] 2 When harvest time came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect some of the fruit of the vineyard from them. 3 But they grabbed him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. 4 So he sent another slave to them. That one they struck on the head and treated shamefully. 5 He sent another, and that one they killed — and many others: some they beat, some they killed.
6 “He still had one left: his beloved son. He sent him to them last of all, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ 7 But those tenants said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come on, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 8 So they grabbed him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.
9 “What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. 10 Haven’t you read this Scripture:
‘A stone the builders rejected — this has become the cornerstone. 11 The Lord has done this, and it is wonderful in our eyes’?”
12 The chief priests and scribes wanted to arrest him right then, because they knew he had told this parable against them. But they were afraid of the crowd. So they left him alone and went away.
• • •
13 Later they sent some Pharisees and supporters of Herod to Jesus, to try to trap him in his words.[2] 14 They came and said to him, “Teacher, we know you are honest and don’t care what anyone thinks, because you don’t look at a person’s status but truly teach the way of God. Is it right to pay the tax to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay it, or shouldn’t we?”
But Jesus saw right through their hypocrisy. “Why are you testing me?” he said. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.”[3] 16 They brought one, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose name is on it?”
“Caesar’s,” they answered.
17 Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.”
They were amazed at him.
• • •
18 Then some Sadducees came to him — the ones who say there is no resurrection. They asked him, 19 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no child, the man should marry the widow and raise up children for his brother.[4] 20 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman, but died leaving no children. 21 The second married her, and he died leaving no children. The third was the same. 22 None of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. 23 So in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be? All seven had her as a wife.”
24 Jesus said to them, “Isn’t this the reason you’re mistaken — because you don’t know the Scriptures or the power of God? 25 When people rise from the dead, they don’t marry and aren’t given in marriage. They are like the angels in heaven. 26 And about the dead being raised — haven’t you read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? 27 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken.”
• • •
28 One of the scribes came up and heard them arguing. Seeing that Jesus had answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”
29 Jesus answered, “The most important is: ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.[5] 30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
32 The scribe said to him, “Well said, Teacher. You are right to say that he is one and there is no other besides him, 33 and to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself — this is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
34 When Jesus saw that the man had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.”
After that, no one dared ask him any more questions.
• • •
35 While Jesus was teaching in the temple, he asked, “How can the scribes say that the Anointed One is the son of David? 36 David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said:
‘The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.’
37 David himself calls him ‘Lord.’ So how can he be his son?”
The large crowd listened to him gladly.
38 As he taught, he said, “Watch out for the scribes. They like to walk around in long robes, to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, 39 to have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at banquets. 40 They devour widows’ houses and for show make long prayers. These men will receive a much heavier judgment.”
• • •
41 Jesus sat down across from the temple treasury and watched the crowd putting money into the offering box. Many rich people threw in large amounts. 42 Then a poor widow came and put in two tiny copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.[6]
43 Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “Amen, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all the others who gave to the treasury. 44 For they all gave out of their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, put in everything she had — all she had to live on.”
Notes
Note 1. A first-century Judean winepress was typically carved straight into rock: an upper, sloping floor where the grapes were trodden by foot, with channels letting the juice run down through the stone into a lower collecting vat. The details listed — fence, pit, watchtower — are the ordinary marks of a well-built vineyard. ↩
Note 2. The Herodians were a political faction that backed the family of Herod, who ruled as clients of Rome. Their acceptance of Roman-backed power normally set them at odds with the Pharisees. ↩
Note 3. The denarius was a small Roman silver coin, roughly a day’s pay for a common laborer, and it was the coin in which the head tax to Rome was paid. It carried the emperor’s portrait and inscription. ↩
Note 4. The law cited is levirate marriage, from Deuteronomy 25:5-10, which required a man to marry his dead brother’s childless widow. The law states its own aim: so that the dead man’s name “will not be obliterated from Israel.” ↩
Note 5. The opening line is the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4), the declaration of God’s oneness that devout Jews recited morning and evening as the cornerstone of their faith. Joined to it is “love your neighbor as yourself” from Leviticus 19:18. ↩
Note 6. The Greek names the coins as two lepta, the smallest coins in circulation, which together the text says equaled one kodrantes (a Roman quadrans) — about a sixty-fourth of a day’s wage. ↩