And He gave them the following parable. "A man," He said, "who had a fig-tree growing in his garden came to look for fruit on it and could find none.

So he said to the gardener, "'See, this is the third year I have come to look for fruit on this fig-tree and cannot find any. Cut it down. Why should so much ground be actually wasted?'

And He spoke a parable to them. "See," He said, "the fig-tree and all the trees.

Every tree is known by its own fruit. It is not from thorns that men gather figs, nor from the bramble that they can get a bunch of grapes.

"There is no good tree that yields unsound fruit, nor again any unsound tree that yields good fruit.

And even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees, so that every tree which fails to yield good fruit will quickly be hewn down and thrown into the fire."