Mác 12

The tenants of the vineyard

¹Then he began to teach them in parables. “There was a man who planted a vineyard and put a hedge around it. He dug a vat below the winepress and built a lookout tower. Then he leased the vineyard to tenant farmers and went to another country. ²When harvest time came, he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them his share of the vineyard’s crop. ³But they seized him, beat him and sent him off with nothing. ⁴He sent them another servant, and they struck this one on the head and insulted him.^{a 5}He sent yet another, and him they killed. It went the same way with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. ⁶He had one left to send, his dearly loved son. Last of all he sent him to them, thinking, ‘They will show respect for my son.’ ⁷But the tenants talked it over among themselves: ‘This is the heir. Come on, we will put him to death, and the vineyard will be ours to keep.’ ⁸So they seized him, put him to death and threw his body out of the vineyard. ⁹So what will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and put those tenants to death, and he will hand the vineyard over to others. ¹⁰Have you not even read this passage of Scripture: ‘The stone that the builders threw away as useless has become the chief cornerstone. ¹¹This was the Lord’s doing, and we look on it with wonder’?” ¹²The leaders wanted to arrest him, but they were afraid of the crowd. They knew that he had aimed the parable at them. So they left him and went off.

Give back to Caesar

¹³Then they sent some Pharisees and Herodians to him, to trap him with his own words. ¹⁴They came and said to him, “Teacher, we are sure that you are a man of integrity and that you are not swayed by anyone. You pay no attention to a person’s rank, but you teach the way of God in truth. Is it right to pay the tax to Caesar, or not? Are we to pay or not?” ¹⁵But he saw through their pretense and said to them, “Why are you trying to trap me? Bring me a silver coin worth a day’s wage so I can look at it.” ¹⁶They brought one. He asked them, “Whose face is this, and whose name is written here?” “Caesar’s,” they told him. ¹⁷Jesus said to them, “Pay back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and to God what belongs to God.” They were astonished at him.

The God of the living

¹⁸Then some Sadducees came to him. They say there is no resurrection, and they put a question to him: ¹⁹“Teacher, Moses gave us this rule in writing: if a man dies and leaves a wife but no child, his brother is to marry the widow and father children to carry on the dead man’s family. ²⁰Once there were seven brothers. The first of them married, and he died without leaving any children. ²¹The second brother married her and died, again leaving no children, and the third did the same. ²²None of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. ²³At the resurrection, when they rise again, which of them will she be married to? All seven had her as their wife.” ²⁴Jesus said to them, “Is not this the reason you are mistaken: you know neither the Scriptures nor God’s power? ²⁵When people rise from the dead, there is no marrying or being given in marriage. They are like the angels in heaven. ²⁶As for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?^{b 27}He is not the God of the dead but of the living. How badly you have gone astray!”

The first commandment of all

²⁸One of the scribes came over and listened to the debate. Seeing that Jesus had answered them well, he put a question to him: “Of all the commandments, which is first?” ²⁹Jesus answered, “The first is this: ‘Listen, Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one. ³⁰And you are to love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind and your whole strength.’^{cd 31}The second is this: ‘You are to love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these two.” ³²The scribe said to him, “Well put, Teacher. You have spoken the truth: he is one, and there is no other besides him. ³³And to love him with all one’s heart, all one’s understanding and all one’s strength, and to love one’s neighbor as oneself, is worth far more than every burnt offering and sacrifice.” ³⁴Jesus saw that he had answered with insight, and he told him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that, no one had the courage to ask him anything more.

David’s son and David’s Lord

³⁵As Jesus was teaching in the temple, he took up the matter: “How can the scribes say that Christ is the son of David? ³⁶David himself, speaking by the Holy Spirit, said, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Take your seat at my right hand, until I put your enemies beneath your feet.”’ ³⁷David himself calls him Lord. How then is he his son?” The great crowd listened to him with delight.

Beware of the scribes

³⁸As he taught, he said, “Keep clear of the scribes. They love to parade about in long robes and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces. ³⁹They want the front seats in the synagogues and the best couches at banquets. ⁴⁰They eat up the property of widows, and for show they pray on and on. Their sentence will be all the heavier.”

A widow gives everything

⁴¹Jesus sat down across from the offering boxes and watched the crowd dropping their money into them. Many rich people were giving large sums. ⁴²Then a poor widow came and dropped in two little copper coins, worth a few minutes’ wages. ⁴³He called his disciples over and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this widow, poor as she is, has given more than all the others who are giving to the offering boxes. ⁴⁴The others all gave from what they had left over. But she, in her need, gave everything she had, the whole of what she had to live on.”^e