Matthew 20:1-17

¹“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. ²When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. ³And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; ⁴and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. ⁵Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. ⁶And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ ⁷They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’

⁸“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ ⁹When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. ¹⁰When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; but each of them also received a denarius. ¹¹When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, ¹²saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’ ¹³But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? ¹⁴Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. ¹⁵Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ ¹⁶So the last shall be first, and the first last.”

Death, Resurrection Foretold

¹⁷As Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside by themselves, and on the way He said to them,