The Life of Jesus

Some of the P’rushim in the crowd said to him, “Rabbi! Reprimand your talmidim!”

But he answered them, “I tell you that if they keep quiet, the stones will shout!”

When Yeshua had come closer and could see the city, he wept over it,

saying, “If you only knew today what is needed for shalom! But for now it is hidden from your sight.

For the days are coming upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you, encircle you, hem you in on every side,

and dash you to the ground, you and your children within your walls, leaving not one stone standing on another — and all because you did not recognize your opportunity when God offered it!”

Then Yeshua entered the Temple grounds and began driving out those doing business there,

saying to them, “The Tanakh says, ‘My House is to be a house of prayer,’ but you have made it into a den of robbers!”

Every day he taught at the Temple. The head cohanim, the Torah-teachers and the leaders of the people tried to find a way of putting an end to him;

but they couldn’t find any way of doing it, because all the people were hanging onto his every word.

One day, as Yeshua was teaching the people at the Temple, making known the Good News, the head cohanim and the Torah-teachers, along with the elders, came up to him

and said, “Tell us, what s’mikhah do you have that authorizes you to do these things? Who gave you this s’mikhah?”

He answered, “I too will ask you a question. Tell me,

the immersion of Yochanan — was it from Heaven or from a human source?”

They discussed it among themselves, saying, “If we say, ‘From Heaven,’ he will say, ‘Then why didn’t you believe him?’

But if we say, ‘From a human source,’ all the people will stone us, because they’re convinced that Yochanan was a prophet.”

So they answered, “We don’t know where it came from.”

Yeshua said to them, “Then I won’t tell you by what s’mikhah I do these things.”

Next Yeshua told the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to tenant-farmers and went away for a long time.

When the time came, he sent a servant to the tenants to receive his share of the crop from the vineyard; but the tenants beat him up and sent him away empty-handed.

He sent another servant; they beat him too, insulted him and sent him away empty-handed.

He sent yet a third; this one they wounded and threw out.

“Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What am I to do? I will send my son, whom I love; maybe they will respect him.’

But when the tenants saw him, they discussed it among themselves and said, ‘This is the heir; let’s kill him, so that the inheritance will be ours!’

And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. “Now what will the owner of the vineyard do to them?