He begins to speak to them by analogy — A person plants a vineyard, and places a fence around it, and digs a vat, and builds a tower, and entrusts it to farmers, and goes abroad. He sends a slave to the farmers [when it is] time, to get from the farmers some of the fruit of the vineyard. Seizing him, they beat [him] and send [him] away empty[handed].
Again he sends to them another slave. They wound that one in the head and disrespect him. And he sends another. That one they kill, and many others, flaying some and killing some.
He still has one, an only son; he sends him last to them, saying, ‘They will turn aside [for] my son.’ But these farmers say to themselves, ‘This is the heir, here, we’ll kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ Seizing [him], they kill him, and throw him outside the vineyard.
What will the master of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the farmers, and give the vineyard to others.
— Do you not know this writing? ‘A stone which the builders rejected, this has become the head of the corner; this came from the Master, and was amazing in our eyes.’
They seek [a way] to seize him, but they fear the crowd, knowing that he spoke the analogy about them. Releasing him, they leave.
They send to him some of the Separatists and the Herodians to trap him in [his] ideas. They say to him — Teacher, we know that you are true, and are not worried about [the opinion] of anyone, for you do not watch peoples’ faces, but you teach from the truth the way of God. Is it permitted to pay the head tax to Caesar or not? Should we pay or not?
But he, knowing their hypocrisy, says to them — Why do you test me? Bring to me a denarius to look at. They bring [it].
— Whose is this image and this epigraph? he says to them.
— Caesar’s, they say to him.
And Yoshua says to them — Give to Caesar the [things] of Caesar, and the [things] of God to God.
They marvel at him.
[There] come Saddoukaioi before him, those who say [there] is no rising, and question him, saying — Teacher, Moshe wrote for us that if someone’s brother dies, and leaves a woman, and does not leave a child, he should take his brother’s woman and raise up seed for his brother.
There were seven brothers, and the first took a woman, and dying did not leave seed. The second took her, and died without leaving seed, and the third the same. And the seven did not leave seed. Last of all, the woman died. In the rising, when they rise whose woman will she be? For the seven had her as [their] woman.
Yoshua says to them — [How] confused you are, knowing neither the writings nor the power of God! For when they rise from [among] the dead, they neither marry nor are married, but are as the Messengers in the skies.
As for [those among] the dead, have you not learned from the book of Moshe about the bush where God spoke to him, saying, ‘It is I, the God of Avraam and the God of Yitsaak and the God of Yaakov’? He is not a god of the dead, but of the living. You are greatly confused.
One of the scholars comes before him, and hears them debating. Perceiving that he has well answered them, he asks him — Which is the primary command of all?
Yoshua responds — The first is, ‘Hear, Yisroel, your God the Master is one Master, and you shall love your God the Master out of your whole heart, and out of your whole self, and out of your whole cognition, and out of your whole strength.’
The second [is] this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other command greater than these.
And the scholar says to him — Well [said], teacher; you speak truth, that ‘He is one, and there is no other than he,’ and ‘to love him from a whole heart, and from a whole integrity, and from a whole strength,’ and ‘to love neighbor as self’ are far beyond all burned sacrifices and rituals.
Yoshua, seeing him respond sensibly, says to him — You are not far from the kingdom of God.
No one attempts to question him any longer. Responding, Yoshua says, teaching in the sanctum — How [is it that] the scholars say that the chosen one [is] a son of Dawid? Dawid himself said, in the Sacred Æther, ‘Said the master to my master, “Sit at my right until I place your enemies under your feet.”’ Dawid himself says to him, ‘Master;’ from where is his son?
The large crowd listens to him with pleasure. In his teaching he says — Look away from the scholars who wish to walk around in robes and embrace in the public square, and [have] the first seats in the synagogues and the first places at meals — the devourers of widows’ estates — and pray at length with ulterior motives. These will receive more than the usual judgement.
Sitting across from the treasury, he watches how the crowd throws copper into the [donation] depository: many rich [people] throw much.
One poor widow comes and throws in two coins, which make a quadrans. Gathering his students, he says to them — Amen I say to you that this poor widow has thrown [in] more than all those throwing into the treasury. For all are throwing [in] out of their excess, but she in her need throws in all she has, the whole of her living.