6
About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7
“ ‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered. “He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8
“When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9
“The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius.
10
So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius.
11
When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner.
12
‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13
“But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius?
14
Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you.
15
Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16
“So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”