Bible Strands
Matthew 7:17
Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses his listeners in the Sermon on the Mount, within a unit (7:15–20) warning against false prophets.
The words — The verse pairs ἀγαθόν (agathón, morally good) for the tree with καλοὺς (kalous, fine, excellent) for the fruit, suggesting the output is not merely adequate but distinguished.
The thread — The same tree-and-fruit logic appears in Matthew 12:33, and the positive fruit list is specified in Galatians 5:22 and Ephesians 5:9.
Why it lands — It closes the gap between claim and evidence: a person's nature is not an abstraction but is verified by what they consistently produce.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
Cross-references
- Matthew 12:33 Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruit.
- Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
- Ephesians 5:9 for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.
- Psalms 1:3 He is like a tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season, whose leaf does not wither, and who prospers in all he does.
- Psalms 92:13 Planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God.
- Colossians 1:10 so that you may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,
- Jeremiah 17:8 He is like a tree planted by the waters that sends out its roots toward the stream. It does not fear when the heat comes, and its leaves are always green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor does it cease to produce fruit.
- Luke 13:6 Then Jesus told this parable: “A man had a fig tree that was planted in his vineyard. He went to look for fruit on it but did not find any.
- James 3:17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peace-loving, gentle, accommodating, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere.
- Jeremiah 11:19 For I was like a gentle lamb led to slaughter; I did not know that they had plotted against me: “Let us destroy the tree with its fruit; let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be remembered no more.”