7 Restore us, O God of hosts;
let your face shine, that we may be saved!
8 You brought a evine out of Egypt;
you drove out the nations and planted it.
9 You cleared the ground for it;
it took deep root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shade,
the mighty cedars with its branches.
11 It sent out its branches fto the sea
and its shoots to the River.1
12 Why then have you gbroken down its walls,
so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?
13 The boar from the forest ravages it,
and all that move in the field feed on it.
14 Turn again, O God of hosts!
Look down from heaven, and see;
hhave regard for this vine,
15 the stock that your right hand planted,
and for the son whom you made strong for yourself.
The Vineyard of the Lord Destroyed
1 Let me sing for my beloved
my love song concerning his hvineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard
on a very fertile hill.
2 He dug it and cleared it of stones,
and planted it with choice vines;
he built a watchtower in the midst of it,
and hewed out a wine vat in it;
and he looked for it to yield grapes,
ibut it yielded wild grapes.
3 And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem
and men of Judah,
judge between me and my vineyard.
4 What more was there to do for my vineyard,
that I have not done in it?
When I looked for it to yield grapes,
why did it yield wild grapes?
5 And now I will tell you
what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge,
and it shall be devoured;1
I will jbreak down its wall,
and it shall be trampled down.
6 I will make it a waste;
it shall not be pruned or hoed,
and briers and thorns shall grow up;
I will also command the clouds
that they rain no rain upon it.
7 For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the men of Judah
are his pleasant planting;
and he looked for justice,
but behold, bloodshed;2
for righteousness,
but behold, an outcry!3
The Parable of the Tenants
33 b“Hear another parable. cThere was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and dwent into another country. 34 When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants1 to the tenants to get his fruit. 35 And the tenants took his servants and beat one, ekilled another, and stoned another. 36 fAgain he sent other servants, more than the first. And they did the same to them. 37 gFinally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ 38 But when the tenants saw the son, they said to themselves, ‘This is the hheir. Come, let us ikill him and have his inheritance.’ 39 And they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. 40 When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” 41 They said to him, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and jlet out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.”
42 Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
k“‘The stone that the builders rejected
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?
43 Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be mtaken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. 44 And the one who nfalls on this stone will be broken to pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will crush him.”3
45 When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them. 46 And although they were seeking to arrest him, they feared the crowds, because they held him to be a oprophet.
4 though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. xIf anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5 circumcised on the yeighth day, zof the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a aHebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a bPharisee; 6 as to czeal, a dpersecutor of the church; as to erighteousness under the law,1 blameless. 7 But whatever fgain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, gI count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. hFor his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a irighteousness of my own that comes from the law, but jthat which comes through kfaith in Christ, the lrighteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the mpower of his resurrection, and may nshare his sufferings, obecoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may pattain the resurrection from the dead.
Straining Toward the Goal
12 Not that I have already obtained this or am already qperfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. 13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: rforgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 sI press on toward the goal for the tprize of the upward ucall of God in Christ Jesus.
