Mark 11:27-12:12

Mark 11:27-12:12  

²⁷ And they *came again to Jerusalem. And as He was walking in the temple area, the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders *came to Him, ²⁸ and began saying to Him, “By what authority are You doing these things, or who gave You this authority to do these things?” ²⁹ But Jesus said to them, “I will ask you one question, and you answer Me, and then I will tell you by what authority I do these things. ³⁰ Was the baptism of John from heaven, or from men? Answer Me.” ³¹ And they began considering the implications among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From heaven,’ He will say, ‘Then why did you not believe him?’ ³² But should we say, ‘From men’?”—they were afraid of the people, for they all considered John to have been a real prophet.³³ Answering Jesus, they *said, “We do not know.” And Jesus *said to them, “Neither am I telling you by what authority I do these things.”

12:1 And He began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it, and dug a vat under the wine press and built a tower, and leased it to vine-growers and went on a journey. ² And at the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive his shareof the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. ³ And they took him, and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴ And again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. ⁵ And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others. ⁶ He had one more man to send, a beloved son; he sent him to them last of all, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ⁷ But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ ⁸ And they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard. ⁹ What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and put the vine-growers to death, and give the vineyard to others. ¹⁰ Have you not even read this Scripture:

¹² And they were seeking to seize Him, and yet they feared the people, for they understood that He told the parable against them. And so they left Him and went away.