Bible Verses About Vineyard: Parables of

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.

Many shepherds have destroyed my vineyard, they have trampled my plot of land, they have turned my desirable property into a desert waste.

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a farmer who went out at daybreak to hire workers for his vineyard.

After agreeing with the workers on a wage of one denarius, [the standard daily wage,] he sent them off to his vineyard.

Then, on going out at about nine in the morning, he saw more men standing around in the market-square doing nothing,

and said to them, `You go to the vineyard too -- I'll pay you a fair wage.' So they went.

At noon, and again around three in the afternoon, he did the same thing.

About an hour before sundown, he went out, found still others standing around, and asked them, `Why have you been standing here all day, doing nothing?"

They said to him, `Because no one hired us.' `You too,' he told them, `go to the vineyard.'

"When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, `Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last ones hired and ending with the first.'

The workers who came an hour before sunset each received a denarius,

so the workers who came first expected they would get more, but each of them also received just a denarius.

On receiving their wages, they began grumbling to the farmer,

`These latecomers have worked only one hour, while we have borne the brunt of the day's work in the hot sun, yet you have put them on an equal footing with us!'

But he answered one of them, `Look, friend, I'm not being unfair with you. Didn't you agree to work today for a denarius?

Now take your pay and go! I choose to give the last worker as much as I'm giving you.

Haven't I the right to do what I want with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?'