Matthew 21:31-44 Which of these two sons did what his father wanted?” They answered, “The first one.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God ahead of you.

AUV⁽ⁱ⁾ ³¹ Which of these two sons did what his father wanted?” They answered, “The first one.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, tax collectors and prostitutes [will] enter the kingdom of God ahead of you. ³² For John came to show you the way to be right with God, but you would not believe his message. Yet the tax collectors and prostitutes believed it, and when you saw this, even then you did not change your minds so as to believe his message. ³³ “Listen to another parable [i.e., a brief story used to illustrate His teaching]: There was the owner of a farm who planted a vineyard and built a fence around it. He constructed a grape squeezing device, built a [lookout] tower [near it], leased it to tenant farmers and then went to another country. ³⁴ And when the season for harvesting the grapes approached, the owner of the farm sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to arrange for delivery of his crop. ³⁵ But the tenant farmers took the farm owner’s slaves and beat one, killed another and stoned another. ³⁶ The owner of the farm then sent additional slaves and they were treated the same way. ³⁷ Then later on he sent his own son to the tenant farmers, saying, ‘[Surely] they will treat my son with respect.’ ³⁸ But when the tenant farmers saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir [to the vineyard]. Come on, let us kill him so we can take over his inheritance.’ ³⁹ So, they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. ⁴⁰ When the owner of the vineyard returns, what [do you think] he will do to those tenant farmers? ⁴¹ They answered him, “He will bring terrible destruction on those evil men and will lease the vineyard to other tenant farmers who will deliver the crops to him each harvest time.” ⁴² Jesus [then] said to the leading priests and elders of the Jewish people, “Did you not ever read in the Scriptures [Psa. 118:22-23], ‘The building block rejected by the builders is the same one that was made the principal stone by which the entire building was aligned. This was planned by the Lord and is a marvelous thing to us’? ⁴³ Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you [Jews] and will be given to a nation [i.e., the Gentiles] that will produce the fruit of the kingdom. ⁴⁴ And the person who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces, but whoever it falls on will be scattered like dust.”