Gospel: Mark 12:1-12

¹ And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard, and set a hedge around it, and dug a pit for the wine press, and built a tower, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country.
² When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants, to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard.
³ And they took him and beat him, and sent him away empty-handed.
⁴ Again he sent to them another servant, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully.
⁵ And he sent another, and him they killed; and so with many others, some they beat and some they killed.
⁶ He had still one other, a beloved son; finally he sent him to them, saying, `They will respect my son.’
<sup>7</sup> But those tenants said to one another, `This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’
⁸ And they took him and killed him, and cast him out of the vineyard.
⁹ What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants, and give the vineyard to others.
¹⁰ Have you not read this scripture: `The very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner;
¹¹ this was the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
¹² And they tried to arrest him, but feared the multitude, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them; so they left him and went away.