Matthew 13:30

13:30 Let both grow together until the harvest. At¹ harvest time I will tell the reapers, “First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned, but then² gather³ the wheat into my barn.”’”

Matthew 13:40-43

13:40 As⁴ the weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 13:41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everything that causes sin as well as all lawbreakers.⁵ 13:42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace,⁶ where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 13:43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.⁷ The one who has ears had better listen!⁸

Matthew 3:12

3:12 His winnowing fork⁹ is in his hand, and he will clean out his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the storehouse,¹⁰ but the chaff he will burn up with inextinguishable fire.”¹¹

¹tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

²tn Grk “but.”

³tn Grk “burned, but gather.”

⁴tn Grk “Therefore as.” Here οὖν (oun) has not been translated.

⁵tn Grk “the ones who practice lawlessness.”

⁶sn A quotation from Dan 3:6.

⁷sn An allusion to Dan 12:3.

⁸tn The translation “had better listen!” captures the force of the third person imperative more effectively than the traditional “let him hear,” which sounds more like a permissive than an imperative to the modern English reader. This was Jesus’ common expression to listen and heed carefully (cf. Matt 11:15, 13:9; Mark 4:9, 23; Luke 8:8, 14:35).

⁹sn A winnowing fork was a pitchfork-like tool used to toss threshed grain in the air so that the wind blew away the chaff, leaving the grain to fall to the ground. The note of purging is highlighted by the use of imagery involving sifting though threshed grain for the useful kernels.

¹⁰tn Or “granary,” “barn” (referring to a building used to store a farm’s produce rather than a building to house livestock).

¹¹sn The image of fire that cannot be extinguished is from the OT: Job 20:26; Isa 34:8-10; 66:24.