Jesus follows up that illustration with another. This time, Jesus shows that the religious leaders’ failure goes beyond neglecting to serve God. They are actually wicked. “A man planted a vineyard,” Jesus relates, “and put a fence around it and dug a vat for the winepress and erected a tower; then he leased it to cultivators and traveled abroad. In due season he sent a slave to the cultivators to collect some of the fruits of the vineyard from them.

The landowner is Jehovah, and the vineyard is the nation of Israel, fenced in and protected by God’s Law. Jehovah sent prophets to instruct his people and help them produce good fruitage.

The fruitage that Jehovah rightly expects from such cultivators includes faith in his Son, the Messiah.