7
They answered, 'No one gave us a job.' The man said to them, 'Then you can go and work in my vineyard.'
8
"At the end of the day, the owner of the vineyard said to the boss of all the workers, 'Call the workers and pay them. Start with the last people I hired and end with those I hired first.'
9
"When the workers who were hired at five o'clock came to get their pay, each received one coin.
10
When the workers who were hired first came to get their pay, they thought they would be paid more than the others. But each one of them also received one coin.
11
When they got their coin, they complained to the man who owned the land.
12
They said, 'Those people were hired last and worked only one hour. But you paid them the same as you paid us who worked hard all day in the hot sun.'
13
But the man who owned the vineyard said to one of those workers, 'Friend, I am being fair to you. You agreed to work for one coin.
14
So take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same pay that I gave you.
15
I can do what I want with my own money. Are you jealous because I am good to those people?'
16
"So those who have the last place now will have the first place in the future, and those who have the first place now will have the last place in the future."
17
While Jesus was going to Jerusalem, he took his twelve followers aside privately and said to them,