31. “So I tell you, people can be forgiven for every sinful thing they do and for every bad thing they say against God. But anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
32. You can even speak against the Son of Man and be forgiven. But anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven—not now or in the future.
33. “If you want good fruit, you must make the tree good. If your tree is not good, it will have bad fruit. A tree is known by the kind of fruit it produces.
34. You snakes! You are so evil. How can you say anything good? What people say with their mouths comes from what fills their hearts.
35. Those who are good have good things saved in their hearts. That’s why they say good things. But those who are evil have hearts full of evil, and that’s why they say things that are evil.
36. I tell you that everyone will have to answer for all the careless things they have said. This will happen on the day of judgment.
37. Your words will be used to judge you. What you have said will show whether you are right or whether you are guilty.”
38. Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law answered Jesus. They said, “Teacher, we want to see you do a miracle as a sign from God.”
39. Jesus answered, “Evil and sinful people are the ones who want to see a miracle as a sign. But no miracle will be done to prove anything to them. The only sign will be the miracle that happened to the prophet Jonah.
40. Jonah was in the stomach of the big fish for three days and three nights. In the same way, the Son of Man will be in the grave three days and three nights.
41. On the judgment day, you people who live now will be compared with the people from Nineveh, and they will be witnesses who show how guilty you are. Why do I say this? Because when Jonah preached to those people, they changed their lives. And you are listening to someone greater than Jonah, but you refuse to change!
42. “On the judgment day, you people who live now will also be compared with the queen of the South, and she will be a witness who shows how guilty you are. I say this because she traveled from far, far away to listen to Solomon’s wise teaching. And I tell you that someone greater than Solomon is right here, but you won’t listen!
43. “When an evil spirit comes out of a person, it travels through dry places looking for a place to rest, but it finds none.