Luke 20:14-28

¹⁴So he sent his son, but when the men who were caring for the vineyard saw him coming, they said to each other, ‘Here comes the man who will some day inherit the vineyard. Let's kill him so that this vineyard will be ours!’

¹⁵So they dragged him outside the vineyard and they killed him. So ◄I will tell you what the owner of the vineyard will do to them!/do you know what the owner of the vineyard will do to them?► RHQ

¹⁶He will come and kill those men who were taking care of the vineyard. Then he will arrange for other people to take care of it.” When the people listening to Jesus heard that, they said, “ We would not do anything like those wicked men did!”

¹⁷But Jesus looked directly at them and said, “You can say that, but think about the meaning of these words that are written {which a prophet wrote} RHQ in the Scriptures, The men who were building a house rejected a certain stone. But others put that same stone in its proper place, and it has become the most important stone in the building MET.

¹⁸That stone represents me, the Messiah, and those who reject me are like people who fall on this stone. Everyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces {This stone will break to pieces everyone who falls on it}, and it will crush anyone on whom it falls.”

¹⁹The chief priests and the men who taught the Jewish laws realized that he was accusing them when he told the parable about what those wicked men did. So they immediately tried to find a way to seize MTY him, but they did not seize him, because they were afraid of what the people there would do if they did that.

²⁰So they watched him carefully. They also hired ◄spies/secret agents► who pretended to be sincere. But they really wanted to get him to say something for which they could accuse him. They wanted to be able to turn him over to the authority of the governor of the province. But they also knew that the Jews were disgusted with having to pay taxes to the government.

²¹So one of them asked Jesus, “Teacher, we (exc) know that you (sg) speak and teach what is right. You tell the truth even if important people do not like it. You teach truthfully what God wants us to do.

²²So tell us what you think about this matter: Is it right that we pay taxes to the Roman government MTY, or not?”

²³But Jesus knew that they were trying to trick him to get him into trouble, either with the Jews, who hated to pay those taxes, or with the Roman government. So he said to them,

²⁴“Show me a Roman coin. Then tell me whose picture is on it. And tell me whose name is on it.” They showed him a coin and said, “It has the picture and name of Caesar, the head of the Roman government.”

²⁵He said to them, “In that case, give to the government MTY what they require, and give to God what he requires.”

²⁶While the people were there, the spies were unable to find fault with him for what he said. And they were amazed at his answer. So they said nothing.

²⁷Some Sadducees came to Jesus. They are a Jewish sect who do not believe that people will become alive again after they die.

²⁸They wanted to ask Jesus a question in order to discredit the idea that dead people will live again. One of them said to Jesus, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us Jews about situations where a man who has a wife but no children. If the man dies, his brother should marry the dead man's widow so that she can have a child by him. People will consider that the child is the descendant of the man who died, and in that way the dead man will have descendants.