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²⁷Again they came to Jerusalem. As he was walking in the temple, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders came to him ²⁸and said, “By what authority are you doing these things? Who gave you this authority to do them?” ²⁹Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question; answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰Did the baptism of John come from heaven, or was it of human origin? Answer me.” ³¹They argued with one another, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ he will say, ‘Why then did you not believe him?’ ³²But shall we say, ‘Of human origin’?” —they were afraid of the crowd, for all regarded John as truly a prophet. ³³So they answered Jesus, “We do not know.” And Jesus said to them, “Neither will I tell you by what authority I am doing these things.”

12Then he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, put a fence around it, dug a pit for the wine press, and built a watchtower; then he leased it to tenants and went to another country. ²When the season came, he sent a slave to the tenants to collect from them his share of the produce of the vineyard. ³But they seized him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴And again he sent another slave to them; this one they beat over the head and insulted. ⁵Then he sent another, and that one they killed. And so it was with many others; some they beat, and others they killed. ⁶He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ⁷But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ ⁸So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. ⁹What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. ¹⁰Have you not read this scripture:

‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
¹¹this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?”

¹²When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd. So they left him and went away.