Mark 12:1-17

1Then Jesus began to speak again to the important Jews. He told them stories. He said, ‘There was a man who made a garden. He planted vines to grow grapes there. He built a wall around the garden. He dug a hole in the ground where he could make the grapes into wine. He also built a tall building to watch over the garden. He found some farmers who would work in the garden for him. Then he went away to another country.

2At the time for the harvest, the man sent a servant to speak to the farmers. He wanted them to give him some fruit from the garden.

3But the farmers took hold of the servant and they hit him with sticks. They sent him away with nothing.

4So the man sent another servant to the farmers. They also hit this servant on the head, and they did other bad things to him.

5The man then sent another servant, but the farmers killed this servant. He sent many other servants to them. The farmers hit some of these servants with sticks and they killed other servants.

6The man had only one person that he could still send. This was his own son. The man loved him very much. So, last of all, he sent his son to the farmers. He thought, “The farmers will surely respect my son.”

7But those farmers said to each other, “This is the son of our master. The garden will belong to him when his father dies. We should kill the son and then the garden will be ours.”

8So the farmers took the son and they killed him. Then they threw his dead body out of the garden.’

9Jesus then asked, ‘What will the master of the garden do then? I tell you, he will come and he will kill those farmers. Then he will give the garden to other people to take care of it.

10I am sure that you have read these words in the Bible: “The builders refused to use a certain stone. They thought that it had no value. But now that stone has become the most important stone at the corner of the building.

11The Lord God did this. And we can see that he did something great.” ’

12The Jewish leaders knew that Jesus had told this story about them. They were the bad farmers in the story. So they wanted to take hold of Jesus. But they were afraid of the crowd. So they left him and they went away.

13Then the leaders sent some Pharisees to Jesus. They also sent some men who were friends of King Herod. They tried to use Jesus' words to cause trouble for him.

14These men came to Jesus and they said, ‘Teacher, we know that you only say true things. It does not matter to you what other people think. If someone is important, you do not change your answers to make them happy. You really do teach us what God wants us to do. Tell us, should we pay our taxes to the Roman ruler, Caesar? Is it right to give that money to him, or not?’

15Jesus knew that those men were not honest. So he said, ‘You just ask that question to cause trouble for me. Now, bring me a coin. I want to see it.’

16So they brought a coin to him. Jesus asked them, ‘Whose picture is on this coin? Whose name is on it?’ They replied, ‘It is Caesar's picture and Caesar's name.’

17Jesus then said to them, ‘So you should give to Caesar the things that belong to him. And give to God the things that belong to God.’ They were very surprised at his answer.