Meanwhile in that distant land the owner, “…had still one other, a beloved son.  Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son’ “ (NRSV, Mark 12:6).  But when the tenants recognised the son, thinking that it meant the owner had died and that his heir was now coming to claim his inheritance under the terms of the will, they said among themselves, " ‘This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours’.  So they seized him, killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard” (NRSV, Mark 12:7,8).  “What then” asked Our Lord, “will the owner of the vineyard do?  He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others” (NRSV, Mark 12:9).

So Our Lord publicly warned the Jewish leaders, in the court of the Temple of God, that, whereas their forefathers had neglected and killed God’s prophets, in killing him they would be rejecting God’s only Son.