Mark 12:1-27

Jesus began to speak to the people using stories. He said, “A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it. He dug a pit for a winepress. He also built a lookout tower. He rented the vineyard out to some farmers. Then he went to another place. At harvest time he sent a servant to the renters. He told the servant to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they grabbed the servant and beat him up. Then they sent him away with nothing. So the man sent another servant to the renters. They hit this one on the head and treated him badly. The man sent still another servant. The renters killed him. The man sent many others. The renters beat up some of them. They killed the others. “The man had one person left to send. It was his son, and he loved him. He sent him last of all. He said, ‘They will respect my son.’ “But the renters said to each other, ‘This is the one who will receive all the owner’s property someday. Come, let’s kill him. Then everything will be ours.’ So they took him and killed him. They threw him out of the vineyard. “What will the owner of the vineyard do then? He will come and kill those renters. He will give the vineyard to others. Haven’t you read what this part of Scripture says, “ ‘The stone the builders didn’t accept has become the most important stone of all. The Lord has done it. It is wonderful in our eyes’?” Then the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders looked for a way to arrest Jesus. They knew he had told the story against them. But they were afraid of the crowd. So they left him and went away. Later the religious leaders sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus. They wanted to trap him with his own words. They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of honor. You don’t let other people tell you what to do or say. You don’t care how important they are. But you teach the way of God truthfully. Is it right to pay the royal tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn’t we?” But Jesus knew what they were trying to do. So he asked, “Why are you trying to trap me? Bring me a silver coin. Let me look at it.” They brought the coin. He asked them, “Whose picture is this? And whose words?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. And give back to God what belongs to God.” They were amazed at him. The Sadducees came to Jesus with a question. They do not believe that people rise from the dead. “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us about a man who died and didn’t have any children. But he did leave a wife behind. That man’s brother must get married to the widow. He must provide children to carry on his dead brother’s name. There were seven brothers. The first one got married. He died without leaving any children. The second one got married to the widow. He also died and left no child. It was the same with the third one. In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. When the dead rise, whose wife will she be? All seven of them were married to her.” Jesus replied, “You are mistaken because you do not know the Scriptures. And you do not know the power of God. When the dead rise, they won’t get married. And their parents won’t give them to be married. They will be like the angels in heaven. What about the dead rising? Haven’t you read in the Book of Moses the story of the burning bush? God said to Moses, ‘I am the God of Abraham. I am the God of Isaac. And I am the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead. He is the God of the living. You have made a big mistake!”