Matthew 20:3–12

³About the third hour^b he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. ⁴‘You also go into my vineyard,’ he said, ‘and I will pay you whatever is right.’ ⁵So they went.

He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour^c and did the same thing.

⁶About the eleventh hour^d he went out and found still others standing around. ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’ he asked.

⁷‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

So he told them, ‘You also go into my vineyard.’^e

⁸When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, starting with the last ones hired and moving on to the first.’

⁹The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. ¹⁰So when the original workers came, they assumed they would receive more. But each of them also received a denarius.

¹¹On receiving their pay, they began to grumble against the landowner. ¹²‘These men who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’