Gospel according to Luke

When he drew near, he saw the city and wept over it,

saying, "If you, even you, had known today the things which belong to your peace! But now, they are hidden from your eyes.

For the days will come on you, when your enemies will throw up a barricade against you, surround you, hem you in on every side,

and will dash you and your children within you to the ground. They will not leave in you one stone on another, because you didn't know the time of your visitation."

He entered into the temple, and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it,

saying to them, "It is written, 'My house is a house of prayer,' but you have made it a 'den of robbers'!"

He was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests and the scribes and the leading men among the people sought to destroy him.

They couldn't find what they might do, for all the people hung on to every word that he said.

It happened on one of those days, as he was teaching the people in the temple and preaching the gospel, that the chief priests and scribes came to him with the elders.

They asked him, "Tell us: by what authority do you do these things? Or who is giving you this authority?"

He answered them, "I also will ask you one question. Tell me:

the baptism of John, was it from heaven, or from men?"

They reasoned with themselves, saying, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will say, 'Why didn't you believe him?'

But if we say, 'From men,' all the people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet."

They answered that they didn't know where it was from.

Jesus said to them, "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things."

He began to tell the people this parable. "A man planted a vineyard, and rented it out to some farmers, and went into another country for a long time.

At the proper season, he sent a servant to the farmers to collect his share of the fruit of the vineyard. But the farmers beat him, and sent him away empty.

He sent yet another servant, and they also beat him, and treated him shamefully, and sent him away empty.

He sent yet a third, and they also wounded him, and threw him out.