In that day doth `one' take up for you a simile, And he hath wailed a wailing of wo, He hath said, We have been utterly spoiled, The portion of my people He doth change, How doth He move toward me! To the backslider our fields He apportioneth.
Do not these -- all of them -- against him a simile taken up, And a moral of acute sayings for him, And say, Wo `to' him who is multiplying `what is' not his? Till when also is he multiplying to himself heavy pledges?
`And from the fig-tree learn ye the simile: When already its branch may have become tender, and the leaves it may put forth, ye know that summer `is' nigh,
And he began to speak to them in similes: `A man planted a vineyard, and put a hedge around, and digged an under-winevat, and built a tower, and gave it out to husbandmen, and went abroad;
And they were seeking to lay hold on him, and they feared the multitude, for they knew that against them he spake the simile, and having left him, they went away;
And he said, `To you it hath been given to know the secrets of the reign of God, and to the rest in similes; that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.
`These things in similitudes I have spoken to you, but there cometh an hour when no more in similitudes will I speak to you, but freely of the Father, will tell you.