“By what power do You act here?

Who has placed this in Your hand?”

Priests and scribes and elders gathered,

ready with their measured stand.

Jesus answered with a question:

“John’s baptism, whence was it sent?

Did it rise from men below you,

or did heaven give consent?”

“If we answer, ‘It was heaven,’

He will ask why we denied.

If we answer, ‘It was merely human,’

all the people turn on us.”

“We cannot tell.”

He planted vine and built a wall,

dug winefat, raised the tower.

He let the husbandmen receive it,

then returned at fruiting hour.

One servant came to claim the harvest;

beaten, empty, sent away.

Another came with wounded head;

more were killed along the way.

Still the owner sent.

Still the owner sent.

One remained, his well-beloved,

last and nearest to his heart.

“They will reverence my son,” he said,

and sent the heir to take his part.

But the tenants saw inheritance

and sharpened murder into plan:

“This is he. Come, let us kill him.”

They cast him out and slew the man.

What shall then the lord do?

He shall come.

The violent hands shall lose the vine;

the vineyard passes on.

The stone the builders rejected

is become the corner’s head.

What the rulers cast beneath them,

the Lord established there instead.

This was the Lord’s own doing,

marvellous before our eyes.

The stone the builders rejected

stands where every corner joins.

The parable had named them plainly;

they could feel the judgment fall.

They would seize Him, but the people

stood between them in the hall.

They left Him there and walked in anger,

still refusing what was shown.

The men who questioned His authority

stood before the chosen Stone.

The stone the builders rejected

is become the corner’s head.

This was the Lord’s own doing,

Human verdicts do not reign.