Bible Verses About Parables

As the king passed by, he called out to the king and said, "Your servant was on his way into the thick of the fighting when someone turned, brought a man to me and said, 'Guard this man! If he is missing, you will pay for his life with yours; or else you will pay sixty-six pounds of silver.'

But while your servant was busy with one thing and another, he disappeared." The king of Isra'el said to him, "So that is your sentence; you have pronounced it on yourself."

Quickly he removed the bandage from his eyes, and the king of Isra'el recognized him as one of the prophets.

Then he said to the king, "Here is what ADONAI says: 'Because you have let escape the man I had given over to be destroyed, you will pay with your life for his life and with your people for his people.'"

Y'ho'ash the king of Isra'el sent this reply to Amatzyah king of Y'hudah: "Once, in the L'vanon, the thistle sent a message to the cedar: 'Give your daughter to my son in marriage.' But a wild animal passed by the thistle and squashed it.

You brought a vine out of Egypt, you expelled the nations and planted it,

you cleared a space for it; then it took root firmly and filled the land.

The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches;

It put out branches as far as the sea and shoots to the [Euphrates] River.

Why did you break down [the vineyard's] wall, so that all passing by can pluck [its fruit]?

The boar from the forest tears it apart; wild creatures from the fields feed on it.

God of armies, please come back! Look from heaven, see, and tend this vine!

Protect what your right hand planted, the son you made strong for yourself.

It is burned by fire, it is cut down; they perish at your frown of rebuke.

I want to sing a song for someone I love, a song about my loved one and his vineyard. My loved one had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

He dug up its stones and cleared them away, planted it with the choicest vines, built a watchtower in the middle of it, and carved out in its rock a winepress. He expected it to produce good grapes, but it produced only sour, wild grapes.

Now, citizens of Yerushalayim and people of Y'hudah, judge between me and my vineyard.

What more could I have done for my vineyard that I haven't already done in it? So why, when I expected good grapes, did it produce sour, wild grapes?

Now come, I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will remove its hedge, and [its grapes] will be eaten up; I will break through its fence, and [its vines] will be trampled down.

I will let it go to waste: it will be neither pruned nor hoed, but overgrown with briars and thorns. I will also order the clouds not to let rain fall on it.

Now the vineyard of ADONAI-Tzva'ot is the house of Isra'el, and the men of Y'hudah are the plant he delighted in. So he expected justice, but look - bloodshed! - and righteousness, but listen - cries of distress!

On that day, a pleasant vineyard - sing about it!

"I, ADONAI, guard it. Moment to moment I water it. So that no harm will come to it, I guard it night and day.

Listen and hear my voice; pay attention, and hear what I say:

Does a farmer sowing keep plowing forever? Does he never stop breaking up and harrowing his land?