Mark 12:13-17

John Burnett:  12 And He began to speak to them in parables: “A man planted a vineyard and put a ^[a]wall around it, and dug a vat under the wine press and built a tower, and rented it out to ^[b]vine-growers and went on a journey. ² At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, in order to receive some of the produce of the vineyard from the vine-growers. ³ They took him, and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. ⁴ Again he sent them another slave, and they wounded him in the head, and treated him shamefully. ⁵ And he sent another, and that one they killed; and so with many others, beating some and killing others. ⁶ He had one more to send, a beloved son; he sent him last of all to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ⁷ But those vine-growers said to one another, ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours!’ ⁸ They took him, and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. ⁹ What will the ^[c]owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the vine-growers, and will give the vineyard to others. ¹⁰ Have you not even read this Scripture:

‘The stone which the builders rejected,
This became the chief corner stone;
¹¹ This came about from the Lord,
And it is marvelous in our eyes’?”

¹² And they were seeking to seize Him, and yet they feared the ^[d]people, for they understood that He spoke the parable against them. And so they left Him and went away.  The Pharisees knew that He was talking about them but they were still blind to the fact that He knew what they were conspiring to do to Him.  The cornerstone of a building had to be perfect or the building would not be sound or stand for a long time.  Jesus Christ was the perfect cornerstone.  The people (vine growers) who do not repent and put their trust in the Son will be destroyed.   Thank you God for opening my eyes and showing me my need for a savior, Jesus Christ.

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Monday's reading for Mark 12:18-27

¹⁸ Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him with a question. ¹⁹ “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. ²⁰ Now there were seven brothers. The first one married and died without leaving any children. ²¹ The second one married the widow, but he also died, leaving no child. It was the same with the third. ²² In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. ²³ At the resurrection^[c] whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
²⁴ Jesus replied, “Are you not in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God? ²⁵ When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven. ²⁶ Now about the dead rising—have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’^[d]? ²⁷ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are badly mistaken!”