Study Desk

"If you make a tree good, its fruit will be good; and if you make a tree bad, its fruit will be bad; for a tree is known by its fruit.

You snakes! How can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what overflows from the heart.

Moreover, I tell you this: on the Day of Judgment people will have to give account for every careless word they have spoken;

for by your own words you will be acquitted, and by your own words you will be condemned."

He replied, "A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign? No! None will be given to it but the sign of the prophet Yonah.

For just as Yonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea-monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the depths of the earth.

The people of Ninveh will stand up at the Judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they turned from their sins to God when Yonah preached, but what is here now is greater than Yonah.

The Queen of the South will stand up at the Judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Shlomo, but what is here now is greater than Shlomo.

Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they come and live there — so that in the end, the person is worse off than he was before. This is how it will be for this wicked generation."

For anyone who has something will be given more, so that he will have plenty; but from anyone who has nothing, even what he does have will be taken away.

but has no root in himself. So he stays on for a while; but as soon as some trouble or persecution arises on account of the message, he immediately falls away.

Now the seed sown among thorns stands for someone who hears the message, but it is choked by the worries of the world and the deceitful glamor of wealth, so that it produces nothing.

the field is the world. As for the good seed, these are the people who belong to the Kingdom; and the weeds are the people who belong to the Evil One.

"Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for fine pearls.

He said to them, "So then, every Torah-teacher who has been made into a talmid for the Kingdom of Heaven is like the owner of a home who brings out of his storage room both new things and old."

For Herod had arrested Yochanan, put him in chains and thrown him in prison because of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip;

since Yochanan had told Herod, "It violates the Torah for you to have her as your wife."

The king became deeply upset; but out of regard for the oaths he had sworn before his dinner guests, he ordered that her wish be granted,

So when he came ashore, he saw a huge crowd; and, filled with compassion for them, he healed those of them who were sick.

As evening approached, the talmidim came to him and said, "This is a remote place and it's getting late. Send the crowds away, so that they can go and buy food for themselves in the villages."