¹² Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh.

A Tree and Its Fruit

⁴³ “No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit;^{(A) 44} for each tree is known by its own fruit. For people do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a bramble bush.^(B)

A Tree and Its Fruit

³³ “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit.^(A)

¹⁶ You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns or figs from thistles?^{(A) 17} In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.^{(B) 20} Thus you will know them by their fruits.

¹⁶ If the part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; and if the root is holy, then the branches also are holy.

¹⁷ But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted among the others to share the rich root^[a] of the olive tree, ¹⁸ do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember: you do not support the root, but the root supports you.

⁸ He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah, and when it enters the sea, the sea of stagnant waters, the water will become fresh.^{(A) 9} Wherever the river goes,^[a] every living creature that swarms will live, and there will be very many fish once these waters reach there. It will become fresh, and everything will live where the river goes. ¹⁰ People will stand fishing beside the sea^[b] from En-gedi to En-eglaim; it will be a place for the spreading of nets; its fish will be of a great many kinds, like the fish of the Great Sea.^{(B) 11} But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh; they are to be left for salt.

Elisha Performs Miracles

¹⁹ Now the people of the city said to Elisha, “The location of this city is good, as my lord sees, but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.” ²⁰ He said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him. ²¹ Then he went to the spring of water and threw the salt into it and said, “Thus says the Lord: I have made this water wholesome; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.”^{(A) 22} So the water has been wholesome to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.