¹⁶ By their fruit you will recognize them.^(A) Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?^{(B) 17} Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.^(C)

²⁰ Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

A Tree and Its Fruit^(A)

⁴³ “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.

⁴⁴ Each tree is recognized by its own fruit.^(A) People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers.

³⁶ How foolish!^(A) What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.^{(B) 37} When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. ³⁸ But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.^(C)

⁷ Do not be deceived:^(A) God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.^(B)