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."

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

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.

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?'

It is like a mustard seed which a man drops into the soil in his garden, and it grows and becomes a tree in whose branches the birds roost."

"If your faith," replied the Lord, "is like a mustard seed, you might command this black-mulberry-tree, 'Tear up your roots and plant yourself in the sea,' and instantly it would obey you.

So he ran on in front and climbed up a mulberry tree to see Him; for He was about to pass that way.

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

For if they are doing these things in the case of the green tree, what will be done in that of the dry?"