And when evening came the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers [in] and pay them their wages, beginning with the last [one hired, then] to the first.'

"Listen to another parable [i.e., a brief story used to illustrate His teaching]: There was the owner of a farm who planted a vineyard and built a fence around it. He constructed a grape squeezing device, built a [lookout] tower [near it], leased it to tenant farmers and then went to another country.

And when the season for harvesting the grapes approached, the owner of the farm sent his slaves to the tenant farmers to arrange for delivery of his crop.

The owner of the farm then sent additional slaves and they were treated the same way.

When the owner of the vineyard returns, what [do you think] he will do to those tenant farmers?

But you should know this: if the owner of a house had known when a thief was coming, he would have been watching so as not to allow his house to be broken into.