"Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruit.

For if you were cut off from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree?

In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.

A good tree is not able to bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree to bear good fruit.

After noticing a fig tree by the road he went to it, but found nothing on it except leaves. He said to it, "Never again will there be fruit from you!" And the fig tree withered at once.

"For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit,

Even now the ax is laid at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.

Even now the ax is laid at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."

Then he told them a parable: "Look at the fig tree and all the other trees.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest garden plant and becomes a tree, so that the wild birds come and nest in its branches."

When the disciples saw it they were amazed, saying, "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?"

Jesus answered them, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what was done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,' it will happen.

"Learn this parable from the fig tree: Whenever its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near.