Luke 13:1-12

¹About that time some men from Galilee country were killing some animals to give them to God, and the big boss, called Pilate, came with his soldiers and killed those men. Their blood mixed in with the blood of the animals they killed. Then some people went and told Jesus about those men.

²Jesus said, “Do you reckon those men did more bad things than all the other men from Galilee? Is that why God let Pilate kill them?

³No. That is not right. Listen, all of you mob do bad things. You have to stop doing bad things and turn to God. If you don’t turn to God, you will die, just like those men died.

⁴And you know about the high building in Jerusalem city, at the place called Siloam. It fell down on to 18 people, and killed them. Do you think those people did more bad things than the other people in Jerusalem, so God let them die like that?

⁵No. That is not right. Listen, all of you mob do bad things. You have to stop doing bad things and turn to God. If you don’t turn to God, you will die, just like those people died.”

⁶Then Jesus told them this picture story. He said, “A man had a garden with grape vines and fruit trees growing in it. One of those fruit trees was called a fig tree. That man often used to go to that garden, to see if there was any fruit on that tree, but he didn’t ever find any fruit.

⁷So he talked to his workman, that looked after the garden. He said, ‘Look, this is no good. I have come here for 3 years looking for fruit on this tree, but I never found any. So chop it down and get rid of it. We can’t let it go on like this. It is using up the ground and giving back nothing to us.’

⁸But his worker said, ‘Wait, Boss, give it one more chance. Leave it for another year, and I will look after it properly. I’ll dig around it and put some fertilizer stuff on it to help it grow,

⁹and it might get fruit on it next year. If it doesn’t, then we can chop it down.’”

¹⁰One Saturday Jesus was teaching people in a Jewish meeting house. Their Jewish law said that nobody can work on a Saturday. It was their rest day.

¹¹There was a woman there with bad spirit inside her. A long time before that, the bad spirit went into that woman and made her back crooked. That bad spirit lived in her for 18 years, and all that time her back was bent over. She couldn’t stand up straight.

¹²Jesus saw her in that meeting house and said to her, “Come here, lady. You are better now. You are free from that sickness.”