Matthew 20:1-16
Laborers in the Vineyard
20“For athe kingdom of heaven is like 1a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his bvineyard. 2“Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a 1denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3“And he went out about the 1third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace; 4and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. 5“Again he went out about the 1sixth and the ninth hour, and did 2the same thing. 6“And about the 1eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he *said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ 7“They *said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He *said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’
8“Now when aevening came, the 1owner of the vineyard *said to his 2,bforeman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ 9“And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a 1denarius. 10“And when those hired first came, they supposed that they would receive more; 1but each of them also received a denarius. 11“Now when they received it, they were grumbling 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 of the day and the ascorching heat.’ 13“But he answered and said to one of them, ‘aFriend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14‘Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 15‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your aeye 1envious because I am 2generous?’ 16“So athe last shall be first, and the first last.”