At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenant farmers to receive some of the produce of the vineyard. But they beat the servant and sent him away empty-handed.
The Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and seer: Give up your evil ways and keep my commandments and statutes, in accordance with the entire law which I enjoined on your ancestors and which I sent you by my servants the prophets.
But Asa became angry with the seer and imprisoned him in the stocks, so greatly was he enraged at him over this. Asa also oppressed some of his people at this time.
But they were contemptuous and rebelled against you: they cast your law behind their backs. They murdered your prophets who bore witness against them to bring them back to you: they were guilty of great insults.
You were patient with them for many years, bearing witness against them through your spirit, by means of your prophets; Still they would not listen. Therefore you delivered them into the power of the peoples of the lands.
Time and again I sent you all my servants the prophets, saying: Turn away, each of you, from your evil way and reform your actions! Do not follow other gods to serve them that you may remain in the land which I gave you and your ancestors. But you did not pay attention. You did not obey me.
And do not say in their hearts, “Let us fear the Lord, our God, Who gives us rain early and late, in its time; Who watches for us over the appointed weeks of harvest.”
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!
Then he proceeded to tell the people this parable. “[A] man planted a vineyard, leased it to tenant farmers, and then went on a journey for a long time.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
In the same way, my brothers, you also were put to death to the law through the body of Christ, so that you might belong to another, to the one who was raised from the dead in order that we might bear fruit for God.