15
And they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. "Now what will the owner of the vineyard do to them?
16
He will come and put an end to those tenants and give the vineyard to others!" When the people heard this, they said, "Heaven forbid!"
17
But Yeshua looked searchingly at them and said, "Then what is this which is written in the Tanakh, `The very rock which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone'?
18
Whoever falls on that stone will be broken in pieces; but if it falls on him, he will be crushed to powder!"
19
The Torah-teachers and the head cohanim would have seized him at that very moment, because they knew that he had aimed this parable at them, but they were afraid of the people.
20
So they kept a close watch on the situation. They sent spies who hypocritically represented themselves as righteous, so that they might seize hold of something Yeshua said, as an excuse to hand him over to the jurisdiction and authority of the governor.
21
They put to him this sh'eilah: "Rabbi, we know that you speak and teach straightforwardly, showing no partiality but really teaching what God's way is.
22
Does Torah permit us to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor or not?"
23
But he, spotting their craftiness, said to them,
24
"Show me a denarius! Whose name and picture does it have?" "The Emperor's," they replied.
25
"Then," he said to them, "give the Emperor what belongs to the Emperor. And give God what belongs to God!"