Discovery BoxMatthew 20:1-8 
Context20:1 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner 1 who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 20:2 And after agreeing with the workers for the standard wage, 2 he sent them into his vineyard. 20:3 When it was about nine o’clock in the morning, 3 he went out again and saw others standing around in the marketplace without work. 20:4 He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and I will give you whatever is right.’ 20:5 So they went. When 4 he went out again about noon and three o’clock that afternoon, 5 he did the same thing. 20:6 And about five o’clock that afternoon 6 he went out and found others standing around, and said to them, ‘Why are you standing here all day without work?’ 20:7 They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go and work in the vineyard too.’ 20:8 When 7 it was evening 8 the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the workers and give the pay 9 starting with the last hired until the first.’
1 sn The term landowner here refers to the owner and manager of a household.
2 tn Grk “agreeing with the workers for a denarius a day.”
sn The standard wage was a denarius a day. The denarius was a silver coin worth about a day’s wage for a laborer in Palestine in the 1st century.
3 tn Grk “about the third hour.”
4 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
5 tn Grk “he went out again about the sixth and ninth hour.”
6 tn Grk “about the eleventh hour.”
7 tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.
8 sn That is, six o’clock in the evening, the hour to pay day laborers. See Lev 19:13b.
9 tc ‡ Most witnesses (including B D W Θ Ë1,13 33vid Ï latt sy) have αὐτοῖς (autois, “to them”) after ἀπόδος (apodos, “give the pay”), but this seems to be a motivated reading, clarifying the indirect object. The omission is supported by א C L Z 085 Or. Nevertheless, NA27 includes the pronoun on the basis of the greater external attestation.
