Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: it may be they will reverence him when they see him.

And the lord of the vineyard said, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; it may be they will reverence him.

And the lord of the vineyard said, What shall I do? I will send my beloved son: perhaps when they see him they will respect him.

And the owner of the vineyard said, What shall I do? I will send my son, the beloved, perhaps having seen this one, they will do reverence;

Then the owner of the vineyard said, "'What am I to do? I will send my son - my dearly-loved son: they will probably respect him.'

And the lord of the garden said, What am I to do? I will send my dearly loved son; they may give respect to him.

Then the lord of the vineyard said: 'What shall I do? I will send my beloved son. Perhaps when they have seen him, they will respect him.'

'What should I do?' said the owner of the vineyard. 'I will send my son, who is very dear to me. Perhaps they will respect him.'

Then said the Lord of the vineyard,.... Who planted it, and let it out to husbandmen, and expected fruit from it, and sent his servants from time to time for it:
what shall I do? or what can be done more than has been done? Isaiah 5:4 who else can be sent that is likely to do any good with such an ungrateful and unfruitful people?
I will send my beloved Son; the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who lay in his bosom, was the darling of his soul, and the delight of his heart; him he determined to send, and him he did send to the lost sheep of the house of Israel:
it may be they will reverence him, when they see him: it might be thought after the manner of men, that considering the greatness of his person, as the Son of God, the nature of his office, as the Redeemer and Saviour of men, the doctrines which he preached, the miracles which he wrought, and the holiness and harmlessness of his conversation, and the great good he did both to the bodies and souls of men, that he would have been had in great esteem and veneration with the men, to whom he was sent, and among whom he conversed: but, alas! when they saw him, they saw no beauty, comeliness, and excellency in him, and nothing on account of which he should be desired by them.

my beloved son--Mark (Mark 12:6) still more affectingly, "Having yet therefore one son, his well-beloved"; our Lord thus severing Himself from all merely human messengers, and claiming Sonship in its loftiest sense. (Compare Hebrews 3:3-6.)
it may be--"surely"; implying the almost unimaginable guilt of not doing so.