He said to the vine dresser, ‘Behold, these three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and found none. Cut it down! Why does it waste the soil?’
He cried aloud and said this: ‘Cut down the tree, and cut off its branches! Shake off its leaves and scatter its fruit! Let the animals get away from under it and the birds from its branches.
“‘When you come into the land, and have planted all kinds of trees for food, then you shall count their fruit as forbidden. For three years it shall be forbidden to you. It shall not be eaten.