these evildoers will be given over to cruel punishment, and the vineyard will be given to other tenants, who will give him fruits in due time."

These evildoers pronounced a sentence on themselves, which was soon carried out: the government of the Jewish people was taken away from them; the right to be conductors of the will of God among the Jews and pagans who came to the Jerusalem temple was also taken away, since the temple was destroyed, and the people, scattered throughout the earth, ceased to exist as a people.

We are talking about the stone rejected by the builders

Continuing His rebuke, Jesus asked: "

Have you never read in the Scriptures that

the stone which the builders rejected (Matt. 21:42) of the building will be placed at the head of the Corner, and that God Himself will do this to the surprise of all? Know that

whoever falls on this stone will be broken, and on whom it falls, he will crush (Matt. 21:44). You have rejected this stone, and it will fall on you.

will be taken away for this

from you the Kingdom of God shall also be given to the people that bear its fruits (Matt. 21:43)."

When Jesus spoke of the stone rejected by the builders and referred to the Scriptures, he was referring to Psalm 117 and the prophecy of Isaiah (8:13-15). Archbishop Innocent explains these sayings in the following way: "The 117th Psalm contains a solemn hymn with which David gives thanks to God in the temple after the deposition of his enemies. The Jewish state is compared here to a building, the builders of which are Saul and the elders of the 12 tribes of Israel. The stone they rejected is David, whom God Himself later placed at the head of the corner, making him king and conqueror. And since David was a divinely ordained prototype of his great Descendant, the Messiah, many features of his reign and personal destiny are mysteriously related to Jesus Christ. It must be assumed that Jesus Christ had in mind the following passage from the prophecy of Isaiah (8:14-15):

And He (i.e. the Lord of hosts) will be