13. Not all people who are being regenerated reach this state. Some, indeed the majority nowadays, reach only the first. Some reach merely the second, others the third, fourth, or fifth. Seldom do any reach the sixth, and hardly anybody at all reaches the seventh.

We tend to think of "fruit" in two ways in natural language. One is as food that grows on trees and vines, sweet and delicious, and able to be eaten without harming the plant in any way. Another is as the things we produce, what our work yields for the betterment of the world. These are obviously connected: we are like trees, producing things that "feed" the world in some way, just as the tree produces fruit that feeds us. It makes sense, then, that the idea of fruit in the Bible is bound closely to the idea of goodness. Fruits that are eaten represent the desire for good and the energy to do what is good; fruit that is produced is the actual good that we go into the world and do.