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. But they took him, beat him, and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent another slave to them, and that one they struck on the head and dishonored. And he sent another, and that one they killed, and many others, some of whom they beat and some of whom they killed.”​—Mark 12:1-5.

Will those hearing Jesus understand the illustration? Well, they may remember Isaiah’s words of criticism: “The vineyard of Jehovah of armies is the house of Israel; the men of Judah are the plantation he was fond of. He kept hoping for justice, but look! there was injustice.” (Isaiah 5:7) Jesus’ illustration is similar. 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.

They thus unwittingly proclaim judgment upon themselves, for they are among “the cultivators” of Jehovah’s “vineyard,” the nation of Israel. The fruitage that Jehovah rightly expects from such cultivators includes faith in his Son, the Messiah. Jesus looks straight at the religious leaders and says: “Did you never read this scripture: ‘The stone that the builders rejected, this has become the chief cornerstone. This has come from Jehovah, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?” (Mark 12:10, 11) Then Jesus drives home his point: “This is why I say to you, the Kingdom of God will be taken from you and be given to a nation producing its fruits.”​—Matthew 21:43.