Yet the Lord had warned Israel and Judah repeatedly through all his prophets and seers, saying, “Leave your wicked ways and keep my commandments and instructions. Follow the whole law that I ordered your forefathers to obey, and gave to you through my servants the prophets.”
that you gave through your servants the prophets, telling us, ‘The land you are entering to become its owners is contaminated by the sins of its peoples, the disgusting religious practices that they have filled it with, from one side to the other.
Time and again I've sent you so many of my servants the prophets to tell you: Everyone, stop your evil ways and do what's right! Don't go following other gods and worshiping them. Live in the land that I gave you and your fathers. But you haven't paid attention or obeyed me.
I'm totally miserable! I've become like someone trying to glean summer fruit after the grape harvest is over. I can't find any grapes to eat, and there are no early figs that I love.
Isn't this what the Lord told you to do through the former prophets, when Jerusalem was prosperous and inhabited, and when people were living in the Negev and the Shephelah?
Then Jesus began to speak to them using illustrated stories. “Once there was a man who planted a vineyard. He put a fence around it, dug a pit for a winepress, and built a watchtower. Then he leased it to some farmers, and left on a journey.
but the servant who didn't know and did things deserving punishment will be beaten only lightly. From those who are given much, much will be required, and from those who are entrusted with more, more will be demanded.
At harvest-time he sent a servant to the tenant farmers to collect his share of the crop, but the farmers beat the servant and sent him away with nothing.