He saw a fig tree by the road and went up to it, but he didn’t find anything on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Right away the tree dried up.
Let the person who’s doing wrong keep on doing it, and let the bad person continue to be bad. But let the person who’s doing right keep on doing it, and let the holy person continue to be holy.”
They may have escaped from the corruption of the world, and they may have come to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But if they get tangled up again in sin, and it becomes their master, then they’re worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.
“Listen to another story. A certain man owned some land and planted a vineyard on it. He put up a wall around it, dug a pit for a winepress, and built a lookout tower. Then he rented the vineyard out to some farmers and moved to another place.
Off in the distance Jesus saw a fig tree that was full of leaves. He went over to see if it had any fruit. But when he got there, all he found was leaves, because it wasn’t time for figs to ripen yet.
When Jesus got to Jerusalem, he entered the temple courtyard and began to drive out those who were buying and selling there. He turned over the tables of the people who were exchanging money and the benches of those who were selling doves.